On 13 May 2009, at 06:51, Jason Grout wrote: > Kevin Horton wrote: >> >> The baffling part is why you don't get this editor when you click the >> Edit button in a notebook worksheet. As it sits now, with no obvious >> visual clue that this editor even exists, most users would never >> discover its existence. Are there any plans to change that? > > Good point. What do you suggest? > > The html editor is mentioned (several times?) in the Help page.
I had actually tried "Shift click between cells to create a new HTML cell" as described in the Help page, but it didn't work so I assumed it was broken. The current help text only works if you already know what it means. This should be much more descriptive, like "To create a new HTML cell, shift click on the blue line that appears when the mouse is just above an input cell". Random ideas to make things easier and/or more obvious for new users: 1. Why do we need to click on this phantom blue line that is only there when the mouse is in just the right place? Why not have the whole area between output and input cells active to add HTML, or to insert new cells? What is the advantage of the current design? 2. If there are definite advantages to hiding some functionality unless you do exactly the right thing, maybe there should be a "New User" mode where much more functionality is clearly visible. The "New User" mode would be the default, but there would be a setting available from the "Settings" link to switch accounts to "Power User" mode, which would work as the current interface does. For example, in New User mode, instead of using this hidden, unlabeled, blue bar to do magic things, there could be two buttons between output and input cells, always visible, labeled "New Cell" and "Add/Edit HTML Text". 3. The notebook interface should have much more coverage in the Tutorial and the Reference docs. > My > thoughts up to this point were that the Edit button is mainly for > being > able to edit and copy the worksheet as a text file, so putting the > editor in the Edit page is probably not appropriate. What do you > think? > How do you suggest we make the editor a more visible part of Sage to > the new user? What if we mirrored the approach taken my MoinMoin? In MoinMoin, there are two types of editors - a plain text editor and a GUI editor. The plain text editor is analogous to the notebook editor that is seen if you click the notebook Edit button. The GUI editor is analogous to Jason's HTML editor. In MoinMoin, there is a user preference for the default editor - either text or GUI. And, if you click Edit in MoinMoin, you have a control at the top of the editor window that allows to switch between text and GUI editors. Copying the MoinMoin interface here has several advantages: 1. It exposes the presence of the HTML editor without adding any more visible controls to basic notebook window. The HTML notebook editor should be the default for new user accounts. Power users can switch to text editor if they wish. 2. It provides a consistent user interface between the sage notebook and MoinMoin, which is included with sage. 3. It allows a proven interface design to be slavishly copied, rather than having to reinvent the wheel. > What about changing the new cell (blue) bar so that it had two links, > one that said "New computation" and another link that said "New text"? This would help. As it is, the blue bar is not obvious, unless you know to look for it. And once you see it, its purpose is mysterious unless you have been told about it, or have read and understood the info at the Help page. -- Kevin Horton Ottawa, Canada --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
