Future of Nvu, questions
By glazou on Saturday 15 October 2005, 19:42 - Nvu - Permalink
Please use the comments ONLY to reply to the questions. Do NOT use this as a tribune for your Requests for Enhancements, bug reports, suggestions, whatever. All comments outside of the scope will be removed.
So, what do you think of the following extensions for the future of Nvu?
- a basic image editor for PNG, JPG and GIF: rotation, stretching, shades of gray and other basic transformations and filters.
- enhanced site manager: copy and paste, drag and drop, moving files. No new protocol.
- CaScadeS II
- a behaviour editor: rollovers, open an alert window, change the value of an attribute or CSS property on a given element, etc.
- HTML/XHTML source editor with dynamic syntax highlight
- direct link to W3C's CSS validator
- enhanced attribute editor for HTML/XHTML with datatype handling and DTD conformance
- an S5 editor
Comments
1 seems unnecessary; there is already a great range of programs for the purpose.
2 yes.
3 yes.
4 I am not certain of the meaning, partly because I am not sure of the present support of JavaScript in NVU. There is a JavaScript Console, but JavaScript doesn't seem to operate, and there is nothing in Help.
5 The syntax highlighting as it is seems enough for me. I'd be more eager to see the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys made a little more predictable, and the wrapping margin a little further to the right.
6 Yes
7 Yes
8 I don't even know what S5 is.
#3 is my top choice as user without code knowledge : the real superiority of Nvu for non-geeks people is accessibility of css features : I think you real real challenge is making CSS available for all.
Everything except 1 sounds like a good idea. 3, 4, 6 and 7 are the most attractive ones to me personally, since we don't use the site manager.
1. basic image editor: inutile il y en a un paquet ce serait perdre ton temps pour peut-être moins bien, non ;
2. enhanced site manager: très utile, oui ;
3. CaScadeS II: ça va de soi, oui ;
4. a behaviour editor: je suis sceptique, peut-être convient-il de se concentrer sur html/css, non ;
5. HTML/XHTML source editor, si tu pouvais même approcher la qualité de BBEdit ! oui ;
6. direct link to W3C's CSS validator: bien sûr, facile, oui ;
7. enhanced attribute editor for HTML/XHTML with datatype handling and DTD conformance: tu approcherais alors la qualité de BBEdit, bien sûr oui ;
8. an S5 editor: utile mais tu as assez de boulot comme ça alors: non.
L'idée étant de sortir un outil parfaitement centré sur xhtml/css.
1 This can wait IMO
2 Yes
3 Yes
4 Definitely yes.
5 I have no idea what HTML source editor with Dynamic syntax highlighting.
6 Yes but this can wait ... since CaScadeS already outputs valid CSS declarations.
7 Yes
8 I have no idea what S5 is.
What about a Tidy extension (see Marc Gueury)
- to reformat the source code
- report other possible errors
- etc.
?
Regards
Gérard
All but 1.
2: YES. This is of most interest to me
3: interesting I love the old CaScadeS, though it never really worked.
4: action editor yes.
1. ----
2. ++
3. + for me (but +++ for most of the people?)
4. ++
5. +
6. +
7. ++
8. +++ for me (but -- for most of the people?)
1. No need to waste time on this ; an alert when image file size is above 250 kB should be fine IMHO.
2. No opinion.
3. Looks good.
4. Looks like a DreamWeaver / Frontpage clone ; not a good idea IMHO better put an emphasis on CSS.
5. Of course!
6. Why not? But validity of CSS is less critical than HTML.
7. Huge work, but great idea.
8. Yes, I think it's a killer feature for promoting NVU.
PS: nice to see that NVU is now present in the Ubuntu World.
3. great! provided it stays free.
1. Love it. I just ask that it utalize decent compression practices (selection for JPG, perhaps integrate pngcrush for PNG. There are a million+1 bad image products out there that make a 8bit GIF gigantic. Lets get something that keeps things slim. GIF animation would be cool of course ;-).
2. Sounds pretty good, though not really my deal. Perhaps sftp if support doesn't already exist.
3. I want it already!
4. Very cool idea.
5. Could there be autocomplete to go with that? (CaScadeS II style)? If it could do that, it becomes more viable for more technical jobs. Even without it would be nice, but I think the big win in this idea would be some code-assist.
6. Like it.
7. Sounds sweet, but that doesn't sound like it would be easy to do.
8. If you can make an S5 editor, you've essentially made a portable PowerPoint! That would be a major win.
[Just to inform on #8 :]
www.meyerweb.com/eric/too...
1. This would be quite usefull, quick image changes (scale/crop) without opening a seperate program would be usefull.
4. This would be good too, especially if it were somehow extensible (custom scripts)
5. Of course, code editor could be more useful and flexible, and could have at least:
- Multiline (Extended) Find & Replace;
- Word Wrap;
- Convert-to-List (ordered & unordered) function;
- Hot keys (for example, CTRL+SHIT+P to make paragraph in HomeSite);
- Code templates.
In fact, without these very basic features the code editor is useless. Thanks.
1.Yes
2.Yes
3.Yes
4.Yes
5.Yes
6.No, better to be built in using their engine.
7.No, maybe make it an optional free extension?
8.No, maybe make it an optional free extension?
In Christ,
Deacon Nikolai
SaintBasilChurch.org
2 --> No good untill it is intelligent enough to know what to upload. Unless it has some concept of a "web", a dedicated FTP client will be a better option. It is disturbing to see newbees making web pages easily but not being able to upload with that much ease.
My profile : geek, doesn't use Nvu, as i code all my sites by hand.
1. a basic image editor : make just one thing, but do it well --> no
2. enhanced site manager : would be a good idea if it supports ftp AND webdav.
3. CaScadeS II : yes
4. a behaviour editor : i think it's a wrong idea because of the hacks it will implie in documents to be correctly interpreted by all browsers (what will it generate if i demand an hover on non-a element ?).
5. HTML/XHTML source editor : i don't know how it is now, but simple syntax highlighting is enough for me.
6. direct link to W3C's CSS validator : would love this (and perhaps code it if I use nvu daily)
7. enhanced attribute editor for HTML/XHTML with datatype handling and DTD conformance : would love this too
8. an S5 editor : THE thing that will makes me use nvu (rather than trying to understand how s5 works).
As I am a geek, I would only consider paying for 7, if I have to code web pages daily (for now, it isn't the case).
Let's focus on these points from a user's point of view. In the end that is what we are here for.
1. Instead of adding features like an image editor, please improve Nvu where it currently lacks (basic frames-support, automatic update of template-based files on change of template, support of other template-standards (Dreamweaver's to start with)). However, you could add a hook to Nvu so one can load its favorite graphics editor from Nvu (add option so when can pick a favorite editor and perhaps specify additional parameters for caling the file). Then Nvu should only supply the full path to the file to this external graphics editor and this editor can be used to its full potential to edit the graphic. Nvu could make a backup of the image file (just in case). The whole things could perhaps be created as an extension.
2. A more complete file manager sounds fine, but also adding support for other protocols (SSH/WebDAV) would broaden Nvu's user base.
3. CaScadeS II - for sure
4. Don't know what this should be like, but it sounds like adding some Javascript-snippets to Nvu. If that is it, make it somehow extendible so that people can exchange Nvu-behaviour-snippets online.
5. Anything that helps the user be more productive would be nice.
6. Anything that helps the user to validate code is fine; however Nvu itself already produces valid code, so you could also leave this to Firefox with the WebDeveloper-toolbar. Or perhaps the WebDev-toolbar can be installed as an extension in Nvu, leaving all those links up to this extension.
7. People should - for example - write DocBook-documents with Nvu ? Or to use other XML-dialects ? I guess OpenOffice.org also goes into that direction. If Nvu wants to do this, it should not be because "it is possible", but because there is a good use case for it.
8. S5-support should not be part of Nvu, but could be written as an extension. S5 makes sense when one can use a template file for a complete presentation. And when this template changes all files (slides) in the presentation are updated accordingly (which brings me to comment #1 again).
1 - People don't seem to like the idea of an image editor, but I think it would work great if it was *completely transparent* to the user. i.e, if I stretch an image, it does a bicubic resize. If I import a BMP, it gets converted into a JPEG. Have handles to do free rotate or in 90 degree increments. In all cases the original image gets stored somewhere else so the image can be manipulated many times without losing quality. My pet hate is seeing webpages with an 1024x768 photo loading into a 320x240 size img element
Hopefully with sensible defaults most people shouldn't have to know about stuff like JPEG compression quality or how many KB or pixels their photos are.
1. as long as it's really in background. some basic functionality that is available via the context menu would be great, though. it shouldn't be necessary or possible to open a special image manipulation window for it.
2. definitely!
3. definitely!
4. what exactly would that be?
5. definitely!
6. why not integrated validating?
7. what exactly would that be?
8. definitely! (would be another killer-feature)
1- A very BASIC editor, just resizing and cropping images would be nice. No need to add filters or anything special just the basic features to add a photo from the digital camera to a page (or maybe if the extension is compatible to a mail). Saved as jpg or png and that's all.
The rest of them very nice XD, but they are maybe too much work to do it all at once. Just start improving something like you are doing with CascadesII, then focus on another part and so on, but just go on step by step.
As the major "problems" of NVU are fixed then you will see what it's the next thing that needs to be developed, what is needed in order to help the new user and what is missing for the power users.
Regards.
2) Enhanced site manager would be great!
1) Would be nice to have.
I could live without all the others, although they'd be nice.
1) Could be nice
2) No need
3) Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. YEEEEEEEEEES And for Firefox, and for Thunderbird, and for Sunbird - I promise to inspect my tasks and events with it ;p It looks awsome
4) Depends on how you'll implement it. I'm probably against it at the moment - JS behaviours may add a lot of mess to UI and a lot of mess to user way to create a page. Better an extension
5) Yessssss
6) Dunna know... might be.
7) Yes
8) Yessssss (as an extension probably)
#1. Definitely useful. GIMP sucks for such simple features, and ImageMagick is not really user-friendly. A lot of users would appreciate to modify images directly from the editor window, like in a word processor (this is a frequent question on the Geckozone forum).
#2. Yes. It would be a really good point for DW switchers. What I would especially appreciate would be that Nvu updates link refs when moving a file in another folder.
#3. For sure
#5. I rather believe in using an *external* editor for all text files (html, php, etc), since everybody has his own favorite editor. This is what my extension (NsmConText) is about, among other things (like code reformatting with Tidy)... though there is room for improvement.
IMHO #4, #7 and #8 would be useful but don't seem so important to me.
1/ would be interisting only for resiszing I think (mainly for people doing photo galleries)
2/ YES !
3/ YES !!
4/ I am not interested in this kind of stuff
5/ Yes
6/ No
7/ very geeky, I don't know what I would need it
8/ interesting as an extension
2, 3, 5 and 7
The original CasCadeS is soo unfriendly when you pit it against dreamweaver etc.
XHTML support is really important, as it's the future of the web.
A basic image editor is an okay idea, but with heaps of OSS tools that do this stuff already, it should be a low priority.
IF you do the DTD stuff, you shouldn't need to w3 stuff
They are all extensions I'd like to see. Availability as extensions would permit users to customize NVU to their needs and avoid bloating it with functionalities that not everyone would use. Having said that I think that the CSS validating and enhanced site manager should be integrated into NVU.
Cascades would be my top choice followed closely by the HTML/XHTML source editor for those times when hand tweaking is needed.
I think the image editor idea is the weakest of the lot but could be ok if it were very simple and very transparent to use.
I'm afraid 1 and 8 are Seamonkey esq bloat
When I want a browser i want a browser. when i want a mail app i want a mail app.
when i want a web design app i want a web design app. not a web design / powerpoint replacement for the web.
I definitely think the idea for an S5 editor has a market that could revolutionize things in the industry but i think it's a diversion from where NVU should be, especially considering many people don't know what S5 is.
I'm sure you don't want to maintain two programs but taking out the site manager and a few other features that would be unnecessary and adding in 1 and 8 would for an awesome stand alone program. But i don't think it belongs in the same program, furthermore i think it will confuse new users.
2- 7 all make sense otherwise.
I work in an Apple store and I recommend NVU to people at every chance I get, most of the people I tell about it come back and tell me how much they love it, how easy it is. I especially recommend it to people who are used to frontpage, but are looking to learn and do a lot more. Honestly customers and co-workers have come back to thank me for mentioning it. (especially the customers when they realize they don't need to spend hundreds on dreamweaver to make their homepage.
An S5 editor built in would be useless to these people and would probably just confuse them, for most it will take up valuable space and get in the way.
Keep your focus Daniel! NVU is awesome for a reason! It adopts the same principals as firefox and thunderbird: do one thing, do it right.
Don't become Seamonkey part 2 or a monster program like Canvas. (Canvas combines raster and vector image editing with page layout and technical drawing to create one program wthat while cool in concept has too much going on that isn't the best at anything)
Keep NVU awesome, keep NVU pure!
1. Yes. basic image editing skills might be appreciated by non-geek people but it can wait.
2. Yes.
3. CascadesII won't be available as a commercial extension first and open-sourced later ? (pas de critiques juste une remarque)
4. behaviour editor, it could wait Nvu 2.0
5. Yes. Should be top priority
6. Yes. but could be an extension and not limited to W3c validator. //the tidy thing could be an extension too.
7. Yes. Should be top priority.
8. S5 editor. It would rocks but not essential.
1. No.
2. See comments below.
3. Yes!
4. No.
5. Yes.
6. Perhaps, XHTML / Tidy more important.
7. Yes.
8. No.
Re: John Morrison "taking out the site manager" - this could make a lot of sense. I *never* use site managers in programs like Nvu, Dreamweaver etc. purely for the reason that they're built in. If I need to upload a single image change for example, I want to do it as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, without starting an editor and using a site manager. Therefore I'll use something like FileZilla.
However, because I already have FileZilla setup, I don’t re-enter all site details into Nvu *as well* which means coming out of Nvu to publish a file.
Mainly this is out of laziness (typing FTP details in once is enough thanks!) but I guess it’s also down to wanting to do things consistently rather than have two ways of uploading files.
What would be great would be to have two separate programs that work together well. The Nvu editor, and a Site Manager. If I only need to upload a file or two, I'd use the standalone Site Manager program. Starting Nvu would also start the Site Manager program which Nvu would somehow hook in to.
Guess this idea may be somehow similar to Thunderbird (with Lightening or Calendar extension built in) and Sunbird / Calendar work?
1- A WYSIWYG editor for CSS
2- A way to print HTML page with CSS support (not NVU specific)
my focus is on day by day web editing, therefore i fnd the following enhancements usefull:
1. --
2. + (maybe with automatic link update in case of renaming of files, much like DW does)
3. ++
4. unimportant
5. +++
6. unimportant
7. +++
8. unimportant
1 - je n'en vois pas l'interet, j'utilise autre chose pour traiter mes images.
2 - oui, oui, oui !
3 - oui, bien sûr ça serait interessant :D
4 - nsp
5 - nsp
6 - ça serait avec plaisir
7 - je n'ai pas compris la question, c'est sans doute que cela me dépasse, donc "nsp"
8 - idem 7
Bon courage Daniel
Hi everyone,
)
As a general comment and no specific feedback to any-one item, here are my thoughts
The success of a piece of software is how well it does it's intended job...
Don't try to make it all things for all people....
Stick to it's strength's. Make it the best at it core purpose and make it as stable and bug free as possible.
This will give it a good reputation and ensure it a healthy life span....
Kind regards,
Dave Porter
dj-software
Perth, Western Australia
p.s. when do you think CasCadeS II will be available ?
( sorry couldn't help myself
I welcome cascades2, thumbs up.
I know scp isn't planned, but it would be great. Also, it would be great if nvu would leave my line breaks in place and word/line wrapping could be completely disabled. I spend quite some time with re-insering line breaks (I mean 0x10/0x13 not "br") since hand-editing is a pain after nvu messes all the line breaks up (nvu1 both in linux and windows).
For the other options, good, but not necessary. I espacially find the image editing stuff smelling bloat-ish.
I'd choose RelaxNG over DTD. Henri is working on RelaxNG validation for HTML, you can talk to him about that. But DTDs are very limited in comparison particularly in the datatype area.
1. No, not important, I would prefer to have external editor launched if I wanted. But if sometime you happen to code this editor, crop and rotate are most important features (for me) followd by resize. Anything else, better leave them to dedicated programs (GIMP, Photoshop...) (so even with this basic image editor, please make it possible to launch other image editors).
2. Yes. I think this is most important of all these features for me at least. (And even if you said, no new protocols, I still have to request WebDAV and SSH... or connecting to CVS servers would be great too)
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
5. Yes, would increase productivity quite much. But I think this is not as high priority as 2, 3 or 7.
6. Yes. But not very high priority.
7. Yes. For me, it would be very useful.
8. No. But as an extension very good idea.
1. A better integration of other software would be better (The gimp; Photoshop)
2. Nice idea, althrough I don't use it.
3. Most important for me.
4. Most important for me.
5. I don't know what dynamic syntax highlight, but it sounds good.
6. ... and some other validators.
7. Yes , if it's detachable.
8. Why not?
I would use 2, 3 and 4. I might use 5, 6, and 7. I'm unlikely to use 1 and 8. Although for 8, I could be tempted to putz around a bit with it.
L
1. no
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. no
1. Ability to resize and crop w/o training users on another app would be *great* in our 10,000 seat K-12 school district (we LOVE Nvu!).
2. Sounds great - would this let us upload PDF files (linked from web pages created in Nvu) w/o needing a separate FTP program? That would be REALLY handy.
3. Yes
4. No
5. Cool
6. OK
7. OK
8. Nifty!
1. no
2. YES
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. yes
7. yes
8. ??
1. Not necessary for me; maybe better integration with other graphics programs could be useful.
2. Yes.
3. Absolutely!
4. Yes, this would be useful, but not the highest priority in this list.
5. Yes, I think this is an important feature.
6. Absolutely, and maybe some other validators too.
7. Don't know; sounds too geeky for me, but I might reconsider when I learn more about webdevelopment.
8. I think this could well become NVu's secret weapon, even if the general public probably doesn't know what S5 is.
1. NO WAY! A graphics editor is a completely separate and distinct app which has nothing to do with the purpose of NVU.
2. A better site mgr is needed, but not copy/paste or drag/drop or anything like that. What's needed is a project mgr.
3. Yes, definitely. (Does that mean it might be free sted commercial?)
4. I thought those things were already part of Cascades II.
5. Source editor definitely needs help. But it needs to be less ambitious, not more so.
6. Not essential.
7. Might be nice but not essential.
8. What is an "S5 editor"?
1 seems unnecessary; there is already a great range of programs for the purpose.
2 yes.
3 Mandatory; the current css manager is good but to some extent "uncomfortable", especially the modal window.
4 Good.
5 I don't need it.
6 I don't need it.
7 Fine, but not urgent
8 Fine, but not urgent
Uuuh, 7. and 8. and you could include me as a user!
1. Not required, there are planty of inexpensive or free image editors.
2. Would be nice.
3. Oh yes please.
4. + 5. Would be nice but not vital.
6. Always important to validate your site.
7. + 8. Not really important.
1. NO, other programs exist, and keep NVu simple
2. OK
3. YES!
4. OK
5. YES!
6. OK
7. forget DTD, go schema
8. I never heard of S5, but having seen the demo, I like it. Given the niche nature should be done as an extension.
1. No thanks. I have Photoshop.
2. Yes, please
3. YES++
4. YES+
5. YES++
6. Yes
7. YES+
8. YES+++
It's nice to see people agreeing on a particular matter when you're looking for feedback. Looks like number 1 is dead, but most of the rest is wanted
I won't really use Nvu until CaScadeS II is done. That's why I'm watching your blog daily.
2 - 3 - 5 Yes
Others Lower priority
For Site manager : Extend it to update pages when templates change.
Ian: oh no, number 1 is definitely not dead. Someone above gave me the best arguments of ALL in favor of 1 : "Ability to resize and crop w/o training users on another app would be *great* in our 10,000 seat K-12 school district". Face the truth Ian, you're a geek, and not everyone is.
1. : non (une extension comme launchy permet d'ouvrir l'éditeur de son choix.)
2. : non
3. : oui
4. : non (cependant des bouts de codes sont demandés souvent sur le forum de framasoft par le biais de questions indirectes : comment fait-on pour ?)
5. : oui
6. : oui
7. : oui
8. : oui (une interface graphique pour s5 via nvu, superbe !!!)
3 +
8 ++
Others: don't care...
1. Sounds good.
2. Don't care.
3. Definitely yes!!
4. Yes.
5. Yes.
6. Don't care.
7. Don't care.
8. Huh?
An image editor is not needed. I used to work for a company that fell into that trap. I think a grand total of 0 people outside our company used it. I just wouldn't waste your time on it.
#1 - no, not at this time
#2 - sure
#3 - Cascades II should allow the author/designer to edit the CSS code manually.
#4 - as a DW author who dislikes the fact that many of the provided scripts are browser-sniffing out-of-date scripts, I am leary about voting for this unless they are canned scripts with unobtrusive JavaScript and lots of good documentation.
#5 - sounds good
#6 - sounds good
#7 - no, don't bother, Opera Show is much better although you might need to beef up CSS support (in CaScadeS II) to provide the right tools to create Opera Show "compliant" code
3. Oui +++
4. Oui +++
8. Oui +++
1 - I read what you said to Ian, Daniel. I was otherwise going to vote against No 1 but I see your point.
2 - A good Site Manager would be quite an asset. One for instance which would check for orphan and missing files (including linked css, images, scripts etc). I would say that the ftp was less important though you could use the same argument as above. FTP should however support multiple sub-directories and allow for selective update (e.g. changed or specific files only). File synchronisation would be a useful enhancement.
3 - Certainly.
6 - Yes.
8 - S5 editor - A definate YES. S5 is a very neat open source product but would benefit by being Nvuised. This could move Nvu into a new 'domain' and greatly expand the deployment. I sense that most Nvu users are not averse to dropping down to code level now and then. Of course that's also how, to an extent, S5 works. But Powerpoint users don't. So the big expansion into this area would be in fully wysiwig operation. Reputations can be lost in a day but take years to regain. I recommend that Nvu be fully debugged before being offered as an S5 tool and also that layer manipulation be strengthened since I think that people will expect that for presentations. Obviously Cascades II could have a, probably important, place but it may be more useful to offer alternative skins through pre-prepared stylesheets.
For those who don't know what S5 is.
meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s...
1. Unnecessary
2. Great idea, if it automatically updates links.
4. I have no use for this.
5. Good idea.
6. Sure, why not.
Others: don't care one way or the other.