On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 11:32 AM, mdb <[email protected]> wrote: > Here are some comments on some recent posts that I make to help > (hopefully) the dialogue, plus what I think are 2 new ideas. > > * Fixing the broken search on home page is very important
I fixed it yesterday. > It is very hard to find the right help documents without a good search > utility—or at least new users would think so. True. I didn't write this utility: afaik it is part of Sphinx. And it sucks for Leo: searching for @others yields nothing. > Maybe a completely new, > different and more robust search utility should be used. I was/am just barely competent to get the boilerplate search working. All offers of help will be appreciated. > * A redesign of the LEO website would help as well, but what might > provide greater value added is a better user contributed Wiki. I know > there is one but most of the entries are ‘dead’. Pruning the dead > branches or maybe just highlighting the living ones would help. Also > there is few clues on how to contribute or edit. I agree. It might even be better to delete almost everything until something better gets produced. Perhaps automagically. > * Ed – how about adding an open letter to new users on the web site, > stating what you think LEO offers and why contributing to the group is > worthwhile, plus state the best way to contribute and get involved. I think my excitement shows through regularly :-) I have not actually found a way of describing Leo that captures the essence, as amazing as that might be. > * It seems that there is a temptation to have LEO do almost anything > and everything, such as managing BLENDER projects, replace SCITE or > WORDPRESS (pardon to Ed if I am misinterpreting). I think a better > overall goal is to have LEO manage and organize almost anything > through trees, cloned nodes, @file links and python scripting > power. The various projects you mention are quite different. Replacing SciTe is a big win. Other projects are more tangential, but I don't like to censor what other people try to do with Leo. The recent Blender work has had the effect principally of improving Leo's autocompleter. So while looking at Blender seems a little OT, the effect has been to substantially improve one of Leo's most important core capabilities. This model of looking outside Leo for improvements to Leo itself will continue. I'll say more about this in another thread. I work on whatever seems most pressing, from the smallest annoying hangnails to larger new features. It's hard to predict what will come next. For example, today's tasks: - Fix a bad reversion that causes scrollbar state not to be saved. - Wrote an @button node that splits class methods in a single body text into child nodes. I wrote this because I was studying client/server code, which is becoming a hot topic. - This evening: add support for section references to rst3 plugin. It's been on the list way too long, and today's plea for help was the last straw. In short, there is no grand plan: just whatever shows up :-) > In this regard I suggest a @open node concept where clicking on or > hitting enter on a @open node opens another program with given inputs > (much like a desktop shortcut) based on the underlying sub-tree > headlines and bodies. Good idea. Support for shells and bridges to other programs is a unifying theme recently. And your suggestion may provide another way to unify this project. There are *lots* of complications lurking here. Examine the IPython code to see the complexities that lie hidden. Furthermore, there are a wide range of user options possible. We are just beginning to confront the possibilities here. I'll say more in another thread. > To make this concept work to its full potential for new users, setting > up the @open would have the option of a dialogue box – much like a > desktop shortcut (or alternatively a website management program or bzr > project GUI interface). And to complete the circle, the @open > anticipates the other program will ‘talk’ back to the LEO outline both > through files and directly. Of course the @open name is open for > debate. Yes, these are some, not all, of the user options I mentioned above. > * In the end, no one has time to do everything they desire or dream > up (given our paying day jobs). Leo is my day job. And my night job. > I suggest that regular Leo users > contribute $5, $10, $50 or as much as $100 to a fund that Ed manages > to hire contract programmers. It's a nice idea, but I'm not waiting for that. Leo's core developers, what I call the "usual suspects", have driven the project along quite nicely so far. We don't need bodies, we need *simple*, *powerful* ways of exploring the possibilities that Leo offers. > If I had my druthers, I would use the fund to first fix or replace > search, prune the WIKI and make it easier to add to, update and > manage, and then remake the web site. Imo, find works well. If you disagree, feel free to file a bug report. I am beginning to think that the problems with documentation: wiki, leoDocs.leo, web site, etc. all point to a large opportunity. That is, there can be no progress without a significant problem to be solved. I'll say more in another thread. Edward -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor?hl=en.
