[Zope] Structured text is inconvenient esp. w BackTalk
Fernando Martins
fmartins@hetnet.nl
Wed, 26 Feb 2003 22:49:25 +0100
The latest Mozilla includes a rich text editor you might want to have a look
at.
Regards,
Fernando
> -----Original Message-----
> From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Asad
> Quraishi
> Sent: quarta-feira, 26 de Fevereiro de 2003 22:00
> To: Luciano Ramalho
> Cc: Chris McDonough; zope@zope.org; Stephen Brown
> Subject: Re: [Zope] Structured text is inconvenient esp. w BackTalk
>
>
> I agree with your analysis on STX, programmers, and end-users. I am
> looking for an editing solution that is user-friendly for non-technical
> users.
>
> Does the IE WYSIWYG editor produce STX? Is it producing HTML and
> delivering via WEBDAV? I'd love to know which editor your are using,
> why & how you are using it.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Luciano Ramalho wrote:
>
> > I've found out through experience that most non-programmers find it
> > very dificult to understand and use Structured Text.
> >
> > Grokking STX requires thinking about computerized text in a way that
> > makes no sense to most users, although it is very natural for
> > programmers. Structuring by indentation, the relevance of whitespace
> > and many other STX rules are only "intuitive" for us. Also, to be
> > productive in STX you must use a programmer's editor, and they don't
> > behave like user's expect. Word and Notepad simply don't work for STX
> > editing (auto-indent is missing, for one thing).
> >
> > After a few failed attempts, we gave up trying to push STX as a
> > solution to non-techies. We now use a WYSIWIG editor which
> > unfortunately is only IE 5.5/6.0 compatible (this is not a real
> > problem for our intranet clients, who already have standardized
> > around IE).
> >
> > We are actively looking for a Mozilla compatible WYSIWYG editor.
> >
> > As a final note, I'd like to say that personally I like very much the
> > idea of STX and think the current implementation is very useful and
> > useable. But I am not a typical end-user at all: believe it or not, I
> > am one of the people who invented the "ASCII Ribbon" campaign against
> > the use of HTML in e-mails...
> >
> > ---------
> > /"\
> > \ / Campanha da Fita ASCII - Diga NAO ao HTML em emails
> > X ASCII Ribbon Campaign - Say NO to HTML in email
> > / \
> > ---------
> >
> > Luciano
> >
> >
> > On quarta-feira, fev 26, 2003, at 16:54 America/Sao_Paulo, Asad
> > Quraishi wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks Chris,
> >>
> >> The reason I am trying to use OO vs. something like emacs is that as
> >> we propose the use of Zope/Plone to our clients we want to offer
> >> them a solution which they will understand in the context of a world
> >> of word processors. It is difficult for someone to convert their
> >> word processor-based training manuals, for example, into a BackTalk
> >> book based on how structured text works. I don't mind emacs but
> >> clients won't feel quite as comfortable.
> >>
> >> Any thoughts on this?
> >>
> >> Chris McDonough wrote:
> >>
> >>> Structured text has some well-known idiosyncrasies. One of these is
> >>> that a body paragraph is defined as a block of lines followed by a
> >>> carriage return where each line is indented to the same number of
> >>> characters. Another is that a "heading" is defined as a single
> >>> line of
> >>> text followed by a carriage return and a further-indented block of
> >>> text. Your examples show that you've created something that you think
> >>> is a body paragraph, although structured text rules consider it a
> >>> heading because it has no line breaks. Structured text has these
> >>> idiosyncrasies because one of its tenets is that its source should
> >>> be as
> >>> "human-readable" as its rendering.
> >>>
> >>> For an example of "correct" structured text formatting, see
> >>> http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/
> >>> ScriptingZope.stx/document_src (and its rendering at
> >>> http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/
> >>> ScriptingZope.stx).
> >>>
> >>> You're not doing anything wrong, really, but BackTalk does make the
> >>> assumption that you are willing to author your content in structured
> >>> text (this is mentioned prominently in the docs). If you step outside
> >>> the bounds of structured text, your formatting will suffer, as you've
> >>> found out. I'd suggest using an indent-aware text editor instead of
> >>> OpenOffice. I use emacs in "indented-text-mode" via External
> >>> Editor. BackTalk can also create PDFs, so if you're comfortable
> >>> with editing
> >>> like this, you can deliver PDFs to your customer instead of .doc
> >>> files. On the other hand, if structured text is hamstringing you,
> >>> you might
> >>> want to consider using something other than BackTalk, because it's
> >>> nontrivial to teach it to use an input format different than
> >>> structured
> >>> text.
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 10:49, Asad Quraishi wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Here's the application:
> >>>>
> >>>> We have Zope and Plone installed and working for some months. We
> >>>> also installed BackTalk and CMFBackTalk in order to publish docs
> >>>> with inline comments in Plone. Works but there must be a better
> >>>> way. Let me explain:
> >>>>
> >>>> We create our documents in OpenOffice (OO) and then cut and paste
> >>>> them into stx docs. This works fine. However to use stx you have
> >>>> to indent each heading/content level. I can do this in a
> >>>> paragraph indent scenario like this with a BackTalk comment example:
> >>>> --------
> >>>> This is a Heading
> >>>>
> >>>> This paragraph has the first line indented but all of the other
> >>>> lines will wrap
> >>>> over to start flush with the margine. This is how it should work
> >>>> so that I can
> >>>> cut my content after commenting and paste in back in my OO doc.
> >>>> It also
> >>>> turns 'This is a Heading' into a heading. I can continue with
> >>>> first line indents in
> >>>> order to generate different heading levels.<p>
> >>>>
> >>>> % this is a comment
> >>>> --------
> >>>>
> >>>> When I do this, first of all I don't get a comment icon unless I
> >>>> break the rules (i.e. no inline html) and enter a <p> at the end
> >>>> of the paragraph where I want it. However this creates another
> >>>> problem. Once the comment is entered, since it is indented it
> >>>> makes the paragraph above it a heading. It also removes the
> >>>> comment icon once a comment is entered.
> >>>>
> >>>> However if I do this:
> >>>> ------------
> >>>> This is a Heading
> >>>>
> >>>> The paragraph following is created by indenting the entire
> >>>> paragraph / and
> >>>> having to enter CR's at the end of each line. Boy this makes
> >>>> it a pain to
> >>>> enter the text into word processor afterwards.
> >>>>
> >>>> % the comment is indented again but doesn't turn the above
> >>>> paragraph
> >>>> into a heading
> >>>> -----------
> >>>>
> >>>> This works. The paragraph above the comment doesn't become a
> >>>> heading and the comment icon remains meaning I can enter as many
> >>>> comments for one paragraph as I like. This really sucks when I
> >>>> want to paste it back into OO.
> >>>>
> >>>> What am I doing wrong? Is our process wrong? i.e. "create doc in
> >>>> OO -> copy to stx -> comment with BackTalk --> copy back to OO for
> >>>> formatting and delivery to client as .doc"
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks.
> >>>>
> >>>> - Asad
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
>
>
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