Could we come back to this discussion once I will have changed the start page (with folded details) and when I will have a decent proposition for sidebars in place of this ugly and buggy 'Index', please? Best,
Philippe Martin Maechler wrote: >>>>>>"Gabor" == Gabor Grothendieck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>>>> on Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:43:07 -0400 writes: > > > Gabor> I think the most important thing is that if you click > Gabor> on tips in the left hand pane that you get to the > Gabor> table of contents discussed here rather than the > Gabor> uninformative one. It should not be necessary to > Gabor> read the page at all whether it uses folding or not. > > I agree with Gabor: > Philippe, maybe you and I (to some extent) belong to the small > and diminishing (up to extinction) part of the population who do > read and even like to read and do this even with web pages (and > R help pages!) > The vast (and growing) majority of the population are *scanning* > web pages until they've found something that seems somewhat > relevant and is "clickable"... > > And, I have to admit that indeed, the scanning strategy is > often more effective than the reading one.. > Martin > > Gabor> On 4/23/06, Philippe Grosjean > Gabor> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > Its too much to expect that > >> people are going to read everything that is > there. > >> They just want to get to where they are going as fast as > >> possible > and to read the entire page and then figure > >> out you have to click on the > word shorter is subtle, > >> complicated and time consuming. > >> > >> Not my fault! The start page I proposed was one screen > >> height, with only five links (one for each main section > >> in the Wiki), and less that 50 words in total. So, quick > >> to read, easy to spot where to go, etc. But them, many > >> people told me that this starting page was rather > >> uninformative and that one needed more about what is > >> inside each section... so, this is done! And yes, this > >> necessarily dilutes content. > >> > >> As a betgter compromize, I intend to rework that start > >> page using folded sections that you can unfold by > >> clicking on them. So, the first presentation will be > >> similar to my original page, with the possibility to get > >> more details right on this starting page. > >> > >> PhG > >> > >> > To make it > doubly confusing if you do click on tips > >> to the left you get to something > so there is no reason > >> to suspect that there is a better alternative. > >> > > >> > On 4/23/06, Philippe Grosjean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> wrote: > >> > > >> >>Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > >> >> > >> >>>Yes, possibly with some elaboration in certain cases. > >> By the way, >>>that is not the page you get if you click > >> on tips after going to >>>wiki.r-project.org and clicking > >> on tips to the left. > >> >> > >> >>How many times do I need to tell that the left pane > >> displays, by >>default, the complete index of all wiki > >> pages, but this will be replaced >>by more useful > >> 'sidebars'. We haven't done these sidebars yet. So, this > >> >>part of the site must still be considered as work in > >> progress. > >> >> > >> >>Now, here is what happens when you navigate through > >> pages: >>1) You enter in http://wiki.r-project.org, > >> right? > >> >> > >> >>2) You read this page (considering you are visiting the > >> site the first >>time... otherwise, you would have > >> bookmarked 'tips:tips', I suppose) and >>see: > >> >> > >> >>... > >> >> > >> >>Tips & Tricks > >> >> > >> >>A large compendium of _shorter pages_ describing > >> details of how >>particular commands can be used and > >> giving examples of useful code. >>... > >> >> > >> >>with "shorter pages" being a link pointing to that > >> 'tips:tips' page. So, >>what simpler can I do? > >> >> > >> >>PhG > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >>>On 4/23/06, Philippe Grosjean > >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >>> > >> >>> > >> >>>>Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > >> >>>> > >> >>>> > >> >>>>>In thinking about this some more perhaps one > >> possibliity would be to have >>>>>an index which > >> incluldes the answer. That would allow one to browse the > >> >>>>>key code and also see an expanded wiki discussion. > >> >>>>> > >> >>>>>e.g. > >> >>>>> > >> >>>>>1.1 Bring raw numbers into R: scan(myfile) >>>>>1.2 > >> Basic notation on data access: iris[1,2] >>>>>1.3 > >> Exchange data between R and Excel/other progs: > >> read.xls(excelfile) >>>>>[also robdc, foreign and Hmisc > >> packages] >>>>>1.4 Merge data frames: merge(ds1, ds1, by > >> = c("city", "x1"),all=TRUE) > >> >>>> > >> >>>>Hum, hum... you mean, something like: > >> >>>>http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=tips:tips > >> >>>> > >> >>>>:-) > >> >>>> > >> >>>>PhG > >> >>>> > >> >>>> > >> >>>> > >> >>>> > >> >>>>>On 4/23/06, Gabor Grothendieck > >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >>>>> > >> >>>>> > >> >>>>> > >> >>>>>>Each tip should be one (or a small number of lines) > >> for the description >>>>>>and one line (or a small number > >> of lines) for the answer -- not pages. >>>>>>Look at > >> Paul Johnson's original organization and its quite clear > >> its >>>>>>superior for both browsing and searching. > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>>On 4/23/06, Gavin Simpson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> wrote: > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>On Sun, 2006-04-23 at 05:57 -0400, Gabor > >> Grothendieck wrote: > >> >>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>On 4/23/06, Philippe Grosjean > >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>>Tony Plate wrote: > >> >>>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>>>[...] (see hereunder for full post) > >> >>>>>>>>>>However, maybe this can be partially addressed > >> by having larger index >>>>>>>>>>pages, each one pointing > >> to many different small example pages. [...] > >> >>>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>>Exactly! Speaking about "browsing" the tips, the > >> key is not to have all >>>>>>>>>tips on one page, but an > >> i > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>>ndex, table of content, summary, or > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>>whatever-you-call-it page. You browse that page > >> and click on the links >>>>>>>>>you want. This is more > >> effective than browsing tens of thousands of > >> >>>>>>>>>lines to discover that the tips you are looking > >> for is the forelast one, >>>>>>>>>that is, the 9,999th > >> one! > >> >>>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>>You want to browse the code itself, not just an > >> index. The way >>>>>>>>you learn R is to look at a lot > >> of code and not by having to waste >>>>>>>>time jumping > >> to dozens or hundreds of different pages. > >> >>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>Gabor > >> >>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>/you/ might learn R best that way, but I doubt > >> many people will. From my >>>>>>>own experience and from > >> teaching R to colleagues and with students on > >> >>>>>>>short courses is that they like a reasonable > >> grounding in the basics to >>>>>>>allow them to get > >> started, and then when they started doing their own > >> >>>>>>>thing they want to ask "how do I do x?" Scanning a > >> list of tips allows >>>>>>>them to drill down to the few > >> items that sound like they might answer >>>>>>>their > >> question. People don't want to read page after page of > >> code - >>>>>>>especially on a screen - just to find the > >> one sentence or line of code >>>>>>>that will help them > >> solve their immediate problem. > >> >>>>>>> > >> >>>>>>>G > > > _______________________________________________ R-sig-wiki mailing list [email protected] https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-wiki
