@Ian I agree with you that the links that are used as a reference to the flash video for Moinmoin do not allow the viewer access to an in-place experience, and this motivated a proof of concept in svg. I know you are busy, but I have moved the svg to the top of the page where it should be easily seen as a square with a flashing red dot. Clicking the dot starts the animation.
http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/plus/Animations If you don't see this, let me know and I'll put the page back to the way it was. I am on a Mac as well, so I don't think that is the issue, but knowing the browser you are using would be useful. If it turns out to be a hit and miss thing for people then I do think that it would be more of a distraction than a benefit. I completely agree with you in terms of the amount of effort in creating the animations compared to return in learning. Short of having an animation team to provide the critical mass of content that would be needed to change the way the viewer uses the site, I think the best solution is to only use animation when it truly saves the 'thousand words'. I still offer that to you (or others) when if would be useful. Once again, great work on the Nuvoc. Cheers, bob On Jan 23, 2014, at 4:56 AM, Ian Clark <earthspo...@gmail.com> wrote: > @Bob > > Yes I thought the animations were appealing when they first appeared. No > feedback yet on whether they actually help people? -- I'll have to rely on > you and others to collect that info from genuine novices. > > Sorry - your sample page doesn't work on my Mac. What I noticed recently > was that wherever an animation was embedded in the page, this message now > comes up instead of the picture (I've tried it on Safari and Firefox): > > Current configuration does not allow embedding of the file > http://www.youtube.com/v/8CWEDGY3sSM because of its mimetype > application/x-shockwave-flash.: http://www.youtube.com/v/8CWEDGY3sSM > > The above link does work (on the page) though. But then, if only a few > people are ever going to see the animation as intended, why not just offer > the bare link? Moinmoin is after all a very starved palette when it comes > to deploying fancy gui controls -- and I don't think that's such a bad > thing. > > <http://www.youtube.com/v/8CWEDGY3sSM> > I don't know whether the graceful degradation message happens for > everybody, or just me. Obviously it doesn't happen for you, else you > wouldn't release the example. But it does want to make me keep to lo-tech > solutions for a generally-available help facility. That applies to tooltips > too. If the growth-point of J is hand-helds and Raspberry Pi, then what > hope of showing these animations dependably on Midori or any such midget > browser? Moreover somebody publishing a jwiki page will be expected to > debug it -- and animations increase the debugging burden. > > Sorry to be so discouraging when you've put such effort into producing such > attractive animations. But considering all the work they entail, and the > fact not everyone can see them, one has to wonder about return-on-effort. > (Just my opinion... I don't see the big picture, figuratively speaking) > > IanClark > > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 5:57 PM, robert therriault > <bobtherria...@mac.com>wrote: > >> First off, >> >> Ian you've have done fantastic work on this. Road building is vital to >> development - and your roads are safe, well marked and take us to the >> places we want to discover. Well done. >> >> Second, I agree with Paul about hiding things until people are interested. >> When I have decided that I want more information on a particular part of >> speech, I will click on the link to find out about it. Putting the rank >> information on the individual pages also opens up opportunities for showing >> how the ranks can be a little more involved for some parts of speech e.g. >> the Cut conjunction (rank: _ 1/2 _). I think I would be inclined to >> follow the lead of the original vocabulary and put the ranks on the >> information pages of the individual parts of speech and leave them off the >> front page. >> >> Also, when you mentioned keeping you up to date on additions, I did >> recently build an svg animation that the wiki will display in place. They >> take a while to do, so I am not promising to match your prodigious NuVoc >> output, but if there are particular areas that would benefit from visuals, >> I could work those 'hotspots' for you. You can see it here at the bottom of >> the page. (Click on the red dot) >> http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Vocabulary/plus/Animations This works for >> Safari and Chrome browsers, untested on others. >> >> Cheers, bob >> >> On Jan 22, 2014, at 9:09 AM, Paul Jackson <plj...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> I like the idea of hiding things until people are interested. I'll add >>> that I'm used to the link being on the reason, not the command. >>> See this page <http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NuVoc> *hiding* details >> of >>> verb ranks — >>> ----------------------------------- >>> See bottom of this >>> page<http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NuVocWithRank#bottomrefs> for >>> commentary articles >>> ------------------------- >>> >>> Paul >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 5:43 AM, Ian Clark <earthspo...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> >>>> Re Rank Information on Nuvoc portal page: I've implemented something >> which >>>> I hope fits the bill for now, until someone can come up with a >> technically >>>> satisfying alternative. >>>> >>>> Initially the Nuvoc page comes up as-is, but a prominent link lets you >> see >>>> an alternative page with ranks shown for every relevant primitive: >>>> "See this page <http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/NuVocWithRank> with >> details >>>> of verb ranks" >>>> ...No it's not beautiful, but no one is forced to look at it. >>>> >>>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
