Re: [xml-dev] How to avoid (minimize) errors due to copying, pasting,and

[Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie>]

On 22/05/18 10:11, yamahito wrote:

> I also think that more can be done to push digital capture upstream 
> towards the author, reducing or eliminating the extra steps between
> the original thought and semantic markup. 

That would benefit everyone, but the curve is steep.

> This depends on the quality and appropriateness of your tools, as
> well as the willingness of the author/copy editor to engage with said
> tools...
We've just been having a discussion on the DocBook list about the choice
of editing environment.

Regardless of features, *authors* (especially those unacquainted with
editing structured documents) will tend to select software based on how
"attractive" it is (a combination of appearance, behaviour, and
usability), rather than on whether it has the actual features for
handling the type of document being written.

More experienced authors will of course pay more attention to features
and be prepared to sacrifice some appearance and even usability to get
the features they need.

An *editor*, on the other hand, needs a different toolset, as they are
not creating text afresh (hopefully :-) and if they are experienced, as
with experienced authors, they will have fairly clear ideas about what
they actually need to get the job done.

But in both cases there is probably always a tradeoff to be made between
features and comfortableness in use (the combination of appearance,
behaviour, and usability which attracts people to it) for authors and
editors to engage with editing software.

Right now I have the feeling that the jury is still out on a lot of
this, especially for authors with no prior knowledge of XML (and no
desire to learn about it).

///Peter