Thank you for sharing your opinion. I agree a general-purpose structured language is not suitable for end-users. I looked at some existing languages and examined their nature, and I couldn't find any easy one. The most simple general-purpose is probably the Turtle notation for RDF, but it's still too complicated for end users.
Thus, I decided that my language will not have full expressive power. It will define general entities, but once concepts like tasks and calendars are defined, the usage is as simple as defining which properties you want your tasks to have. And it only becomes easier and easier: Once a standard set of properties is written (due date, name, title, description, topic, location, etc.), most people won't even need to write code. If they want, they may choose the properties required for a task, and this way simplify the view by hiding what they don't use. Or just choose the properties they want from the list. For example, some people don't arrange tasks as a graph, just as a list. So they can ignore the dependency features and just see a simple list. Once standard simple query tools are defined, and use the standard properties and classes, even most queries will become easy to write. And the best part: Everything too advanced from the user can be downloaded from a repository. Once people start writing definitions, the end users who are not programmers can simply download the tools, instead of trying to write them. With time, people with all kinds of workflows and technical skills and fields will create a database of free definitions, tools and settings, making the experience of end users convenient, both in the workstation building process and during daily usage of it. So, while I try to provide wide and expressive range of concepts, the actual usage of the language for time management and related life hacking will quickly become very simple, even for non-programmers. Like I said, they basically just need to choose properties, and choose the visualizations they want to see. And with a wide range of properties and views, I hope every user will be able to create a personal setup. Anatoly On ד', 2013-05-29 at 11:26 -0400, Jasper St. Pierre wrote: > I'm not sure. Obviously, we'll see how it works out in practice, but > research has shown that even "basic" structured text languages are > hard for end-users and consumers to grasp. To most people, the > flexibility in text is its lack of structure, which allow people to be > creative and express themselves. > > > org-mode doesn't enforce any structure beyond some basic syntactic > elements to mark free-flowing text as items (bullet points), and while > it comes with a stock set of keywords (TODO, DONE), these aren't > hardcoded at all and most complex org-mode flows add their own > keywords or things like that. > > > The actual words, and the order of them, doesn't matter. So I feel > that a structured text-based approach would simply fail because it > doesn't allow for such flexibility. > > > New research is always welcome, and if you manage to get random > end-users to fluently understand your language system through > concentrated user testing, I'll gladly welcome it. > > > > On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 11:02 AM, אנטולי קרסנר <[email protected]> > wrote: > Hello everyone, > > > I'm an individual not working on any Gnome module. I'll try > not to get > into much detail (likely to fail on this one), but here's the > idea I > have: > > After reading about existing GTD software tools I made the > following > conclusions: > > * There are GUI tools > * There are plain-text solutions > * There are pen-and-paper solutions > * There are text-based applications > > GUI tools have lots of features and visual widgets, but they > somehow > fail to satisfy most people. At the same time, plain text > seems to > become more and more popular. After reading I made these > conclusions: > > * Each person has her own way of thinking, her own way of how > the brain > works. Therefore, each person should have a personally > tailored solution > > * GUI tools, and GTD tools in general, tend to make the false > assumption > of "everyone is like me" and "one size fits all", which is why > most > tools fail to become widely popular. > > * Emacs Org-Mode is quite successful as a GTD tool, thanks to > its > flexibility and extensibility, but lacks an intuitive > interface, which > limits its adoption despite the success of Org-Mode > > * A next-generation tool should have the extensibility of a > plain-text > system, and the convenience, ease-of-use and efficiency of a > visual tool > > > > Therefore, I decided to create a language for definition of > properties > and classes, intended for be used for describing tasks, > timelines, > projects, etc. This language is easy enough for > non-programmers to use, > and yet is expressive enough for practical use. It borrows > concepts from > RDF, OWL and scripting languages. > > On top of this language there will be a set of text-based > tools allowing > easy manipulation of the text. It means users can edit the > files in > plain text, but also have convenient tools and utilities for > easier > processing and visualization, similar to Org-Mode. > > On top of that there may be task/project-related definitions, > a > specialized text editor and/or Gedit plugins, and a flexible > GUI app > which replaces the "one for all" concept with a "personally > tailored to > a user's mental model" concept, which seems to work very > successfully > with plain text and Emacs Org-Mode. > > > Existing free software I found: > > - Gedit (Gnome's plain text editor, extensible with plugins) > - Emacs Org-Mode > > That's all. All other tools, including all GTD and To-do apps > for > Gnome/GNU, are either scripts intended for power users, or > have a > limited scope which is not flexible enough to customize. > > > An existing GUI app for GTD called Getting Things Gnome (GTG) > has great > potential, but I'd like to back it up using a flexible > text-based > approach which is then used to describe semantic entities and > attach > them to program objects. This would supply both the > flexibility of text, > the convenience of GUI and automatic translation to RDF, which > means > instant Semantic Desktop integration (using Tracker and > Zeitgeist). > > > *** The Question *** > > My question is, what do you think? Does this idea sound > useful? To me > personally, it seems to fill the gap between plain text (which > has no > visualization and productivity utilities) and convenient GUI > (which > current is mostly not flexible enough). > > NOTE: Non-free software already exists, which uses plain text > as a > backend, such as Taskpaper: > http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper > > > regards, > Anatoly > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list > > > > -- > Jasper > _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
