Hi all,
Just to clarify a few things: I have started work on the new graphical
editor (as opposed to the text editor that you call XML editor even
though it is not XML), although I have mostly been busy defining the new
XML language and writing a conversion (the language will evolve a little
bit, by becoming real XML, with some elements removed, and some
structural changes).
Some important points about the new editor:
- the text editor will not be removed, it will be improved (hopefully
based on what Stefan demoed at the conference)
- the colorful editor will probably be removed, because keeping it even
as an easter egg would require a lot of changes (because of the
evolution of the language and because of other changes in LON-CAPA)
- the new graphical editor will not require constant save&edit, changes
in the document structure will be immediate and saving the document will
be independant.
- as the colorful editor, it will help create better markup (even
cleaner, hopefully), and will provide lots of contextual help (even more)
- it will be more WYSIWYG, especially with HTML. But we are still
wondering how we could do better than WYSIWYG HTML + LON-CAPA elements
with boxes as in the colorful editor. If you have any idea on that...
- the main goal is to make it easier for new users to start creating
resources in LON-CAPA
- I could say more but I should probably not at this point, because we
are curious to see what you would really like.
Several people are going back and forth between the colorful editor and
the text editor: what would make you stay in the graphical editor ?
Some people find even the colorful editor hard to learn. Some are even
scared by the boxes (I heard a "this looks like a database" comment
once). What could we do about it ?
For example the colors, borders, separation and layout chosen for outlining
certain blocks or options might not be distinctive enough.
(<part></part> comes to mind.)
The borders are currently very visible in the colorful editor. Do you
mean that we should add some blinking :-) or that some borders should be
*less* visible, so that the important ones stand out ?
The text there perhaps could provide more guidance -- if I'm using the
colorful editor, I don't need to know that I'm adding a "Block for After
Solved" -- I need, perhaps under the Advanced tab, an option to add
messages before the problem has been attempted, when it's been attempted
but wrong, when it's been answered correctly, any time before the due date
and after the due date. Maybe that's all grouped in a Messages category
where I click a checkbox for which type of message or messages I want to
add, a text box appears beneath, and I type in my message for each type
I'm adding. Things like that I think would make it more user-friendly for
those who want that type of interface.
But the block specifies where these message will appear: if we don't
insert something in the document, how would we specify where it should
appear ? Or is that position unimportant ?
Damien
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