. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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 *)
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www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072
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