Xref: utzoo rec.arts.sf-lovers:58560 rec.arts.fine:287 comp.editors:3063 comp.text:8300 rec.arts.books:21100 rec.arts.poems:11628 bit.listserv.literary:584 alt.prose:1000 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!news.cs.indiana.edu!rutgers!njin!njitgw.njit.edu!hertz.njit.edu!ken From: ken@hertz.njit.edu (ken ng cccc) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,rec.arts.fine,comp.editors,comp.text,rec.arts.books,rec.arts.poems,bit.listserv.literary,alt.prose Subject: Re: What do writers want from a word processor? Message-ID: <1991Apr22.145525.10150@njitgw.njit.edu> Date: 22 Apr 91 14:55:25 GMT References: Sender: news@njit.edu Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J. Lines: 76 Nntp-Posting-Host: hertz.njit.edu In article francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu writes: :I'd also appreciate hearing negative feedback, and stuff fuzzier than :features (interface problems, for example). I would say that some of the things I would want are functionality, consistency, customizing, and performance (gee, doesn't everyone?). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Functionality: for starters, the ability to make symbolic references to page numbers, sections, figures, heading sections, anything. A word processor that does not have symbolic references just isn't useable for anything that is more than 2 pages long. Another part of functionality is to make the interface more high level. Look at SGML or MicroSoft Word 'style sheets' for examples. These provide ways of making it easy to provide a standardized set of parameters for things like indenting, fonts, paging, etc. It was truely a pain in the ass several years ago to go through every paragraph in a report and take off the right justification because the instructor found he didn't like right justification. SGML markups would help make the conversion a lot easier. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Consistency: MicroSoft Word used to be my favorite editor to pick on because it had so much wrong in its interface design. Most of the following examples of problems have been fixed, but a few still remain: You could use the arrow keys on the text screen but you had to use the space bar on the menus. You most of the time had to use the space bar to go through the various options, but sometimes you HAD to use the tab key. When you load a file, you could hit f1 to get a list of the files, but it still does not let you program a file extension (at least not that I have found). (The default is fine as long as you want all word files with '.DOC' as a suffix, but I use '.WRD' to seperate word files from real doc files.) Certain fields will let you enter characters where only numbers are permitted. There is no error detect, the program just barfs its guts. Furthermore blanks in some fields are legal. Here we have a consistency problem, you must use blanks to goto the next field, but sometimes the blanks instead go into the field you are currently in! You can now use arrow keys to go through menu items, sometimes, but to choose the items on the particular item (for example format-paragraph- justification) you MUST use the space bar to choose, arrow keys don't work. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Customizing: here is one place where Xedit shows its teeth, its got SO MANY bloody customizing facilities that I doubt anyone knows what they all do. BUT: I think it is impossible to truely anticipate ANYTHING the user may want. Instead provide a REAL macro language with the capability to do anything the user can do, as well as stuff arb data to the screen. When I say REAL macro language, I mean one where one can put if/then/else statements in (vi's :map doesn't cut it). In that way, the user can provide missing/custom facilities that you may not have anticipated. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, in my opinion, no text processor around fulfils all the above requirements. Granted, I have not tried all the text processors in the world :-). The environment where I do the best work currently is IBM's VM XEDIT and their SCRIPT/GML package. In spite of having to work with an ancient 3270 screen, it allows me to get the work done faster there than any other package I have tried to date. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- :then) is just what he wants. I decided to try to fill the niche (and :make the data available to others, who may have a better shot at :succeeding :-). Gonna publish the results of all this discussion? Kenneth Ng "No problem, this is how you make it" -- R. Barclay, ST: TNG