On 13 Mar 2011, at 16:55, Jason Davies wrote: > I think there is a bigger problem here: WPs rely on WYSIWYG processes > (choosing fonts, styles etc) that have no easy way to organise. You try to > find ways that make sense but eventualyl you break down to a situation where > you 'just have to know the programme'. Then they change them with different > versions... Thus going to the new version of Word (2011), I looked everywhere > for the zoom (formerly a percentage value at the top) and eventualyl saw a > slider at the bottom. A slider is hopeless for fine-tuning. That's an > example: when you add features, how do you do so? Bloat is inherent to WPs, > if you ask me. Then you have to have a file format that allows for a) > recovery from corruption b) transparent reading.
I think that you over-empahisis this problem with the "WYSIWG" processes. It is a bit irritating if developers change the design of the program interface on upgrades, but in truth it is minor stuff. I have been using Pages for a long time now to do all word processing and it has been a consistent interface for years. > > There are roughly two alternatives that *work*, which are based on readable > formats (ie mark-up languages). > > 1) LaTeX > 2) HTML/XML variants > > These rely on an expert user who can cope with mark-up language. When > something goes wrong with LaTeX, it's because you have configured it wrong > (whereas Word will 'guess' wrong a lot of the time, it's inherent to > something that relies on hidden values such as 'what is the default font and > style when I type *here*) > > HTML got buggered up by Internet Explorer being non-standard but hopefully > that era is behind us now as MS finally have web browsers installed that > *actually read the file formatting in the way it was intended*. They are working towards this :), the era is not behind us totally. > To my mind, it's like manual vs automatic cars (where manual allows for more > efficiency and control and 'real drivers' wouldn't be seen dead in an > automatic), with the difference that the illusory 'ease of use' has won the > argument for most people. I think that's the shame and it was MS who took us > there. They could have taught users to respect what they were doing, as it > were. > > So we are doomed to a suite of WPs that struggle to organise endless > palettes, views, styles etc etc into a coherent way that ultimately relies on > the user getting familiar with it. If they are simple, they cannot be > powerful, if they are powerful, they cannot be intuitive (unless 'intuitive' > is taken to mean 'what I have been doing for ten years and coping with'). I think that Pages represents a good compromise as did Word 5.1, which I remember very well using. > But if you care about your documents, you won't be using Word. You probably > won't be using a WP at all... With Pages or any competent word processor you can create excellent looking documents fairly easily. I think you are over playing this a bit :) The WYSIWYG approach to document creation is one of the things that makes a Mac a Mac. I remember very well when Macs first arrived and the WYSIWYG word processing capability was stunning at that time. > My dream -- apps drawing on a LaTeX typesetting engine to render text. > Currently, probably requires too much CPU to render on the fly:( But why use LaTeX ? Currently RTF is extremely powerful. The OSX version of Nisus Writer saves in RTF and you can open those up with a text editor and easily modify them if you learn the RTF markup. At the end of the day people do not want to learn markup languages to format documents. They left that behind in 1984. If they do want a WYSIWYG program that uses accessible markup then RTF is there and has been for years. The good WYSIWYG programs are quite superb I think Pages gives an excellent compromise of ease of use and power. Patrick -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To post to this group, send an 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/smug?hl=en-GB.
