Hi all, I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area. Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea of how this would look like. Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen 3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or text content. http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygen20040127.jpg Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area.
I assumes the attention where the cursor is -- not the center, right? I am -1 on this. I like to see everything crisply.
Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea of how this would look like.
Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen 3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or text content.
I would love to have Apache Ant intergration, similar to how you can run builds in eclipse. best, -Rob
Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
_______________________________________________ oXygen-user mailing list oXygen-user@oxygenxml.com http://www.oxygenxml.com/mailman/listinfo/oxygen-user
Hi Rob,
I would love to have Apache Ant intergration, similar to how you can run builds in eclipse.
You should be able to configure an external tool to execute ant, see Options->Preferences -- External tools. Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi Rob,
I would love to have Apache Ant intergration, similar to how you can run builds in eclipse.
You should be able to configure an external tool to execute ant, see Options->Preferences -- External tools.
Cool. ...I just tried it by defining the working directory as the location of my build.xml and then 'ant' as my command line (/project/@default='all'). It gives: CreateProcess: ant error=2 Process ended with exit code -1 The build file works fine when used from the command line (JDK 1.4.2, Ant 1.6.0, cygwin on winXP in the case I tried). --- I did some quick searching and found no clear solution. It is a simple build file that does a bunch of transforms. It uses only Core Tasks. I also tried 'ant all' as the command line and get the same error. Any ideas? ---------- On another note, is there any info available about building plugins for Oxygen? Perhaps all we might need is the source for the existing plugins, especially (for me), the source for the schema documentation plugin. I don't mean the XSL file, rather the java to show an example of how we hook into Oxygen core. I have a few ideas for plugins; one being an Ant interface, another being using Oxygen as an interface for our CMS. best, -Rob
Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
Hi Robert,
...I just tried it by defining the working directory as the location of my build.xml and then 'ant' as my command line (/project/@default='all').
It gives:
CreateProcess: ant error=2 Process ended with exit code -1
Try to set the command line to ant.bat. I gave it a try and it works fine.
On another note, is there any info available about building plugins for Oxygen? Perhaps all we might need is the source for the existing plugins, especially (for me), the source for the schema documentation plugin. I don't mean the XSL file, rather the java to show an example of how we hook into Oxygen core. I have a few ideas for plugins; one being an Ant interface, another being using Oxygen as an interface for our CMS.
Have a look at http://www.oxygenxml.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=286 As I said there, the plugin support in the standalone version is quite limited and it was developed at user requests so feel free to discuss with us your needs. Best Regards, George
George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi Robert,
...I just tried it by defining the working directory as the location of my build.xml and then 'ant' as my command line (/project/@default='all').
It gives:
CreateProcess: ant error=2 Process ended with exit code -1
Try to set the command line to ant.bat. I gave it a try and it works fine.
that worked
On another note, is there any info available about building plugins for Oxygen? Perhaps all we might need is the source for the existing plugins, especially (for me), the source for the schema documentation plugin. I don't mean the XSL file, rather the java to show an example of how we hook into Oxygen core. I have a few ideas for plugins; one being an Ant interface, another being using Oxygen as an interface for our CMS.
Have a look at http://www.oxygenxml.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=286
Cool. The API is all I need. You mention Eclipse as the way to extend oXygen. I would like to avoid that because the clients (cms admin/users) I have in mind are relatively non technical and I fear Eclipse would overwhelm them. But I guess it is an option.
As I said there, the plugin support in the standalone version is quite limited and it was developed at user requests so feel free to discuss with us your needs.
OK. I am not ready to devote time right now--currently trying to get our next major release out and business has been booming. I would need to get access to the UI to create nav/topic/project/asset trees, tabs+controls and property windows. I would also need a unique search interface (currently using Lucene to index XML content/configuration). I use XML configurations for these and could of course transform them to a required schema or java code. I will email you (offlist) some ideas when I get more time. thanks, -Rob
Best Regards, George
Robert Koberg wrote:
George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi Robert,
Try to set the command line to ant.bat. I gave it a try and it works fine.
that worked
I am noticing one thing that behaves differently when running a build file from the (cygwin) command line and running the exact same build file through oxygen. It involves running a transformation that uses an Ant xmlcatalog element. The xsl:include/import's work, but the document function does not go to the resolver. It just uses the identifier, for example with the xmlcatalog below: <xsl:apply-templates select="document('placeholder')"/> should resolve to: ${project.content.dir}/placeholder.xml but it resolves to the working dir adding the identifier. A transformation looks like: ... <xslt in="${project.site.xml}" out="${project.dev.dir}/feeds/index.html" reloadstylesheet="no" style="${project.xslt}"> <param expression="${publish.timestamp}" name="date_time"/> <xmlcatalog refid="lsb_catalog"/> </xslt> ... The xmlcatalog looks like: <xmlcatalog id="lsb_catalog"> <entity location="${lsb.global_defs.xslt}" publicId="global_definitions.xsl"/> <entity location="${lsb.common.xslt}" publicId="common.xsl"/> <entity location="${project.content.dir}/placeholder.xml" publicId="placeholder"/> </xmlcatalog> Again, the same build.xml works when using the command line with cygwin. This is not a huge issue, but something is getting messed up. I remember some Jaxp option but I can't find it now. I got an update message when I restarted oXygen today, so I updated. Now I don't see a Jaxp preference. I am pretty sure I set it to org.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl. Could some lingering setting be affecting the transformation. For example, the URIResolver is getting set correctly on the factory, but not on the Transformer?? best, -Rob
My first reaction was that fading text out does not make any sense. If I don't want to see that much text then I can resize the window (and I never do that). On the other hand being a totally new idea I could miss something, we always say no to something new. Did you see this behavior in some other editor? Other options would be to fade out lines not by proximity but by context. In a programming language you could fade out code outside the current function or block you are editing. In XML you could use the current tag and a few parent tags as the context. Marius
-----Original Message----- From: oxygen-user-bounces@oxygenxml.com [mailto:oxygen-user-bounces@oxygenxml.com]On Behalf Of George Cristian Bina Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 8:37 AM To: oxygen-user@oxygenxml.com Subject: [oXygen-user] Comments about a possible new feature
Hi all,
I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area. Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea of how this would look like.
Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen 3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or text content.
http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygen20040127.jpg
Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
_______________________________________________ oXygen-user mailing list oXygen-user@oxygenxml.com http://www.oxygenxml.com/mailman/listinfo/oxygen-user
Hi George, In message "[oXygen-user] Comments about a possible new feature" At Tue, 27 Jan 2004 18:37:09 +0200 "George Cristian Bina" <george@oxygenxml.com>-san writes. Message-ID: <05c501c3e4f3$d01a8290$1300000a@spelling> |I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade |the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area. |Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea |of how this would look like. It may get interesting impression. I don't think it is useful. Actually our brain could focus the important area unconsciously. I think. IMHO, you'd better focus to other useful functions.. |Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen |3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or |text content. It looks nice! |http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygen20040127.jpg Thanks, -- Hiroshi
No, I would not find this useful. How would oxygen know what part of the document I am examining? Peter Charles -----Original Message----- From: oxygen-user-bounces@oxygenxml.com [mailto:oxygen-user-bounces@oxygenxml.com] On Behalf Of George Cristian Bina Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 8:37 AM To: oxygen-user@oxygenxml.com Subject: [oXygen-user] Comments about a possible new feature Hi all, I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area. Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea of how this would look like. Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen 3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or text content. http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygen20040127.jpg Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/ _______________________________________________ oXygen-user mailing list oXygen-user@oxygenxml.com http://www.oxygenxml.com/mailman/listinfo/oxygen-user
Hi George, On Tuesday 27 January 2004 17:37, George Cristian Bina wrote:
I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area. Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea of how this would look like.
I would not prefer such a fading facility. For me the UI becomes less readable. Especially reading documents from top to bottom becomes more difficult. Another option would be: to integrate a collapse/expand facility in the *editor window*. And add buttons/functions to easily expand / collapse (several) subtrees. There are many other IDEs/source editors which allow such collapsing/expanding.
Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen 3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or text content.
This looks great :-) Kind regards, Manfred
Hi Manfred,
Another option would be: to integrate a collapse/expand facility in the *editor window*. And add buttons/functions to easily expand / collapse (several) subtrees. There are many other IDEs/source editors which allow such collapsing/expanding.
We thought about this. To be able to implement it we needed to know the document stucture. The model behind the outliner provides exactly this so we got closer. Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
On Tuesday 27 January 2004 18:37, George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to ask you how you feel about adding the possibility to fade the lines that are not in the center of the attention in the editing area. Do you find this useful ? Please look at the snapshot below to get an idea of how this would look like.
Also you may see in the screenshot an actual feature that will go in oXygen 3.1 in February: the outliner will be able to show some attibutes and/or text content.
Hello George, First, thanks for requesting user input. It is rare if ever that users get the opportunity to do so. SyncRO has been consistent about receiving user feedback and I believe that this has in a small way helped to make Oxygen the great XML Editor that it is. I sat and pondered long and hard about the fade feature. As a person who sits about 75% of the day infront of Oxygen and uses it to author documents I tried to imagine and animate this feature in my minds eye. I did this for about twenty minutes and ran through a number of thoughts related to usability etc. I then opened Oxygen and tried the same exercise using a long document. The result was amazing. My focus was immediately drawn to the portion of text that I would be editing. My focus was cleaner and I was less distracted by the on screen surroundings. It almost created a window or view panel inside the page. Other parts of the interface were also taken out of focus. I then left and had a cup of coffee. When I returned I realized just how long it took me to locate my position on a screen that on average displays about 40 lines (I set my font to serif 16 as this is less tiring on the eyes). I then went and watch the news, this time when I returned I looked at your image. My focus was immediately drawn to the darker area. This is a natural neuro-optical reflex described by, I think, Carl Jung but don't ask me for a reference. I know that when I am working, I am intensely focused on a text area. Over the years I have learned to filter out desktop items such as the taskbar and the menu/toolbars of the editor. Perhaps this would further assist this automatic and natural reflex of the mind. I cannot for certain say whether or not this feature would have a positive or negative impact while editing. I ask myself, will it create a tunnel vision and therefore induce eye strain and headache? I would have to try it for a day.
From a pure esthetic perspective it does look good, but looks should not go above functionality, preservation of resources and usability.
I don't think that everyone will enjoy using this feature unless they could draw some benefit in the way of productivity or an aid thereto. Many years of working in an editing interface that is without hue or depth has moulded our perception of how an editor page view should look. Some people find it hard to author in amongst the tags. In a word processor many people that they cannot edit while control characters are shown. Many people report that the addition of any feature other than those associated with formatting is a distraction. Will this have the same effect? Interestingly, most people do become accustomed to having these so called distractions amongst there text. There seems to be a point where they cannot work without them. It starts with the person having to accept the use for a purpose and gradually becomes the norm. Thereafter they find it difficult to work without these controls. So perhaps it should not be a default, but an option. I for one would love to try the effects, it would make an interesting article:-) Perhaps you could expand on the rational for introducing this feature. HTH, -- Sean Wheller
Thank you for your replies. I found this idea back in August while reading an weblog entry that had a reference to oXygen. I tried to find that and finally got it: http://www.xml-blog.com/archives/000131.html Then this idea came back these days and yesterday I took 10 minutes and hacked the view to apply an alpha on the lines from 1 to 15 and from 25 on, leaving the 15-25 range to display normally. You saw the result. I want to clarify that our focus is on important XML related features (we do not waste the time :), this is just a possible feature and that is why I wanted to get some feedback. Also if we will add such a feature it will not be the default. I thought that the lines displayed normally should be around the cursor. Also there should be available some parameters to configure how many lines should be presented normally, the alpha factor and the minimum alpha factor to avoid the text to disappear completely for areas that are far from the focus zone. I'm sure that also adding some document structure knowledge as Marius suggested should be an interesting option. I think we have to try it for real before giving it up. So I will try to link it to the current line and make that available for tests on a few days. Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
Hi,
I think we have to try it for real before giving it up. So I will try to link it to the current line and make that available for tests on a few days.
I created a prototype for this, to get it working you have to replace oxygen.jar with http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygenFade.jar Make sure you put the old oxygen.jar in some other directory because the jars are loaded at runtime by oXygen an if you leave it there renamed then it is possible to be loaded before the new jar. Also keep the old oxygen.jar to be able to restore your installation. Comments welcome! All the best, George
On Wednesday 04 February 2004 09:35, George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi,
I think we have to try it for real before giving it up. So I will try to link it to the current line and make that available for tests on a few
days.
I created a prototype for this, to get it working you have to replace oxygen.jar with http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygenFade.jar
Make sure you put the old oxygen.jar in some other directory because the jars are loaded at runtime by oXygen an if you leave it there renamed then it is possible to be loaded before the new jar. Also keep the old oxygen.jar to be able to restore your installation.
Comments welcome!
Thanks George will test it over the next few days. -- Sean Wheller
On Wednesday 04 February 2004 16:32, Sean Wheller wrote:
On Wednesday 04 February 2004 09:35, George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi,
I think we have to try it for real before giving it up. So I will try to link it to the current line and make that available for tests on a few
days.
I created a prototype for this, to get it working you have to replace oxygen.jar with http://www.oxygenxml.com/update/oxygenFade.jar
Make sure you put the old oxygen.jar in some other directory because the jars are loaded at runtime by oXygen an if you leave it there renamed then it is possible to be loaded before the new jar. Also keep the old oxygen.jar to be able to restore your installation.
Comments welcome!
Thanks George will test it over the next few days.
I am editing. The fade feature is taking a little getting used to. I am accustomed to being able to scan a whole score. When I am looking for a particular word, the fade area gets in my way. Where previously I would look over the page and the general area in which I think the word is, locate it and then insert the cursor to that position using the mouse. I now find myself looking at the outline view to identify the para in which the word resides, then selecting the node in outline, then locating the word, and then inserting the cursor. At this point I am not sure if this is productive or not. Is this forced use of the outline view a better work practice? Time will tell, but the new outline view features are nothing short of "sexy". Keep it. I have noted that the fade feature does have the effect of depreciating the handling of memory resources. The GUI menus, toolbar and left side pane that surround the page pane become plain grey blocks when I toggle back to oxygen after using another application. I have 1 GB and I have set oxygen to use 256MB. This does rectify itself when I starting typing or after a short pause. This does not happen with the NON FADE version. The difference is really apparent when I constrain mem to 128. Even at 256MB using the down or up keys to navigate in these directions is difficult to control. The FADE seems to delay response and hence I am pressing up or down too many times. The result is I am often overshooting my mark or losing my whereabouts. I must revert back to the standard version as the effect of the FADE is to intrusive on my natural work habits. I have been using this feature for about two hours now. It is slowing my work. I don't think that it is because I just need adjusting. I normally adjust very easily to different editing environments. George, I don't think this feature is worth it. That's my opinion, I have tried to keep an open mind on this. I initially thought it would be an aid to my work, but in practice I now think that I agree with the positions posted by other users. -- Sean Wheller
Hi Sean, Thanks for your feedback. Indeed there is a performance issue but this should be ignored because I just made it work without paying attention to performance. The idea was to show it in action without investing too much time. I also find it a little difficult to use and probably we will drop it unless we get some positive feedback :). However, I think the alpha effect can be really useful in a little different approach. We can have a smart button like the one for external tools that will show 3 options: - normal view - emphasize text - emphasize structure When the user will choose emphasize text we can fade out the markup and when the user will choose emphasize structure we can fade out the text. The normal view will show the current syntax coloring without any effect. Best Regards, George
George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi Sean,
Thanks for your feedback. Indeed there is a performance issue but this should be ignored because I just made it work without paying attention to performance. The idea was to show it in action without investing too much time. I also find it a little difficult to use and probably we will drop it unless we get some positive feedback :). However, I think the alpha effect can be really useful in a little different approach. We can have a smart button like the one for external tools that will show 3 options: - normal view - emphasize text - emphasize structure When the user will choose emphasize text we can fade out the markup and when the user will choose emphasize structure we can fade out the text. The normal view will show the current syntax coloring without any effect.
I like this. If you have Bradbury's Topstyle they have an menu Option HTML > Grey HTML Tags that you can see in action. This made me think of another to add to your list above -- don't know if is useful or not:) That is, click in a start or end tag and two toggle buttons pr menu items are enabled: 1. change the coloring of this tag to a light grey wherever it occurs (note I did not say element) 2. change all other tags to grey Also, I could use a WSDL editor view :) best, -Rob
Best Regards, George
Hi Rob,
Also, I could use a WSDL editor view :)
Oxygen can be used to edit WSDL documents, there is also a new document template for WSDL. If you have them with other extension than .xml you can just associate that with the oXygen XML editor. In the standalone version you can do this from Options->Preferences -- File types and in Eclipse from Window->Preferences -- Workbench/File Associations. Best Regards, George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Cristian Bina mailto:george@oxygenxml.com <oXygen/> XML Editor - http://www.oxygenxml.com/
George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi Rob,
Also, I could use a WSDL editor view :)
Oxygen can be used to edit WSDL documents, there is also a new document template for WSDL. If you have them with other extension than .xml you can just associate that with the oXygen XML editor. In the standalone version you can do this from Options->Preferences -- File types and in Eclipse from Window->Preferences -- Workbench/File Associations.
Haven't looked at the templates before :( I was adding the schemaLocation incorrectly. thanks, -Rob
Best Regards, George
On Wednesday 04 February 2004 22:12, George Cristian Bina wrote:
Hi Sean,
Thanks for your feedback. Indeed there is a performance issue but this should be ignored because I just made it work without paying attention to performance. The idea was to show it in action without investing too much time. I also find it a little difficult to use and probably we will drop it unless we get some positive feedback :). However, I think the alpha effect can be really useful in a little different approach. We can have a smart button like the one for external tools that will show 3 options: - normal view - emphasize text - emphasize structure When the user will choose emphasize text we can fade out the markup and when the user will choose emphasize structure we can fade out the text. The normal view will show the current syntax coloring without any effect.
Best Regards, George
Sounds good. -- Sean Wheller
participants (7)
-
George Cristian Bina -
Hiroshi Okugawa -
Manfred Schneider -
Marius Scurtescu -
Peter Charles -
Robert Koberg -
Sean Wheller