But that doesn’t mean you can cop out on trying to explore and develop a better way to facilitate rich text and markup by saying “it doesn’t need that because it’s now what we are trying to do”. I’m not a huge fan of traditional WYSIWYG design, it usually either gets in the way or places buttons somewhere I have to leave the keyboard to click on. When collaborating it is imperitive that users have the ability to describe their ideas as well as possible, this means rich text and markup. The reason they don’t, and don’t have any reason, to support more advanced markup is that the user who is typing the data is putting down their thoughts and doesn’t, and shouldn’t, be bothered with markup or UI that is intended to facilitate better quantifying and description of their thoughts. WriteBoard and stickies take a fairly Jef Raskin approach to their UI design, complete auto-save and a type-and-go approach that allows people to just write. WriteBoard is intended for collaboration, which means that it’s intended purpose is to write quantifiable data and share that with other people who can contribute. I’m in complete disagreement with you for one simple reason, writeboard is _not_ WriteRoom and is _not_ stickies. Writers that choose otherwise apparently care more about their own writing experience than their readers’ reading experience. In short, a truly reader-focused writer wants the most control possible over the text, and then wants to see the text just as the reader will see it- WYSIWYG. A reader-focused writer wants to ensure that the reader isn’t annoyed, confused, or repulsed by any aspect of the look of the text, right down to the serifs on the font. A reader-focused writer knows that a reader is extremely visual, and will want to use text size, weight, color, and whitespace to prioritize the content so that the important points are understood even if the rest is skimmed. That’s because many writers don’t care to see their text the way their readers will- for them, the text is the goal, the reader is just the excuse to justify the self-indulgence of writing.īut for writers who find it more important to achieve a purpose with their writing than to write for its own sake, then the focus is on the act of READING, not writing. Many writers seem to think of the stream of words as their sole tool- formatting is an afterthought. And when you’re about to write that’s all you should be ready to do: write. When you sit down to one of those you’re ready to write. Writing tools like Writeboard and the pleasantly austere WriteRoom (for Mac OS X) take their cues from blank pieces of paper or typewriters. Once you’ve got the words right you can take that text and process it in a word processor or page layout program later. The keyboard and the return key is all you need. Just hiding the icon-crazy toolbar won’t do it either - the temptation to bring it back is too strong. Either bolding this or italicizing that or centering the headline or inserting a table or tweaking the margins or changing the font and sizes or adding color or… That’s word processing or page layout. It’s taking what you’ve written and doing stuff with it. That’s because it’s a writing tool, not a word processor. One of the criticisms we get from time to time about Writeboard is that it doesn’t have WYSIWYG formatting or fancy layout tools. Click the Insert Control, and a new column or row will be inserted at that location.A world of difference between writing and word processing Jason 52 comments Insert Controls appear outside your table when you move your cursor just above or to the left of two columns or rows. If you’re using a touch device, use the mini toolbar, described above. Use Insert Controls to add rows and columns On the mini toolbar, click Insert and choose where you’d like to insert the row or column. To open the mini toolbar, right-click in a table cell or tap in a selected table cell next to where you want to add a row or column. Use the mini toolbar to add rows and columns If you have a mouse, another option is to use Insert Controls. One quick way to add rows and columns to a table is to use the mini toolbar that opens when you're in a table. If you've created links to this page, please remove them, and together we'll keep the web connected. To prevent "Page not found" woes, we're removing links we know about. Note: This article has done its job, and will be retiring soon.
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