I would like to apologize for being unnecessarily rude in defending my invention. I hope it's understandable that after spending several hours working on something, you become a bit defensive about it. Especially as I developed this not for me, but to help newbies.
I still would like to suggest that we wait for some general feedback regarding the "Click + get example text" feature before deciding to show no toolbar at all for some browsers, i.e. that we run it for a trial period of a couple of weeks. Maybe that will also lead to some ideas on how to improve it without turning it off. The following should work in all browsers, in case you have any ideas: - change a textfield - overwrite it, append to it etc. - change the status bar (at the bottom of the window) - show a messagebox - show a popup window
I have also contacted several Mozilla developers to search for a workaround of the scrolling bug which I've reported.
Regards,
Erik
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
((Sorry for only writing and sending this now))
Hi Erik,
I'm happy that this invention is at least discussed properly now.
One thing I want to do is to hint you to read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability
not because I think you don't know about usability, but because I think it is helpful to be remembered once and then that an important point about usability is that it isn't about "using the <whatever> right", but about: "doing the <whatever> in a way that it is used right with minimal learning in every condition". And if the condition is so that a special <whatever> isn't possible, it just isn't possible. No workaround ;-)
I still would like to suggest that we wait for some general feedback regarding the "Click + get example text" feature before deciding to show no toolbar at all for some browsers, i.e. that we run it for a trial period of a couple of weeks.
The bar with the example text field works in ((Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; de-DE; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120)) Netscape/7.01, which I am using. If it is used as an "example-repositiory", this could be made more obvious (what about a "WIKI HELPBAR" in front of the buttons?). The examples could be improved -- "<math>Insert formula here</math>" should inform about using TeX syntax, and "<nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki>" maybe is more informativ if it sounds "<nowiki>Insert text here ignoring wiki syntax</nowiki>"?
If this should work in a help-bar mode and in an edit-bar mode, it should be made obvious which mode one is in (for example: at my workplace, I use (have to use) IE, at home I use Netscape or Mozilla. If it works differently on different browsers, that should be made clear, or confusion will arise). Maybe even an IE user would find the help bar mode more helpful and wants to turn it to this?
Another idea: Make the help-bar CSS/Javascript-enable-able on the edit page. So, if you edit something, the first thing you see is only something like a "HELP BUTTON" (dont panic in large friendly letters). If you press the "HELP BUTTON", a help area is made visible in the edit page above the text edit field. This help area consists of three elements: the help bar, labeled as such with the icons (and even some more?), an example display area, and a larger help text area. The help text area reads texts on the specific topic from the Wikipedia namespace.
For example (you have pressed the "IMG" button):
[HELP BAR] [B] [/A/] [_U_] ... [IMG] [ [[Image:Example-Image.jpg]] ] [ If you want to use images on a page, ] [ you use the [[Image:...]] syntax. For ] [ proper formating the image, put some ] [ <div style:...> in front and after the] [ img ... ]
This text could be extracted from a standard editable wikipedia page, say "Wikipedia:Edithelp on Images" ((I took this example, because I often forget how I move an image to the left or right side, and have to wade thru lots of help text until I find it. Same with math syntax ...))
What do you think?
__ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
Till-
For example (you have pressed the "IMG" button):
[HELP BAR] [B] [/A/] [_U_] ... [IMG] [ [[Image:Example-Image.jpg]] ] [ If you want to use images on a page, ] [ you use the [[Image:...]] syntax. For ] [ proper formating the image, put some ] [ <div style:...> in front and after the] [ img ... ]
Yes, that is one possibility I've thought about. I also agree that some of the example texts are unhelpful - they were not written with the help bar in mind.
However, before I experiment further with the help bar, I'll try building a downgraded version of the toolbar which works with prompt() instead of the text selection (so you get a message box asking you to enter text in bold, instead of being able to select+click, in browsers which do not support it). The text could either be appended at the end (with a notice in the messagebox saying so) or put in an input box like the example text box. In the latter case, the text could be auto-selected for easy copy & pasting.
We have the following at our disposal in most browsers: -prompt() and alert() -overwrite form field contents -append at beginning or end -focus form elements
Setting form elements visible/invisible is probably not possible in some old browsers (NS 4 etc.).
Regards,
Erik
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