On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 8:46 PM, Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
The current <ref>...</ref>...<references/> system produces nice references, but it is flawed--all the text contained in a given reference appears in the text that the reference is linked from. For example:
[snip]
Once way I could conceive of correcting the problem is to have a reference tag that provides only a _link_ to the note via a label and another type of reference tag that actually _defines_ and _displays_ the note. For example:
[snip]
Thats a lot like what we used to do, the problem is that references were *constantly* orphaned, scrambled, etc. The references were often nonsense.
My view is that the current behavior is bad mostly because it makes it very hard to read the text in edit, you get this wall of meaningless markup.
Instead I propose: Have javascript mediate the edit box so that inline references are converted to little red [R] text, moving your cursor into the [R] area by clicking or arrowkeying causes it to expand to display the full reference. You can add references by simply typing them like normal and then they'll collapse when you navigate away, or you can press some "insert reference" button that pops up a dialog that asks for the relevant information which then types the completed reference for you.
This type of hiding could also be applied to other common inline markup and dramatically improve usability.
This type of edit box mediation has been done by other edit-helper userscripts, so it's certainly possible.
Thoughts?