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List:       quanta
Subject:    Re: [Quanta] Fw: RFE: Join function
From:       Eric Laffoon <sequitur () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-08-22 19:14:40
Message-ID: 200508221214.40664.sequitur () kde ! org
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On Monday 22 August 2005 6:36 am, Jon Roland wrote:
> This was posted to the list but did not appear.

Didn't see it in the queue.
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RFE: Join function
> Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 15:18:54 +0000
> From: Jon Roland <jon.roland@the-spa.com>
> Reply-To: jon.roland@the-spa.com
> Organization: Starflight Corporation
> To: Quanta users list <quanta@mail.kde.org>
>
> One of the most common editing tasks I have is joining paragraphs that are
> split across pages, or otherwise misrecognized as split when they should be
> joined as a single paragraph. This is a tedious process of deleting all the
> end tags off the preceding paragraph, and the leading tags off the
> following paragraph, and usually, inserting a space. Sometimes it is also
> deleting a trailing hyphen and not inserting a space.

This is possible with VPL mode. Deleting the end of a paragraph automatically 
deletes the tags and they automatically balance because it has to write 
compliant markup and therefore all tagging must be balanced in _every_ 
operation. Text mode presents different challenges.
>
> With HoTMetaL Pro, I could just position the cursor in the following
> paragraph, hit ctrl-J, and it would join the paragraphs and insert a space.
> I could then manually delete a trailing hyphen and the inserted space.

Good for them! Aside from the fact that we use Ctrl-J for code abbreviations 
you can define key assignments and easily write a script for this in perl, 
python, PHP, Ruby or whatever. If not we're happy to do something like this 
for contributors, but it's probably less than 10 lines in any language. Once 
written it can be invoked by keystroke or toolbar button.
>
> But it would also join split tag pairs. E.g., if I had <i>some</i>
> <i>text</i> placing the cursor in the middle of text and hitting ctrl-j
> would remove the redundant tags, yielding <i>some text</i>, as long as the
> only characters between are whitespace.

Again this is handled in VPL. There has been some discussion about a text 
emulation mode but it's not that simple to balance everything.
>
> While you guys are busy trying to add all kinds of neat functionality to
> Quanta+ (that I am likely to never need to use), it would be really great
> to add some that aids in performing routine, simple tasks that many of us
> have to do every day.

The question is what everybody is doing every day, and the answer is different 
for everybody. Some of the functionality we've added that you are not using, 
like for instance Actions, holds the answer to your needs. In fact it makes 
it possible to auto run scripts on file save or upload. We've intentionally 
designed Quanta to compensate for our inability to replicate ourselves or 
keep from ever sleeping. ;-) You could write a new version without a single 
line of C++ because it's the most extensible web development tool anywhere.

I'll put it another way... It is irrational for us to spend time on what most 
of our users can do taking away from the very small amount of resources of 
the core development that none of our users can do. To take that even 
farther... It's not a matter of what we have not been able to accomplish in 
our expenditures of time and money on this project, but rather the fact that 
with less than 0.0005% of our user base developing Quanta and not more than 
0.0025% contributing financially it would be poor management on my part to do 
things differently. Our approach allows everyone to be satisfied, if they are 
willing to accept some responsibility for their satisfaction. If it were in 
my power to change this I would do it just for the fun of defying 
probabilities.
>
> It would also be helpful to have a global cleanup function that would move
> spaces from in front of end tags like </i> to after it, and perhaps also an
> option to move closing punctuation like commas, colons, semi-colons, etc.,
> from in front of certain closing HTML tags to behind them.

There are probably already scripts like this available on the web. If you find 
one that works you can plug it in easily. Please post any info here as others 
would surely be interested.
>
> -- Jon

-- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
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