Re: [xsl] What is the best approach for doing.....

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:38 AM 5/12/2004, David wrote:
> Actually I'm horrified that anyone would _want_ to edit the document in
> its expanded form with all cross references etc explict. I've not used
> such a primitive authoring environment since at least the early eighties
> Wouldn't your users have a more pleasant experience if they could author
> an xml source and just use named links and xrefs and just "know" that
> the system will generate a correctly linked/numbered document at the end
> rather than in a system where they are looking at a link to "paragraph
> 2" which should now be paragraph 3 as something has been inserted?

As a couple of readers of this list recall, this was the exact issue 
explored in an excellent session of Extreme Markup Languages last August in 
Montreal.

It seems the problem reduces to the fact that some users like it the "right 
way" (as David describes it), but others just cannot shake the expectations 
of WYSIWYG, and have a terrible time working at a more abstract level even 
when it's both more robust, and gives a better indication of what's 
actually going on. It is tempting to think that well-designed UIs would 
help, but mileage with them apparently varies quite a bit.

The care and feeding of users. Not a trivial problem.

Cheers,
Wendell



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