I like a lot of this. The example view is great and we could probably use that to direct users to similar style in the very near future. I know you want to add more example, but as a quick enhancement, I'd suggest to add locators - i.e. make the example (Einstein, 1905, pp. 23-47) - the way locators are separated from the citation and whether or not they have a label is a common variation especially in author-date styles.
I haven't had a lot of time yet to play with the tree view. My first impression is that I imagine it to be a bit intimidating for the uninitiated. I know what all the "macro" "substitute" "choose" etc. means - but I would guess that it would freak out someone who has never seen a CSL style. But maybe I'm missing the way you envision how this is going to be used. Anyway - exciting to see this moving along, congratulations. Sebastian On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 4:51 AM, Steve Ridout <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > Lately I've been working on the CSL editor project, which is being managed > by Jeffery Lancaster and Ian Mulvany. > > We've now got a working prototype which gives an idea of the direction we're > going with this, you can try it out here: > > steveridout.com/csl/visualEditor > > And the code is all on > github: https://github.com/citation-style-editor/csl-editor > > Thanks to recent work on citeproc-js by Frank Bennett, it allows the user to > identify the relevant part of the CSL style by hovering over the formatted > output. > > I'm posting here to get some feedback, but please bear in mind it's in the > early stages and we are more interested in discussing the overall approach > rather than little bugs. To avoid too many obvious comments here are some > known problems: > > - Only tested with latest Chrome and Firefox > - UI looks and feels clunky > - Tree view (jstree) drag and drop behavior is sometimes strange > - Don't have mapping from every output character to CSL node, and vice vera, > not from every CSL node to output. There's room for improvement here, but > Frank says it's difficult to achieve 100% coverage. > - Not enough example citations > - Code editor sometimes wrongly highlights nodes in red > - Comments are stripped from imported CSL files > - Should have interactive highlight when hovering over the CSL tree too > > We have definite plans for the following: > > - Allow user to modify the example documents, and provide a larger set of > built in examples. > > - Only allow CSL schema validating styles. e.g. instead of text boxes for > attribute names, use combo boxes populated with data from the csl.rng file. > If anyone has advice on parsing the .rng with javascript please let me know. > > Here are possible ideas for future work: > > - Simplify/clean up tree view heirachy. At the moment it exactly maps the > CSL XML. I think there's scope for simplifying this view whilst internally > keeping the CSL structure. If we did this, we should allow switching back > and fore between the actual CSL structure. > e.g. (just thinking) > - put macros inside a 'macros' node to avoid cluttering the interface. > - try removing the leaf nodes from 'info' and 'author' and use more > friendly GUI controls in the property panel instead. > - place 'symlinks' within <text macro=""> nodes to the relevant macro > > - Allow construction of styles using a database of all macros extracted from > the repository as building blocks. > > - Allow user to specify desired textual output of the example documents, to > be used as unit tests for that style. This could be pre populated for users > arriving from 'search by example'. The editor would show an error and the > relevant diff if the style fails to match. > > - Import and export of styles. We want an easy way to import and export > styles to and from ref managers. I think providing online storage and > resolvable URLs for all edited styles would be ideal, but is probably beyond > the scope of this project. > > Look forward to hearing your comments! > > Steve > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This SF email is sponsosred by: > Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here > http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure > _______________________________________________ > xbiblio-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xbiblio-devel > -- ------ Sebastian Karcher Ph.D. Candidate Department of Political Science Northwestern University ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure _______________________________________________ xbiblio-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xbiblio-devel
