Dufriz, I'm in general agreement with the theme. An improvement in user friendliness would do Leo very well. I think the biggest problem in accomplishing it is people here are already doing what they know how to do, and smooth user interfaces isn't in the skill bag.
*Knowledge-base*, wiki, whatever: now that we've settled on Github we do have a wiki available: https://github.com/leo-editor/leo-editor/wiki. If somone wants to start planting seeds I'm happy to help garden. *Changing settings* could/should be easier: I agree, I wish for this frequently. (and this past year's addition of having the *Settings.leo files open from a menu is a great step towards this, thanks!). As I recall, when the subject last came up Edward said he didn't see a way to implement it that wasn't more trouble than it was worth, both in terms of developer time to make it (probably his), and in debugging and maintaining afterwards. Still, other programs manage it, so it's possible. *Key bindings*: this is a place where it would be (relatively) easy for non-developer to make a contribution. They are just tables after all: action = Alt-A There could be a "Keys Like Windows/Gtk/..." template node that a person or a script copies into myLeoSettings.leo. If you build the table I'll volunteer to work on tracking down the Leo terms for the actions. cheers, Matt On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 9:02 AM, Dufriz <[email protected]> wrote: > While Leo is constantly enriching itself, with new features and new > technologies, it's not improving much in terms of user friendliness (I will > provide details below), and this is one of the main reasons that put off > (read: keep away) users. This is an old refrain of mine, and every now and > then I feel compelled to express it, so bear with me. > > Recently I was asked, on another thread: what is there to be done to make > Leo more user friendly? Ahm, a lot. An awful lot. > > Before mentioning some of the points which IMHO need to be worked on, I > would like to make a suggestion: why not keep track of the users' > suggestions/feature requests in a more organized way? Lots of useful > comments are made every day on the mailing list: adding this, removing > that, etc. Most of them are soon forgotten, with the constant flow of new > posts, and the ever-changing variety of topics. Moreover these suggestions > are scattered here and there, often buried in threads where they should not > even belong. > What I am proposing is, basically, a system for keeping track of user > comments/requests in a more organic way. It could be a wiki, or something > else. > > Now, with regard to user friendliness, I would like to point out that > IMHO, the best judgement in this regard is that made by the outsiders, or > newcomers, rather than by the developers and the old users. For a simple > reason: user friendliness is all about intuitiveness and giving a pleasant > feeling to those who are *not* familiar with a program. And in this regard > (sorry guys) Leo leaves a lot to be desired. Old time Leo users who are > perfectly comfortable and cozy with the current setup may possibly not > understand why this is so important. > > Some (only a few) of the areas that need improvement: > > * the leading node-type @ markers in the headlines are very ugly to see, > and clutter the screen. Why not replace them with customized note-type > icons? Of course, they are an important metadata, which should be preserved > somewhere. But why make it a part of the headline? At the very least, could > we limit their visibility to when we are editing the headline? > > * Changing settings is very awkward, as pointed out in several old posts. > Something needs to be done. IIRC Terry already agreed on this in principle. > > * more standard default key bindings. For instance, what about F2 for > editing a headline? I know, this is not such a big deal, because users can > change the key bindings to their liking, but why not make things easier for > newcomers? > > I do not want to insist too much here, listing all the finer points, but > in short there are several other UI improvements that would be really > welcome. > > I am venturing here a proposal for the developers: why not go in a sort > feature-freeze mode for some time (i.e. stopping adding new features), and > focus instead on improving the user interface? This dedicated period could > be set on the calendar, perhaps even a couple of weeks every three months, > or the like. I am sure this would generate a lot of user feedback. > > All the best, > > Dufriz > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "leo-editor" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
