WYSIWYG for tables in Editor view?

[mramshaw]

Several of our users are complaining that tables in the Editor view don't look like they do when composed in a print preview. Tables have no identation in our editor view but they have the standard 1" margin when you do a print preview and I was wondering if there was any way to have the indentation in the Editor view as well, as well as make it more WYSIWYG looking. I know it's last century technology 🙂

[naglists]

You should be able to cause tables to indent in the Edit Window display.
You'll need to modify your screen stylesheet whether Styler or FOSI. (Is XSL
an option? I forget ...) How you change how tables display will depend on
which stylesheet technology you're using.

For FOSI (and assuming you are using a different stylesheet for screen than
print), you'll need to find this entry (assuming you are using the CALS
table model):
<e-i-c gi="table" ...<br="/>And add or modify this element:
<indent leftind="1in" ...<br="/>
Or something like that. If you're using the same stylesheet for screen and
print, then it is possible the indent is applied only if the stylesheet is
being called to print. Then you're looking for something like this related
to the formatting of table:

<specval attname="print-only" attloc="system-var" attval="#ANY">

Or contrarily:
<specval attname="editor-only" attloc="system-var" attval="#NONE">

Be sure to caution your authors that they will be able to see less of their
tables (or they will be scrunched up / mangled more tightly) than before.

[ebenton]

Just tell them that it's not WYSIWYG, it's WYSIKWYG (What You See Is Kinda What You Get).

[berard]

I remember Liz Fraley referring to it as WYSIOP - What You See Is One
Possibility. The surprising thing is that term really resonated with our
largely non-technical clinical writers, making them more open to writing in
XML with metadata (attributes, etc) allowing our content to be used for
static, interactive and print formats more easily. It also reduced the
need to constantly modify our FOSI to try to mimic the final output, which
was tedious and error-prone.

keith

[naglists]

I think Suzanne Napoleon coined WYSIWYN ... Need.

[ptc-1908075]

I don't recall that. Probably someone else. Actually,I look forward to the day when authors embrace WYSMYJE (What You See Makes Your Job Easier). What works for paper does not necessarily work for screen display.Attempting to replicate print output in the Edit window has many negatives, including: * Authors waste time trying to tweak the formatting to their liking.

* The print font may be difficult to read onscreen.

* The font size may be so small it requires zooming.

* The font size or vertical white space may beso large itrequires extrascrolling.

* Some formatting makes text difficult to read onscreen, especiallyin a screen-unfriendly font.
A screen FOSI specifically designed to facilitate the authoring and editing processes saves time and effort. And it makes perfect sense for single-source/multiple outputs.

There is a lot you can do with a screen FOSI and maybe a little ACL that can be very helpful to users. Hmmm ... would there be any interest in a presentation on Screen FOSIs at PlanetPTC 2012?

Suzanne Napoleon
www.FOSIexpert.com
"WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"


-----End Original Message-----

[ebenton]

Yeah, maybe a presentation called “Satisfying The WYSIWYG Zealots (As Much As Possible) With Screen FOSI”.

[GarethOakes]

I agree with all of this and making screen viewing/editing efficient is the primary concern.



However, I can see where Mike is coming from. Tables always seem to be a special case because when you are authoring a table it is all about the column widths, breaking and so on. Most of our customers have us implement a "table preview" function for exactly that reason … eg. they can click in a table and select to preview and get a composed view back of that table straight away. I wonder if Mike would benefit from having something similar so his authors don't need to scroll through a print preview to find the one table they are working on?



Just my 2c.



-Gareth

[mramshaw]

Thanks for the input, everyone! I think for now just indenting the table will help. For the record, I agree that WYSIWYG is last century technology, but they haven't made me dictator for life here yet so I cannot enforce this upon others.

[KathleenReisler]

Why is WYSIWYG so last century? Everyone says that but maybe just the coding for it is last century. Witness the popularity of ipads and iphones where things look like what you expect them to look like.......

[ebenton]

Because in many modern editing systems your output can be one of several formats: text, WORD, RTF, PDF, PRINT/Paper, HTML, multiple flavors of IETM etc. etc. Should we choose our output selection first and then have our authoring environment reflect accurately and *PRECISELY* what our output will look like when we are done? What if our output will be multiples of these, which editing view do we use?

[steve.thompson4]

And that's the key. The people doing editing/authoring are still thinking of themselves as 'end users' while doing that function, when in actuality, they're a part of the provision of that end user experience. Yes, to some degree, you can do some 'editing' of data on those devices, but not at the fundamental levels we're talking about in the Editor view.

My $.02,
Steve Thompson
+1(316)977-0515

[ebenton]

There are some things you can't see in Arbortext Editor, such as page breaks caused by flowtext in the output and side-by-side (algroup) formatting.

[KathleenReisler]

Use the editing view for the output environment you're choosing. Why not put computers to work?

[KathleenReisler]

Arbortext reminds me of when cold type first became popular in the 70's.....a bunch of code adaptable to whatever....many times I feel like we are taking steps backwards.

[ebenton]

If that's what you want, prepare to pay big $$$ for editing environments that support WYSIWYG for every possible output. Maybe the government will pay for it.

[ptc-3050150]

Government isn't paying for much of anything anymore...not Defense anyway. Just getting funding for the bare minimum is getting harder and harder.

[ptc-923889]

How about "WYSICWYG (What You See Is Coincidentally What you Get)"? This is what I stress to our Training Team when they migrate people from Word to Arbortext. It's useful to make the point to people that what they see on screen might resemble what they see in print or online (ours is an online product), but unlike Word, this resemblance is not a direct consequence of the markup they use, and that furthermore they should concentrate on getting the semantics correct, and now worry too much about the display. To re-inforce the point we've deliberately left the FOSI looking different from the product.

Our editorial XML goes through multiple transformations before ultimately appearing as HTML in a browser, and our authors understand that any one of those processes (or an unsupported browser/version) could cause the final product to display differently than expected.

Having said all that, XML tables are something of a paradox.

[naglists]

Raise your hand if you have specifically customized a screen stylesheet
because editing one "row" or construct (or tree) is easier with a vertical
relationship between an item and its descendants or attributes while
scanning / reading / comparing the same information in volume (the forest)
requires a horizontal relationship.

Or customized a screen stylesheet to eliminate or reduce the amount of
generated text for performance purposes (although with infinite processing
power, one might avoid this effort).

Suzanne: If anyone expressed interest, I missed it, but it is clear that
there is a wealth of information and experience that could be compiled into
quite a screen stylesheet presentation!


On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 1:47 AM, John Hanratty <
john.hanratty@lexisnexis.co.uk> wrote:

> How about "WYSICWYG (What You See Is Coincidentally What you Get)"? This is
> what I stress to our Training Team when they migrate people from Word to
> Arbortext. It's useful to make the point to people that what they see on
> screen might resemble what they see in print or online (ours is an online
> product), but unlike Word, this resemblance is not a direct consequence of
> the markup they use, and that furthermore they should concentrate on getting
> the semantics correct, and now worry too much about the display. To
> re-informce the point we've deliberately left the FOSI looking different
> from the product.
>
> Our editorial XML goes through multiple transformations before ultimately
> appearing as HTML in a browser,a nd our authros understand that any one of
> those processes (or an unsupported browser/version) could cause the final
> product to display differently than expected.
>
> Having said all that, XML tables are something of a paradox, since they are
> inherently layout-specific.
>

[ClayHelberg]

Hi Paul-



(Hand raised.)



To amplify, I think this is a critical point, and one of the most
important concepts of structured authoring: that the optimal format for
creating content may not be the same as the optimal format for
presenting (reading) it. This is why it's important to shake authors out
of the WYSIWYG mindset, so they can focus on optimizing content rather
than aiming for a specific output appearance.



This topic (screen stylesheets and why they matter) is a great one, and
would have value far beyond the usual audience of XML geeks like those
of us on this list. If done right, it would be something that would help
authors understand why they shouldn't expect the editor screen to look
like their generated PDF-and why that's a Good Thing(tm) (at least in
many circumstances).



--Clay



Clay Helberg

Senior Consultant

TerraXML

[ptc-1908075]

Hi Paul!
Would you or others be interested in getting together on this?
Suzanne

[ptc-1908075]

Thanks, Clay, for articulating thisissue so well!
Suzanne

[ptc-1908075]

Hi Kathleen!

"WYSIWYG is last-century technology" is my slogan, and I am delighted to hear the idea is catching on 🙂


However, I'm not quite following you on the comment below. Are you referring to "generic markup" such as <h1> and

?

Suzanne Napoleon
www.FOSIexpert.com
"WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"

[ebenton]

Hi Suzanne,
As you know, we edit in XML and output SGML, so the screen FOSI is important in our world. I might be able to contribute something to this discussion.

BTW, I think you might want to make your email font a little smaller. I can still read it with the naked eye. It seems that you must be trying to get to the magnifying-glass size. 😉

[ptc-1908075]

Clay,

Let's plan on teaming up on this! Anyone else?

My apologies to all about the font size. My mailer wants it to be 8pt or 14pt. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.

Suzanne

[bibach]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Suzanne Napoleon
<suzannenapoleon@fosiexpert.com> wrote:
> My apologies to all about the font size. My mailer wants it to be 8pt or
> 14pt. I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.

Plain-text email messages! Fancy-schmantzy fonts and colors are
last-century technology. 😉

-Brandon 🙂

[ptc-1787870]

Not if your E-mail program supports FOSI!

[ptc-1908075]

I am a typographer at heart, so that would never work for me.
🙂
Suzanne

[ClayHelberg]

*That* would be something to see....

Clay Helberg
Senior Consultant
TerraXML

[bibach]

Hmm... smells like an Arbortext Monster Garage session for next year.
Wiring up Arbortext Editor as a front-end to some email-handling
components...

Arborlook? Outbortext? Eubora? aMail? (Props to James for the
"aThing" concept...)

-Brandon 🙂