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Subject:Re: Decoupling editing and printing From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:01:45 -0700
At 01:57 PM 8/20/99 -0400, Sandy Harris wrote:
>Tossing out some likely fairly controversial notions...
>about the distinction between things an author should
>control and things the display or printing program, using a style
>sheet for its user's preferences, should control.
>
>...On one job...some writers had used a lot of hard page breaks...
>Then the product was sold ...
>There was a lot of busywork that needed doing before
>they got what they needed.
>
>Methinks the computer should do the busywork...
>Period. If it needs manual intervention or custom
>scripts, something is broken.
I'm not sure that you're being controversial, Sandy. At least,
you're not being as controversial about this as I'm about to be.
Because it isn't that the software that's broken; the software --
be it Word, Frame, WinHelp, or HTML in a browser -- works very
well. It's a control issue. We attempt to control every aspect
of a document's appearance (whether it's online or paper-based)
without really knowing how or having a good reason why. *We* are
what's broken. (How's that for controversial???<g>)
When I was writing and speaking about online help back in
the early/mid 90s, I maintained that we should accept system
defaults whenever possible and a very good friend of mine was
developing a super-whiz-bang help system for a client of hers.
When I "called" her on controlling colors in her help files, her
response was, "well, I *had* to; some users were using the
Windows *Hotdog* color scheme!" And my response was, "So!"
I'm always amazed when I take a doc from another company and
there are 47 bizillion styles in their style sheet. Why???
Where is the consistancy in a doc that has twelve different
body paragraph definitions????
And all of the bloated code that WYSIWYG HTML editors insert--
they use font size and font face and emphasis and bold and
turn things on and off a dozen times when <H1>...</H1> is all
that's really necessary.
I somehow manage just fine using a style sheet with a meger 25
defined styles. My headings are all set to stay with the following
paragraph and I've turned on widow/orphan control, so manual page
breaks are few and far between in my docs. I really can change a
document's appearance just by slapping on another style sheet.
And I've delivered dozens of online docs without resetting user-
defined defaults. I'm a guest on my user's desktop and I do
everything I can do to make sure I'm welcome back for another visit.
All of these "extra" controls, whether they be manual page breaks
or cascading style sheets, were invented for our comfort. The
software doesn't really need them, and neither does the end-user.
And so, here it is almost 5 p.m. Pacific Time on a Friday afternoon
and I'll send this little bit of controversy off to cyberspace where
it'll sit and sizzle on a dozen servers over the weekend. Come Monday,
our little bit of controversy (mine augmenting yours) will jumpstart
a few pacemakers and send the price of coffee stock skyrocketing!
