Notebook layouts
Pat LeSmithe
interactions for various notebook pages, please ignore this.
Here's a list of menu-like items:
Notebook:
Home, Browse published, Friends, Chat, Search, Export, Account settings,
Sign out
Worksheet:
New, Rename, Save, Save as, Revisions, History, Delete, Upload,
Download, Share, E-mail, Publish, Print, Quit
Edit:
Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete, Join, Split, Insert text / compute cell above
/ below, Find.
Action:
Interrupt, Restart, Evaluate cell / all, Hide / show / delete all output
Views / modes:
Worksheet, Edit, Text, Data / attached files, One / multi cell, Typeset,
Viewer, Zoom (math), System [*]
Help:
Quick Reference / shortcuts, IRC, Wave, Mailing lists, Report a problem,
Sage wiki, Tutorial, Constructions, Reference, Developer's guide, Sage trac
[*] Systems (should we list only those available?):
sage, gap, gp, jsmath, html, latex, maxima, python, r, sh(?), singular,
axiom, kash, macaulay2, magma, maple, mathematica, matlab, mupad, octave
William Stein
>
> If there's already a thread on changing the default layouts and user
> interactions for various notebook pages, please ignore this.
>
> Here's a list of menu-like items:
>
> Notebook:
>
> Home, Browse published, Friends, Chat, Search, Export, Account settings,
> Sign out
What is "Friends"?
>
> Worksheet:
>
> New, Rename, Save, Save as, Revisions, History, Delete, Upload,
> Download, Share, E-mail, Publish, Print, Quit
Is "Revisions" better than "Undo" (what we have now, and which nobody
complains about)?
>
> Edit:
>
> Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete, Join, Split, Insert text / compute cell above
> / below, Find.
" Insert text / compute cell above / below," --> looks confusing.
Also, that's in a menu at the top so how does it know where to put a
cell?
>
> Action:
>
> Interrupt, Restart, Evaluate cell / all, Hide / show / delete all output
>
> Views / modes:
>
> Worksheet, Edit, Text, Data / attached files, One / multi cell, Typeset,
> Viewer, Zoom (math), System [*]
What is "Viewer"?
What is "Zoom (math)"?
>
> Help:
>
> Quick Reference / shortcuts, IRC, Wave, Mailing lists, Report a problem,
> Sage wiki, Tutorial, Constructions, Reference, Developer's guide, Sage trac
Wave? IRC --> "Live Help". Please imagine non "computer people" as
much as possible.
>
> [*] Systems (should we list only those available?):
>
> sage, gap, gp, jsmath, html, latex, maxima, python, r, sh(?), singular,
> axiom, kash, macaulay2, magma, maple, mathematica, matlab, mupad, octave
Listing only those available is a good idea, maybe. It would be easy
to implement.
William
--
William Stein
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org
jason...@creativetrax.com
>
>> Worksheet:
>>
>> New, Rename, Save, Save as, Revisions, History, Delete, Upload,
>> Download, Share, E-mail, Publish, Print, Quit
>>
>
> Is "Revisions" better than "Undo" (what we have now, and which nobody
> complains about)?
>
>
I like "Revisions" better, since that is actually what the page is.
When I click on "Undo", I generally expect something to actually, you
know, undo.
Also, I've never had to or wanted to completely undo my current
revision. Rather, on occasion, I've wanted to look at and possibly copy
some part of what I had before to the current revision. "Revisions"
would be a more descriptive title of how I use the link.
Jason
Harald Schilly
> "Revisions" would be a more
> descriptive title of how I use the link.
For me, it would be "History" ;)
H
William Stein
Another possibility might be "Snapshots".
-- William
Timothy Clemans
>>> import random
>>> random.choice(['undo', 'revisions', 'history', 'snapshots'])
'revisions'
I vote Revisions
> -- William
>
Pat LeSmithe
> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 3:13 AM, Pat LeSmithe <qed...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Notebook:
>> Home, Browse published, Friends, Chat, Search, Export, Account settings,
>> Sign out
> What is "Friends"?
I'm not sure, exactly, but we might have class/group/circle home pages
with syllabi, reading assignments, homework, solutions,
contest/challenge problems, data files, slides, etc.
>> Edit:
>> Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete, Join, Split, Insert text / compute cell above
>> / below, Find.
> " Insert text / compute cell above / below," --> looks confusing.
> Also, that's in a menu at the top so how does it know where to put a
> cell?
How about greying out
* Insert compute cell above.
* Insert compute cell below.
* Insert text cell above.
* Insert text cell below.
unless a cell has focus?
>> Views / modes:
>>
>> Worksheet, Edit, Text, Data / attached files, One / multi cell, Typeset,
>> Viewer, Zoom (math), System [*]
>
> What is "Viewer"?
A default plot viewer, e.g., canvas3d, Jmol, tachyon. Perhaps "Plot
Options," instead: transparency, size, etc.
> What is "Zoom (math)"?
A shortcut to jsMath's "scale" setting, if we opt to hide the button by
default.
William Stein
>
> William Stein wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 3:13 AM, Pat LeSmithe <qed...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Notebook:
>>> Home, Browse published, Friends, Chat, Search, Export, Account settings,
>>> Sign out
>> What is "Friends"?
>
> I'm not sure, exactly, but we might have class/group/circle home pages
> with syllabi, reading assignments, homework, solutions,
> contest/challenge problems, data files, slides, etc.
>
>>> Edit:
>>> Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete, Join, Split, Insert text / compute cell above
>>> / below, Find.
>> " Insert text / compute cell above / below," --> looks confusing.
>> Also, that's in a menu at the top so how does it know where to put a
>> cell?
>
> How about greying out
>
> * Insert compute cell above.
> * Insert compute cell below.
> * Insert text cell above.
> * Insert text cell below.
>
> unless a cell has focus?
Greyed out options are frustrating... Would people really use this?
It seems weird to click somewhere on a worksheet, then scroll the
topbar into view (remember, it is *not* in view by default once you
have a few cells), then click it, then go *back* in the worksheet to where
you were to type more. I don't think this is a good idea.
>
>>> Views / modes:
>>>
>>> Worksheet, Edit, Text, Data / attached files, One / multi cell, Typeset,
>>> Viewer, Zoom (math), System [*]
>>
>> What is "Viewer"?
>
> A default plot viewer, e.g., canvas3d, Jmol, tachyon. Perhaps "Plot
> Options," instead: transparency, size, etc.
The default plot viewer should I think go in the user settings page, then be
inherited by the worksheet, and also go in the worksheet setting page.
This way if somebody else downloads the worksheets and evaluates it, they
will see the same output.
>> What is "Zoom (math)"?
>
> A shortcut to jsMath's "scale" setting, if we opt to hide the button by
> default.
Shouldn't this also go in the worksheet settings page?
I like your suggestion to get rid of the jsmath button.
kcrisman
> Greyed out options are frustrating... Would people really use this?
> It seems weird to click somewhere on a worksheet, then scroll the
> topbar into view (remember, it is *not* in view by default once you
> have a few cells)
things like "Help" be always visible? I know it would introduce more
<div>s or something even worse (tables?), but it might be worthwhile.
In fact, I'm not sure why I haven't complained about this before :)
but probably because I got used to scrolling back up before I ever
used sage-support. For very long worksheets, or ones with a lot of
graphics, this could be very helpful.
Just a thought,
- kcrisman
Harald Schilly
> Yeah, and this is something I find incredibly annoying. Shouldn't
> things like "Help" be always visible? I know it would introduce more
technically, it's quite easy :)
yes, it's a div and the css says position:fixed. then, it is placed
relative to the viewport (thats what the browser shows). note: ie6
doesn't support it, and falls back to show it just where it is told to
be with top and left.
w3c example:
http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus
here something from the msdn:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533005(VS.85).aspx#Fixed_Positioning
so, i suggest to introduce a header menu, similar to what we have,
100% width and moderate hight. and the real content starts with an
empty space (top-margin) to avoid overlapping. slider on the right has
full height and there are no frames or other complications at all.
(I also suggest this for the TOC menu on the left of our sphinx
documentation pages .. where i also want to introduce sage-colors and
style some time in the future)
H
kcrisman
On Oct 12, 4:12 pm, Harald Schilly <harald.schi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yeah, and this is something I find incredibly annoying. Shouldn't
> > things like "Help" be always visible? I know it would introduce more
> > <div>s or something even worse (tables?), ...
>
> technically, it's quite easy :)
> yes, it's a div and the css says position:fixed. then, it is placed
> relative to the viewport (thats what the browser shows). note: ie6
> doesn't support it, and falls back to show it just where it is told to
> be with top and left.
>
> w3c example:http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/menus
> so, i suggest to introduce a header menu, similar to what we have,
> 100% width and moderate hight. and the real content starts with an
> empty space (top-margin) to avoid overlapping. slider on the right has
> full height and there are no frames or other complications at all.
> (I also suggest this for the TOC menu on the left of our sphinx
> documentation pages .. where i also want to introduce sage-colors and
> style some time in the future)
>
- kcrisman
William Stein
This is like going in circles. For the first 1.5 years of the Sage
notebook it *did* have a fixed bar at the top like you guys are
suggesting. Then Mike Hansen removed it, and nobody complained --
in fact everybody seemed to like it much better. That top area uses a
*lot* of space.
Have you ever used gmail (facebook, etc., etc.)? Note that it does
not have a fixed top area. It's technically easy, but definitely
not necessarily a good idea.
William
William Stein
Moreover, it still doesn't address the issue with insert/delete cells
via a menu. Even with a fixed top bar, you are still shifting your
attention all over the page for no good reason to get a simple task
done.
William
Harald Schilly
> This is like going in circles. For the first 1.5 years of the Sage
> notebook it *did* have a fixed bar at the top like you guys are
> suggesting.
Ah, I didn't know that. When i've written the entry on the
SageUsability website, I also added that it should be a vertical bar
on the left ("Since all screens are widescreen today, we should
consider using a vertical menu on the left to leave more vertical
space for the actual content."). About the add/insert cells, I don't
mind if there is a menu entry or not.
H
kcrisman
I wasn't talking about add/insert - just that things like Help and the
title and Save were all the way up there. Gmail does not put all 1500
or 15000 or whatever emails in your inbox on the same screen, but Sage
doesn't have that option (currently).
Maybe there could be a footer that is just like the header? Gmail and
Google groups do that (in fact, I see it as I type - newer topic,
older topic, etc.), so that it's easy to navigate from the bottom or
from the top. Then at least if you're at the end of a long worksheet
and forget how to make a new text area, you can click Help from
there. Plus, we already have that dead white space at the bottom to
prevent the crazy screen jumps, don't know if it's technically
feasible to take advantage of that, but you would think you could
halve that area and repeat the toolbar in the other half...
- kcrisman
William Stein
>
>
>
> On Oct 13, 4:57 am, Harald Schilly <harald.schi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 02:31, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > This is like going in circles. For the first 1.5 years of the Sage
>> > notebook it *did* have a fixed bar at the top like you guys are
>> > suggesting.
>>
>> Ah, I didn't know that. When i've written the entry on the
>> SageUsability website, I also added that it should be a vertical bar
>> on the left ("Since all screens are widescreen today, we should
>> consider using a vertical menu on the left to leave more vertical
>> space for the actual content."). About the add/insert cells, I don't
>> mind if there is a menu entry or not.
>
> Well, that seems like a possible solution too.
>
> I wasn't talking about add/insert - just that things like Help and the
> title and Save were all the way up there. Gmail does not put all 1500
> or 15000 or whatever emails in your inbox on the same screen, but Sage
> doesn't have that option (currently).
Another analogy for gmail is the list of messages in a given thread.
It does indeed display a 50-100 thread discussion all at once --
though usually with smart folding (I often wish the notebook did
*that*). I'm not complaining, since I find gmail very usable.
> Maybe there could be a footer that is just like the header? Gmail and
> Google groups do that (in fact, I see it as I type - newer topic,
> older topic, etc.), so that it's easy to navigate from the bottom or
> from the top.
Indeed, that is a good idea.
> Then at least if you're at the end of a long worksheet
> and forget how to make a new text area, you can click Help from
> there. Plus, we already have that dead white space at the bottom to
> prevent the crazy screen jumps, don't know if it's technically
> feasible to take advantage of that, but you would think you could
> halve that area and repeat the toolbar in the other half...
It wouldn't be difficult to do a mock-up and try it out...
>
> - kcrisman