Re: Leo settings revamp (was Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users))

2014-06-10 Thread Edward K. Ream
On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 12:20 PM, 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:

 E.g. from the Settings menu:

 Settings - Appearance - Fonts

 would open myLeoSettings.leo at the appropriate place (copying nodes in
 from LeoSettings.leo if needed), so the user would be looking at a node
 with the following children:

 @string body-text-font = Courier New
 @string log-text-font = Courier New
 @int body-text-font-size = 17px
 @int log-text-font-size = 12px

 etc. - something along those lines.  The pick-font button I just
 added is just a convenience so the user can find font names on their
 system easily.

 The body of the node with those children would have some simple
 instructions, probably Click the reload-styles button after making
 changes here.

 Once the infrastructure's set up we should be able to build out the
 Settings menu entries quite quickly.  By infrastructure I mean the
 Settings - Appearance - Fonts entry knowing which node to copy from
 LeoSettings to myLeoSettings, if it's not already copied, where the
 stylesheet needs to be, etc. etc.

A clever idea.  However, I don't understand how this would work.  Are
the copied nodes actually cross-file clones?

That is, suppose you present these nodes to the user, and they make
changes to the nodes.  How are the nodes in the various files updated?

And where do the copied nodes appear?  In a separate, newly created
outline?  In a leoSettings.leo?

Edward

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Re: Leo settings revamp (was Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users))

2014-06-10 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Tue, 10 Jun 2014 06:33:48 -0500
Edward K. Ream edream...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 12:20 PM, 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
 leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:
 
  E.g. from the Settings menu:
 
  Settings - Appearance - Fonts
 
  would open myLeoSettings.leo at the appropriate place (copying
  nodes in from LeoSettings.leo if needed), so the user would be
  looking at a node with the following children:
 
  @string body-text-font = Courier New
  @string log-text-font = Courier New
  @int body-text-font-size = 17px
  @int log-text-font-size = 12px
 
  etc. - something along those lines.  The pick-font button I just
  added is just a convenience so the user can find font names on their
  system easily.
 
  The body of the node with those children would have some simple
  instructions, probably Click the reload-styles button after making
  changes here.
 
  Once the infrastructure's set up we should be able to build out the
  Settings menu entries quite quickly.  By infrastructure I mean the
  Settings - Appearance - Fonts entry knowing which node to copy
  from LeoSettings to myLeoSettings, if it's not already copied,
  where the stylesheet needs to be, etc. etc.
 
 A clever idea.  However, I don't understand how this would work.  Are
 the copied nodes actually cross-file clones?

No, just a one time copy on demand from leoSettings.leo to
myLeoSettings.leo.  Currently Settings - Personal settings creates
myLeoSettings.leo if it doesn't exist, copying @enabledplugins from
leoSettings.leo and creating a stub @keys - @shortcuts node.

So we could add an ID of some sort to nodes in leoSettings.leo, so they
could be used by a data structure like this:

[
(Appearance, [
(Fonts, FONT_SETTINGS),
(Colors, COLOR_SETTINGS),
(Active frame, ACTIVE_FRAME),
]),
(Layout, [
(Tabs, TAB_SETTINGS),
(Width, WIDTH_SETTINGS),
]),
(Abbreviations, [
etc. etc.
]),
]

I.e. a list of tuples making up menu and sub-menu items under the
Settings Menu:

Appearance
   Fonts
   Colors
   Active frame
Layout
   Tabs
   Width
etc.

which, when selected, search myLeoSettings.leo for the relevant entry
and, if it's not there already, copy it over from leoSettings.leo.

So the actual settings mechanism is exactly as it is now, it's just
easier to navigate and more automated in the only what you need
leoSettings.leo to myLeoSettings.leo copying.

It's the simplest thing that could possibly work(TM) :-)

The ID could be handled any number of ways, gnx, UNL, uA, but I'm
inclined to just use text at the bottom of the organizer nodes, which
would be used to present instructions for preference editing.  E.g.
(using '|' to indicate body text lines, all other lines are node
headlines):

  Font settings
  | After you've changed the font settings below, click the
  | reload-styles button to update the appearance of Leo.
  | You can use the pick-font button to find font names on
  | your system.
  |
  | SETTINGS_NODE: FONT_SETTINGS
  @string body-text-font = Courier New
  @string log-text-font = Courier New
  @int body-text-font-size = 17px
  @int log-text-font-size = 12px

Cheers -Terry

 That is, suppose you present these nodes to the user, and they make
 changes to the nodes.  How are the nodes in the various files
 updated?
 
 And where do the copied nodes appear?  In a separate, newly created
 outline?  In a leoSettings.leo?
 
 Edward
 

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Re: Leo settings revamp (was Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users))

2014-06-10 Thread Edward K. Ream
On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 8:30 AM, 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:

 A clever idea.  However, I don't understand how this would work.  Are
 the copied nodes actually cross-file clones?

 No, just a one time copy on demand from leoSettings.leo to
 myLeoSettings.leo.

Oh!  Delightfully simple and clever!  Great idea.

 So we could add an ID of some sort to nodes in leoSettings.leo, so they
 could be used by a data structure like this: [snip]

I agree: it's the simplest thing that could possible work.  Well done.

Edward

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-06-09 Thread Todd Mars


There is no reason why the settings cannot be made user friendly, other 
than the work involved.
Simply enumerating the specific problems from the beginning, and designing 
a friendly user interface to perform the tasks.
When that is done, a good programmer can do it.
Todd.

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-06-09 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Mon, 9 Jun 2014 06:31:03 -0700 (PDT)
Todd Mars tamn...@gmail.com wrote:

 
 
 There is no reason why the settings cannot be made user friendly,
 other than the work involved.
 Simply enumerating the specific problems from the beginning, and
 designing a friendly user interface to perform the tasks.
 When that is done, a good programmer can do it.

Bear in mind that that are ~1100 nodes in the Leo @settings tree.  So
at least ~1000 settings that can be set, some of which have complex
values.  If Leo's settings are going to be handled in a Leonine way,
it's a matter of making the use of Leo to manage common settings user
friendly enough that it's no barrier to newbies.  So a hierarchical
Settings menu which lands you in the right place, and a @settings
editing environment documented and tuned for easy editing (color, font,
file, and directory selection tools for example).

But you're right, ultimately it's just a matter of finding time.

Cheers -Terry

 Todd.
 

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-06-09 Thread Kent Tenney
Along these lines, I recall discussion of a possible clean-up
of key bindings, a number of out-of-the-box bindings being
somewhat obscure, and limiting availability for user-defined
ones.
I don't, however, recall the conclusion of the discussion.

Thanks,
Kent

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 10:42 AM, 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:
 On Mon, 9 Jun 2014 06:31:03 -0700 (PDT)
 Todd Mars tamn...@gmail.com wrote:



 There is no reason why the settings cannot be made user friendly,
 other than the work involved.
 Simply enumerating the specific problems from the beginning, and
 designing a friendly user interface to perform the tasks.
 When that is done, a good programmer can do it.

 Bear in mind that that are ~1100 nodes in the Leo @settings tree.  So
 at least ~1000 settings that can be set, some of which have complex
 values.  If Leo's settings are going to be handled in a Leonine way,
 it's a matter of making the use of Leo to manage common settings user
 friendly enough that it's no barrier to newbies.  So a hierarchical
 Settings menu which lands you in the right place, and a @settings
 editing environment documented and tuned for easy editing (color, font,
 file, and directory selection tools for example).

 But you're right, ultimately it's just a matter of finding time.

 Cheers -Terry

 Todd.


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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-06-09 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Mon, 9 Jun 2014 10:42:36 -0500
'Terry Brown' via leo-editor leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:

 But you're right, ultimately it's just a matter of finding time.

Baby steps, I just added color and font selection tools to LeoSettings,
with the intent they be automatically copied into myLeoSettings when
the latter's created (as is already the case for @enabledplugins).

Unfortunately I also added a DateTime picker tool, and testing that
reminded me I'm out of time for now :-}

Cheers -Terry

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-06-09 Thread dufriz
As an alternative to a restructuring of the settings, I propose a 
menu-based simplified access to the settings, which will let the user 
zoom-in to the relevant part of the settings file. The  most commonly used 
settings (font color and size, background color, etc.) would have an 
entry in the menu, and upon clicking on an entry you would be able to edit 
that part directly.

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Leo settings revamp (was Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users))

2014-06-09 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Mon, 9 Jun 2014 10:06:09 -0700 (PDT)
duf...@gmail.com wrote:

 As an alternative to a restructuring of the settings, I propose a 
 menu-based simplified access to the settings, which will let the user 
 zoom-in to the relevant part of the settings file. The  most commonly
 used settings (font color and size, background color, etc.) would
 have an entry in the menu, and upon clicking on an entry you would be
 able to edit that part directly.

That is the current plan :-)

E.g. from the Settings menu:

Settings - Appearance - Fonts

would open myLeoSettings.leo at the appropriate place (copying nodes in
from LeoSettings.leo if needed), so the user would be looking at a node
with the following children:

@string body-text-font = Courier New
@string log-text-font = Courier New
@int body-text-font-size = 17px
@int log-text-font-size = 12px

etc. - something along those lines.  The pick-font button I just
added is just a convenience so the user can find font names on their
system easily.

The body of the node with those children would have some simple
instructions, probably Click the reload-styles button after making
changes here.

Once the infrastructure's set up we should be able to build out the
Settings menu entries quite quickly.  By infrastructure I mean the
Settings - Appearance - Fonts entry knowing which node to copy from
LeoSettings to myLeoSettings, if it's not already copied, where the
stylesheet needs to be, etc. etc.

Cheers -Terry

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Re: Leo settings revamp (was Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users))

2014-06-09 Thread dufriz
I am so glad all this is happening, at last!

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Re: Leo settings revamp (was Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users))

2014-06-09 Thread Fidel N
Im also very grateful.
This has been my main concern about newbies eversince I joined Leo. 
Everyone is used to edit the basic config from a menu-like structure, only 
programmers can directly do that from an outline :)

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-15 Thread dufriz


 Perhaps my reply was unclear. I was attempting to say why, for now at 
 least, 
 I personally am not interested in working on Leo.  This may change in 
 the future, especially as my health improves.  Or not. 

 Edward 


I see. All the more reason for wishing you a speedy recovery, then!

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-15 Thread wgw
Not wanting to stoke the flames of debate nor the paralysis of despair 
(human reactions to the daily news), I do want to suggest that however dark 
things are, in the US in particular --i.e. somewhere between the McCarthy 
era and the rise of the Nazis in Germany --, there are still reasons to 
work on GOOD THINGS (*™*) without abandoning the work against the BAD 
THINGS (®). Leo certainly falls into the former category, and there are 
movements to do the latter: I particularly appreciate Lessig's Google 
presentation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc) and TED talk 
(http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim)
 . 
He makes a convincing case that money pollution is the most fundamentally 
destructive pollution we are facing today. His RootStrikers movement is one 
answer among a growing number of responses. My rambling point is that it 
 there is good reason to put time into GOOD THINGS (small or not) as a 
break from the muck and a reminder of what good things are about. Open 
source software does that for me. 

Thanks Edward for the references (I will give the Follet book to my son; 
his generation will have to face something on the scale of WWII, but in a 
very different form.) It is a hopeful sign that there are so many lucid 
presentations of our plight, however dire (to name one: Last Call at the 
Oasis). 

Bill 

Le mercredi 14 mai 2014 12:14:16 UTC-7, Edward K. Ream a écrit :

 On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:15 PM,  duf...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: 
  I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed that in 
 the 
  last few months there have been significant improvements to Leo, in the 
  hopes of making it more accessible to the non-technical crowd. 

 Leo seems insignificant at present.  I have little interest in whether 
 Leo is accessible to non-technical people. Learn Leo or not--it's 
 your choice.  I also have scant interest in Leo vs. Emacs or Vim. 

 Consider what's happening today, including one-dollar-one-vote 
 democracy [0], neutered, impotent and obsolete U.S. corporate media 
 [1] , out-of-control military [2] and surveillance [3] establishments, 
 worldwide inaction on CO2 emissions [4] and an ongoing human-caused 
 mass extinction rivaling the previous big 5 mass extinctions [5], 
 all enabled by 24/7 corporate-funded right-wing propaganda [6] and 
 [7]. 

 Two novels emphasize the need for courage in the present 
 circumstances:  A Tale for the Time Being [8] and The Winter of the 
 World [9].  I recommend either or both for those who think the issues 
 listed above are no concern of ordinary people. 

 If there is one area where I might still make a difference in the 
 computing world, it might be high-speed analysis of types for Python. 
 Lest you think this is a minor business, it is a fact that any useful 
 analysis of computer programs (for example, any kind of refactoring) 
 requires robust knowledge of types. 

 Edward 

 [0] 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCutcheon_v._Federal_Election_Commission#Subsequent_commentary
  
 [1] 
 http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/14/glenn_greenwald_us_corporate_media_is 
 [2] http://www.pogo.org/our-work/straus-military-reform-project/ 
 [3] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/ 
 [4] http://www.motherjones.com/category/primary-tags/climate-desk 
 [5] 
 http://www.amazon.com/Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History-ebook/dp/B00EGJE4G2/ 
 [6] 
 http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545
  
 [7] http://www.desmogblog.com/ 
 [8] http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Time-Being-Ruth-Ozeki-ebook/dp/B008EKMB82 
 [9] 
 http://www.amazon.com/Winter-World-Century-Trilogy-2-ebook/dp/B007FEFLTO 

 EKR 


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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-15 Thread Edward K. Ream
On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 1:16 PM, wgw wgwin...@gmail.com wrote:

 there are still reasons to work on GOOD THINGS (™) without abandoning the 
 work against the BAD THINGS (®).

I agree completely.

 I particularly appreciate Lessig's Google presentation
 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik1AK56FtVc) and TED talk
 (http://www.ted.com/talks
/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim)

Thanks for these links.  I'm watching the first talk now.  It's great stuff.

I'm finding Leo hard to work on precisely because I find politics so
interesting and important.  Not pretty, just important.

 . He makes a convincing case that money pollution is the most fundamentally
 destructive pollution we are facing today.

Again, I agree completely.  That's why I cited McCutcheon v. Federal
Election Commission.  Whether grass roots campaigns, regardless of
their targets, can ever compete with full-time well-funded propaganda
(not to mention almost-full-time dialing for dollars) remains to be
seen.  I am not hopeful.

Edward

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-15 Thread Edward K. Ream
On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 1:57 PM, Edward K. Ream edream...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm convinced by Lawrence Lessig: we urgently need small-dollar funded
campaigns.  Googling small dollar elections will send you to various
relevant bills and organizations.

Edward

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-14 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Wed, 14 May 2014 08:58:33 +0300
Ville M. Vainio vivai...@gmail.com wrote:

 Git is sometimes used to maintain e.g. design assets and
 documentation.
 
 I guess non-technical people will learn to use git when it's
 mandatory part of their work.

:-)  My interest / surprise is that software-carpentry.org teaches git
as one of their core skills, in fact their bootcamp recipe is to
install gitbash for windows both for git and bash (sed / tr / sort /
wc / etc. etc. I assume).

Some students here might get to that this summer, but I'm curious about
getting it going locally, dreaming of a time when no one sends me Excel
spreadsheets with a note the selected ones are colored red :-)

Cheers -Terry

 On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 5:52 PM, 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor 
 leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:
 
  On Fri, 9 May 2014 20:13:17 -0700 (PDT)
  Richard Cranium completea55h...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   Like all the non-technical people that managed to learn git?
 
  I don't quite understand your comment, and I'm considering trying to
  teach non-technical people git, so I'm curious.  Is there a context
  where you see a lot of non-technical people using git?  Via
  git-hub, or some other UI?  Or is it not as hard as it seems if
  it's explained right?
 
  Thanks, Terry
 
   On Saturday, May 3, 2014 10:15:17 PM UTC-5, duf...@gmail.com
   wrote:
   
I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed
that in the last few months there have been significant
improvements to Leo, in the hopes of making it more accessible
to the non-technical crowd. It was certainly a move in the
right direction but, alas, I think it was not enough. The point
of my argument is that Leo is still too technically-oriented,
and this alienates so many potential users. You just have to
read the posts on this newsgroup (as I have been doing for a
long time), to realize that people with little or no
programming experience are bound to find major difficulties in
using Leo, from the very beginning. Just trying to configure
the simplest (UI-related) settings is a major challenge. This
issue was already raised in the past, but is yet to be solved.
   
Why can't we (non-technical people) be relieved with having to
tinker with the internal workings of Leo? Come to think of it,
the overwhelming majority of modern programs are totally
GUI-based, so that the settings can be easily changed via
menus. Why can't we have this in Leo too, instead of having to
learn technical jargon and manually modify settings files? I
really don't get it.
   
Please, consider doing something radical about it (e.g.
refurbishing the default menus with all the main commands and
settings, at least), or realistically Leo might be bound for
extinction.
   
All the best,
   
Duf
   
  
 
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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-14 Thread Edward K. Ream
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 10:15 PM,  duf...@gmail.com wrote:
 I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed that in the
 last few months there have been significant improvements to Leo, in the
 hopes of making it more accessible to the non-technical crowd.

Leo seems insignificant at present.  I have little interest in whether
Leo is accessible to non-technical people. Learn Leo or not--it's
your choice.  I also have scant interest in Leo vs. Emacs or Vim.

Consider what's happening today, including one-dollar-one-vote
democracy [0], neutered, impotent and obsolete U.S. corporate media
[1] , out-of-control military [2] and surveillance [3] establishments,
worldwide inaction on CO2 emissions [4] and an ongoing human-caused
mass extinction rivaling the previous big 5 mass extinctions [5],
all enabled by 24/7 corporate-funded right-wing propaganda [6] and
[7].

Two novels emphasize the need for courage in the present
circumstances:  A Tale for the Time Being [8] and The Winter of the
World [9].  I recommend either or both for those who think the issues
listed above are no concern of ordinary people.

If there is one area where I might still make a difference in the
computing world, it might be high-speed analysis of types for Python.
Lest you think this is a minor business, it is a fact that any useful
analysis of computer programs (for example, any kind of refactoring)
requires robust knowledge of types.

Edward

[0] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCutcheon_v._Federal_Election_Commission#Subsequent_commentary
[1] http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/14/glenn_greenwald_us_corporate_media_is
[2] http://www.pogo.org/our-work/straus-military-reform-project/
[3] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/
[4] http://www.motherjones.com/category/primary-tags/climate-desk
[5] 
http://www.amazon.com/Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History-ebook/dp/B00EGJE4G2/
[6] 
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545
[7] http://www.desmogblog.com/
[8] http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Time-Being-Ruth-Ozeki-ebook/dp/B008EKMB82
[9] http://www.amazon.com/Winter-World-Century-Trilogy-2-ebook/dp/B007FEFLTO

EKR

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-14 Thread dufriz
Edward, I am a bit baffled by your answer. 
Is asking for more user friendliness something incompatible with Leo's 
philosophy?


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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-14 Thread Edward K. Ream
On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 5:02 PM,  duf...@gmail.com wrote:
 Edward, I am a bit baffled by your answer.
 Is asking for more user friendliness something incompatible with Leo's
 philosophy?

Not at all.

Perhaps my reply was unclear. I was attempting to say why, for now at least,
I personally am not interested in working on Leo.  This may change in
the future, especially as my health improves.  Or not.

Edward
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Speak the truth, but not to punish--Thich Nhat Hanh
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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-13 Thread Ville M. Vainio
Git is sometimes used to maintain e.g. design assets and documentation.

I guess non-technical people will learn to use git when it's mandatory part
of their work.


On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 5:52 PM, 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor 
leo-editor@googlegroups.com wrote:

 On Fri, 9 May 2014 20:13:17 -0700 (PDT)
 Richard Cranium completea55h...@gmail.com wrote:

  Like all the non-technical people that managed to learn git?

 I don't quite understand your comment, and I'm considering trying to
 teach non-technical people git, so I'm curious.  Is there a context
 where you see a lot of non-technical people using git?  Via git-hub, or
 some other UI?  Or is it not as hard as it seems if it's explained
 right?

 Thanks, Terry

  On Saturday, May 3, 2014 10:15:17 PM UTC-5, duf...@gmail.com wrote:
  
   I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed that
   in the last few months there have been significant improvements to
   Leo, in the hopes of making it more accessible to the non-technical
   crowd. It was certainly a move in the right direction but, alas, I
   think it was not enough. The point of my argument is that Leo is
   still too technically-oriented, and this alienates so many
   potential users. You just have to read the posts on this newsgroup
   (as I have been doing for a long time), to realize that people with
   little or no programming experience are bound to find major
   difficulties in using Leo, from the very beginning. Just trying to
   configure the simplest (UI-related) settings is a major challenge.
   This issue was already raised in the past, but is yet to be solved.
  
   Why can't we (non-technical people) be relieved with having to
   tinker with the internal workings of Leo? Come to think of it, the
   overwhelming majority of modern programs are totally GUI-based, so
   that the settings can be easily changed via menus. Why can't we
   have this in Leo too, instead of having to learn technical jargon
   and manually modify settings files? I really don't get it.
  
   Please, consider doing something radical about it (e.g.
   refurbishing the default menus with all the main commands and
   settings, at least), or realistically Leo might be bound for
   extinction.
  
   All the best,
  
   Duf
  
 

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-12 Thread Richard Cranium
Like all the non-technical people that managed to learn git?

On Saturday, May 3, 2014 10:15:17 PM UTC-5, duf...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed that in the 
 last few months there have been significant improvements to Leo, in the 
 hopes of making it more accessible to the non-technical crowd. It was 
 certainly a move in the right direction but, alas, I think it was not 
 enough. The point of my argument is that Leo is still too 
 technically-oriented, and this alienates so many potential users. You just 
 have to read the posts on this newsgroup (as I have been doing for a long 
 time), to realize that people with little or no programming experience are 
 bound to find major difficulties in using Leo, from the very beginning. 
 Just trying to configure the simplest (UI-related) settings is a major 
 challenge.
 This issue was already raised in the past, but is yet to be solved.

 Why can't we (non-technical people) be relieved with having to tinker with 
 the internal workings of Leo? Come to think of it, the overwhelming 
 majority of modern programs are totally GUI-based, so that the settings can 
 be easily changed via menus. Why can't we have this in Leo too, instead of 
 having to learn technical jargon and manually modify settings files? I 
 really don't get it.

 Please, consider doing something radical about it (e.g. refurbishing the 
 default menus with all the main commands and settings, at least), or 
 realistically Leo might be bound for extinction.

 All the best,

 Duf


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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-12 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Fri, 9 May 2014 20:13:17 -0700 (PDT)
Richard Cranium completea55h...@gmail.com wrote:

 Like all the non-technical people that managed to learn git?

I don't quite understand your comment, and I'm considering trying to
teach non-technical people git, so I'm curious.  Is there a context
where you see a lot of non-technical people using git?  Via git-hub, or
some other UI?  Or is it not as hard as it seems if it's explained
right?

Thanks, Terry

 On Saturday, May 3, 2014 10:15:17 PM UTC-5, duf...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed that
  in the last few months there have been significant improvements to
  Leo, in the hopes of making it more accessible to the non-technical
  crowd. It was certainly a move in the right direction but, alas, I
  think it was not enough. The point of my argument is that Leo is
  still too technically-oriented, and this alienates so many
  potential users. You just have to read the posts on this newsgroup
  (as I have been doing for a long time), to realize that people with
  little or no programming experience are bound to find major
  difficulties in using Leo, from the very beginning. Just trying to
  configure the simplest (UI-related) settings is a major challenge.
  This issue was already raised in the past, but is yet to be solved.
 
  Why can't we (non-technical people) be relieved with having to
  tinker with the internal workings of Leo? Come to think of it, the
  overwhelming majority of modern programs are totally GUI-based, so
  that the settings can be easily changed via menus. Why can't we
  have this in Leo too, instead of having to learn technical jargon
  and manually modify settings files? I really don't get it.
 
  Please, consider doing something radical about it (e.g.
  refurbishing the default menus with all the main commands and
  settings, at least), or realistically Leo might be bound for
  extinction.
 
  All the best,
 
  Duf
 
 

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-05 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
I think why Leo behaves as it does and how it should behave are
complicated by the problem of defining what Leo is.

Config. user friendliness wise I think there's a possible middle way
solution where we make the Leoine way easy for non-technical users.

I.e. a settings menu with a hierarchy that lets you select
Settings -- Appearance -- Colors -- Backgrounds

etc.

I think we should get that far and then decide if more GUI is needed,
or if the user can be expected to edit a list of background colors.
Note providing a visual color picker would be a separate issue, I'm
just talking about whether we can ask the user to edit a Leo outline to
change scalar values or not.

Anyway, as a first step, I've just closed
https://bugs.launchpad.net/leo-editor/+bug/555014

Settings - Open Personal Settings will now create myLeoSettings.leo if
it doesn't already exist.

Currently the created outline looks like this:

  Settings README
  @settings
  @enabled-plugins
  @keys
  @shortcuts
  
  myLeoSettings.leo personal settings file created Mon May  5 09:21:51 2014
  
  Only nodes that are descendants of the @settings node are read.
  
  Only settings you need to modify should be in this file, do
  not copy large parts of leoSettings.py here.
  
  For more information see http://leoeditor.com/customizing.html

(with no actual shortcuts defined in @shortcuts, just a comment about
how to do it).

More could be added.

Cheers -Terry

On Sat, 3 May 2014 20:15:17 -0700 (PDT)
duf...@gmail.com wrote:

 I am a long-time lurker on this newsgroup, and I have noticed that in
 the last few months there have been significant improvements to Leo,
 in the hopes of making it more accessible to the non-technical crowd.
 It was certainly a move in the right direction but, alas, I think it
 was not enough. The point of my argument is that Leo is still too 
 technically-oriented, and this alienates so many potential users. You
 just have to read the posts on this newsgroup (as I have been doing
 for a long time), to realize that people with little or no
 programming experience are bound to find major difficulties in using
 Leo, from the very beginning. Just trying to configure the simplest
 (UI-related) settings is a major challenge.
 This issue was already raised in the past, but is yet to be solved.
 
 Why can't we (non-technical people) be relieved with having to tinker
 with the internal workings of Leo? Come to think of it, the
 overwhelming majority of modern programs are totally GUI-based, so
 that the settings can be easily changed via menus. Why can't we have
 this in Leo too, instead of having to learn technical jargon and
 manually modify settings files? I really don't get it.
 
 Please, consider doing something radical about it (e.g. refurbishing
 the default menus with all the main commands and settings, at least),
 or realistically Leo might be bound for extinction.
 
 All the best,
 
 Duf
 

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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-05 Thread dufriz
Thanks for the explanation, Terry.
I think the solution lies in the middle ground that you propose, and which 
I was already looking forward to. But I thought it was going to be 
implemented months ago! Things seem to have stalled, after an initial 
flurry of activity (videocasts, etc) in the right direction.

Leo's settings can by all means remain exactly as they are, with no problem 
whatsoever, provided that there is also a more user friendly way of 
accessing them, so that the same settings can be accessed in a more 
humanly readable way.
As things stand today, the situation a bit too intricate, and what the new 
user experiences is a feeling of confusion. Complexity tends to be 
overwhelming and to put off people. Also, why complexity, when things could 
be simplified with no loss?
Hiding at least part of the complexity under the hood could be a major 
improvement, I believe.



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Re: Why Leo is not yet ready for prime time (for most users)

2014-05-05 Thread 'Terry Brown' via leo-editor
On Mon, 5 May 2014 10:06:45 -0700 (PDT)
duf...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks for the explanation, Terry.
 I think the solution lies in the middle ground that you propose, and
 which I was already looking forward to. But I thought it was going to
 be implemented months ago! Things seem to have stalled, after an
 initial flurry of activity (videocasts, etc) in the right direction.

Yes, it has definitely stalled, rather than been completed and failing
to be what you were hoping for.  I'm very busy these days... maybe next
month it won't be so bad, maybe.

Cheers -Terry

 Leo's settings can by all means remain exactly as they are, with no
 problem whatsoever, provided that there is also a more user friendly
 way of accessing them, so that the same settings can be accessed in a
 more humanly readable way.
 As things stand today, the situation a bit too intricate, and what
 the new user experiences is a feeling of confusion. Complexity tends
 to be overwhelming and to put off people. Also, why complexity, when
 things could be simplified with no loss?
 Hiding at least part of the complexity under the hood could be a
 major improvement, I believe.
 
 
 

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