Scott Hudson wrote:
> I think we're splitting hairs over 1 element in DocBook, 3 in DITA, and
> however many equivalents in infinite DTD/RNG/XSD schemas. There is,
> obviously, limited space in the UI. Why are you so opposed to having
> maps to 3 very familiar, commonly used buttons? And again, this is in
> author mode, not the tagged view (though it'd be nice if those buttons
> worked in that mode too!
>
The 3 very familiar, commonly used buttons you refer to are for 3 very
familiar, commonly used aspects of presentational markup. They have no
place in DocBook. Adding those three buttons to a semantic editor is
like adding a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake to a Boeing
767. Flying an airplane is not like driving a car, even if they're both
vehicles that go from point A to point B. They need different
interfaces. We can't teach someone to fly with a watered down user
interface that pretends an airplane is something it's not. If we want
semantic markup, we have to have semantic buttons.
I do expect that real semantic markup may not fit in a toolbar. Menus or
palettes may be a better option than buttons. I do like the compromise
that was suggested where the i button drops down to a menu, and the user
has to choose the *reason* they're italicizing some text. That will
actually help teach users and wean them off presentational markup in a
way a simple one-click i-button won't.
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/
