Comments on: The Invisible Formatting Tag Problem http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/ Living in a state of accord. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:41:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Symphonious » Almost All WYSIWYG Text Editors Suck? http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-33757 Symphonious » Almost All WYSIWYG Text Editors Suck? Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:23:18 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/#comment-33757 [...] Not so. In fact, the Swing text APIs are far more based on an attributed text array than on a tree structure (as I've previously noted). There is a tree structure present, but it's a secondary structure to the text array which brings it much closer to the user's mental model of the document. [...] [...] Not so. In fact, the Swing text APIs are far more based on an attributed text array than on a tree structure (as I've previously noted). There is a tree structure present, but it's a secondary structure to the text array which brings it much closer to the user's mental model of the document. [...]

]]> By: Adrian Sutton http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-20428 Adrian Sutton Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:14:33 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/#comment-20428 As I quoted, "[t]he problem of the invisible formatting goes directly to the heart of the limitations of WYSIWYG editors". There is no invisible formatting here and need not be as I've shown. The problem of the deleting of a hyperlink is an expected behavior of Outlook, it's in the requirements. Whether or not that decision was a good one can be argued, but it is no different than arguing whether or not HTML is a good markup language instead of whether markup languages are good or not. Just as there are different ways of handling formatting and structure in a graphical editor, there are different ways of rendering HTML markup and interpreting user actions in a text editor which may not be intuitive to the user. As I quoted, “[t]he problem of the invisible formatting goes directly to the heart of the limitations of WYSIWYG editors”. There is no invisible formatting here and need not be as I’ve shown. The problem of the deleting of a hyperlink is an expected behavior of Outlook, it’s in the requirements. Whether or not that decision was a good one can be argued, but it is no different than arguing whether or not HTML is a good markup language instead of whether markup languages are good or not.

Just as there are different ways of handling formatting and structure in a graphical editor, there are different ways of rendering HTML markup and interpreting user actions in a text editor which may not be intuitive to the user.

]]> By: Alastair http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-20407 Alastair Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:36:54 +0000 http://www.symphonious.net/2006/06/12/the-invisible-formatting-tag-problem/#comment-20407 I suspect you're quite right in supposing that most editors do not use internal formatting tags inline with the text being edited. But I didn't make that assumption. All I said was that the formatting tag - whether inline or maintained by an offset in a separate data structure - was deleted when the immediately-preceding character was deleted. This is observed behaviour, and should not be controversial. Either way, it doesn't invalidate my argument, namely that there are different ways of handling the offsets/tags when the underlying text is edited, and these may not be intuitive to the user. I suspect you’re quite right in supposing that most editors do not use internal formatting tags inline with the text being edited. But I didn’t make that assumption. All I said was that the formatting tag – whether inline or maintained by an offset in a separate data structure – was deleted when the immediately-preceding character was deleted. This is observed behaviour, and should not be controversial.

Either way, it doesn’t invalidate my argument, namely that there are different ways of handling the offsets/tags when the underlying text is edited, and these may not be intuitive to the user.

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