A Pattern Language as a single page reference

[Bruno Postle]

This is slightly off-topic, but maybe of interest. I was feeling a need to have an offline reference for APL (for my tablet), there are one or two online references split into pages, but this interface really doesn't work for me.
So this is what I wanted, a single document with internal links, this layout is actually useful to me. I'll attach an example.

--
Bruno

[Ward Cunningham]

Bruno -- Did you have one of the eBook formats in mind? I didn't see an attachment. -- Ward

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pattern Repository Dev" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pattern-repositor...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 

[Bruno Postle]

I'll try and attach it again, maybe my phone won't attach HTML.  Otherwise ill try again from a computer when I'm back from Beijing.

--
Bruno

[Yodan Rofe]

Bruno,

That's actually quite neat as a quick reference guide. Would it be too hard to add the inspirational image and the solution diagram to it - that would actually make it even more quick reference as the solution diagram is usually enough to understand the gist of the solution.

Yodan

Dr. Yodan Rofe` - Senior Lecturer
"Bona Terra" Department of Man in the Desert - J. Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 84990 Midreshet Ben-Gurion, Israel
Tel. 972-8-6596884  Fax. 972-8-6596881
http://www.bgu.ac.il/CDAUP/yodan-rofe.html

[Bruno Postle]

I scraped the content from a website so it is strictly a proof of concept. I wouldn't want to add anything or publish it permanently without establishing provenance of the text.

I do think this concise form has its own advantages. The entire book would probably be unwieldy in this format.

--
Bruno

On Jul 31, 2013 5:47 PM, "Yodan Rofe" <yr...@bgu.ac.il> wrote:
>
> That's actually quite neat as a quick reference guide. Would it be too hard to add the inspirational image and the solution diagram to it - that would actually make it even more quick reference as the solution diagram is usually enough to understand the gist of the solution.

> On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Bruno Postle wrote:
>>
>> I'll try and attach it again, maybe my phone won't attach HTML.  Otherwise ill try again from a computer when I'm back from Beijing.

>> On Jul 30, 2013 11:09 PM, Ward Cunningham wrote:
>>>
>>> Bruno -- Did you have one of the eBook formats in mind? I didn't see an attachment.

>>> On Jul 27, 2013, at 5:37 AM, Bruno Postle wrote:

[Ward Cunningham]

Bruno -- I like what you've done. The advantages is that it is a single file viewable in any modern web browser. 

Images could be included in that single file using "url encoding", perhaps as just thumbnails.

Full text could be included but this raises some questions of usability. Would it just get in the way? If so, some hide-show logic could be added with css or javascript.

I wonder how you have found text search to be useful? If the full text were available would it just get in the way by finding too many occurrences of words?

Here is why I ask:

With Federated Wiki one is presumed to create a site for a specific purpose by "forking" patterns into the site from many pattern languages throughout the federation. I can imagine adding a "print whole site" function that creates a single file that can be saved and distributed independently of any web server. This would lose the editing capability much like printing a pdf from a word document loses editing. But search and other navigation could still work for the single site as it does online.

Thanks for sharing.

Best regards. -- Ward

[Bruno Postle]

I don't really have a plan for this, my immediate 'itch' is to have an
offline reference that is properly cross-referenced, the book is
really hard to use like this even though that is how it is structured.
URL encoded pictures and some expand-collapse for the full content
would be enough to make me put away the book altogether.

I also like reading one pattern and seeing the next and previous on
the same screen, being able to scroll until you see something
interesting is really nice way to read a pattern language.

The instant response to following a link is a plus, even online there
is no real disadvantage to a single file, each pattern has a unique
URI so can be bookmarked, linked etc...

The usual in-browser search works, but publishing something offline
loses the kind of search you get from an index - Though actually you
could build a word index, embed it and script a simple engine that did
a hide/reveal on the patterns that matched a search query - That would
be cute.

..but then again publishing a pattern language read-only feels like a
backward step, surely they need to evolve and improve? or is there a
need to be able to produce something final and canonical?

--
Bruno

On 1 August 2013 16:14, Ward Cunningham <wa...@c2.com> wrote:
> Bruno -- I like what you've done. The advantages is that it is a single file
> viewable in any modern web browser.
>
> Images could be included in that single file using "url encoding", perhaps
> as just thumbnails.
>
> Full text could be included but this raises some questions of usability.
> Would it just get in the way? If so, some hide-show logic could be added
> with css or javascript.
>
> I wonder how you have found text search to be useful? If the full text were
> available would it just get in the way by finding too many occurrences of
> words?
>
> Here is why I ask:
>
> With Federated Wiki one is presumed to create a site for a specific purpose
> by "forking" patterns into the site from many pattern languages throughout
> the federation. I can imagine adding a "print whole site" function that
> creates a single file that can be saved and distributed independently of any
> web server. This would lose the editing capability much like printing a pdf
> from a word document loses editing. But search and other navigation could
> still work for the single site as it does online.

> On Jul 31, 2013, at 12:16 PM, Bruno Postle wrote:
>
> I scraped the content from a website so it is strictly a proof of concept. I
> wouldn't want to add anything or publish it permanently without establishing
> provenance of the text.
>
> I do think this concise form has its own advantages. The entire book would
> probably be unwieldy in this format.
>