On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 8:27 PM, Rob Beezer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:22 PM, William Stein wrote:
>
>> Any suggestions?
>
> I'm thinking about the new user, who (a) doesn't know at all that you
> can add text (b) can't figure out why there are two colors for the
> bars or (c) tries to type code into TinyMCE and can't get it to
> evaluate.
>
> What about having a small text link, similar to "evaluate" that says
> "annotate", "add text", "doodle" or something similar? Placed
> somewhere suggestive like the "evaluate" link is. Not sure where that
> would be relative to the input cells, output cells and the blue bar.
> Maybe it could be shoved off to the right margin, keeping "evaluate"
> shoved off to the left margin (simple with CSS?).
+1
I think that's a great idea.
>
> Maybe long-term the notebook could have an expert mode. Colored bars
> for the pros (which would be nice once you know what's going on) and a
> novice mode with more help or more obvious controls, but maybe a tad
> more cumbersome. You could go in/out of expert mode with a link at
> the top, and/or set your choice permanently with some configuration
> option.
>
> I really like the idea of the students having an editor that they can
> use to write on a worksheet, and especially the possibility that they
> can start learning simple LaTeX without the usual overhead of a big
> install, the \begin{document} structure, the command line, etc. So
> anything that makes TinyMCE's presence more obvious to the uninitiated
> would be another great addition.
>
> Rob
>
> On Feb 16, 11:01 am, Bill Page <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:22 PM, William Stein wrote:
>>
>> > On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Bill Page wrote:
>>
>> >> Shouldn't there be a more visible way - similar to what you do to
>> >> create other new cells?
>>
>> > Any suggestions?
>>
>> What I was looking for was some king of highlighting as I hover the
>> mouse over the cell. Right now I see a blue bar where a new
>> computation would be inserted if I click the mouse. It appears right
>> at the start of each cell just *before* the input box and another
>> final one at the bottom of the page.
>>
>> What might seem natural to *me* would be another color of bar, say a
>> red, just like the blue one but at the bottom of each input cell just
>> *after* the input cell and for good measure an extra initial one at
>> the top of the page. Of course these should only appear when moving
>> the mouse in the right location. The click a red bar would lead to
>> inserting an "HTML" block via TinyMCE. All it would take is just one
>> experiment by a user to know which input bar does what.
>>
>> Well, that's my two-cents worth but I realize there may be several
>> other ways to accomplish something similar.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Bill Page.
> >
>
--
William Stein
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org
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