Ahhh... so you see the benefit is turning forms into prettier forms. I agree that is a good thing. But how do you address someone who wants to enter an article?
I agree that willy-nilly editing on the page is a bad thing. But you can show a view of the page with the content section editable in a free-form way. In fact the users can use the site (uneditable nav bar) to naviagate to each editable page. So, in effect, they see the site as a user would but they can change the _content_. The content that is generally entered into an article can be managed, things like: lists, titles, paras, td, what-have-you... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefano Mazzocchi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 11:27 AM Subject: Re: sharing microsoft experience > Andre Ulrich wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I just want to mention that OEone develop some kind of Abiword Plugin > > for Mozilla. At least there is a screenshot: > > http://www.oeone.com/pics/wordp.jpg > > > > Abiword itself is in active development and is nearly plattform > > independent. It is possible to import and export all kinds of format > > such as XHTML, rtf, tex etc.. > > http://www.abisource.com > > Probably I didn't make myself clear enough on my previous postings. > > I find an inline WYSIWYG XHTML editor almost useless: yeah, it would be > an advancement over frontpage for many people since they don't have to > fire up another application, but this is not the point. > > The absolutely brilliant concept behind IE 5.5+ "contentEditable" is > that editing can now be *granular*! > > I can selectively allow users to edit parts of the page. And *ONLY* > those parts. > > So, for example, depending on your role (determined after a login, > IP-matching, client-side certificate, crypto javacard, whatever), I can > selectively allow you to edit parts of the page (for example, the > article title, subtitle and text) without you to edit the rest of the > page (the day of submission, the navigation bar, the banner stuff) > > With a free-form tool, you are not helping the user: you are probably > confusing him more than you'd do with a simple textarea. > > Usability is *NOT* matter of how many features you have, but how much > you can empower the user. In this case, an editor, somebody who is used > to paper or M$ Word, but is normally bugged by the free-form-ness of > word even if they never used anything more structured that guides them. > > In fact, a form-based editor (something we would ultimately consider a > technological crap) is probably more useful than a fully free-form > editing tool. > > contentEditable brings the two worlds together: you have immediate > visual feedback on what you type (unlike forms) but you can't do many > mistakes since the editor forces you to edit only those parts that you > are allowed to (unlike free-form editing solutions). > > If mozilla clones this feature (hopefully in an interoperable way > between IE) it's likely to become *the* cross-platform editing > technology of choice for almost all useful content management systems. > > Unfortunately, for what I could observe from the mozilla source code, > there is no such thing in place and I have a very hard time estimating > how much effort would it be required in order to enable it. > > Comments? > > -- > Stefano Mazzocchi One must still have chaos in oneself to be > able to give birth to a dancing star. > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Friedrich Nietzsche > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
