Re: [Gramps-devel] Preformatted notes in the future Was: <pre> tag crippled in 3.0 (web report)?

[Brian M. <br...@gr...>]

> > I still struggle with how to make the preformatted
> check box easy to
> > understand for the new user. Should we go for
> preformatted integrated as an
> > icon with corresponding texttag and do away with
> the box, we could have it
> > relate on GUI with texttag with Pango font
> description 'Mono', and perhaps a
> > background yellow with stipple to indicate it (not
> sure what effect that
> > would give, but it would be distinct and not too
> intrusive).
> 
> I'm still thinking about this too. Perhaps I have a
> way to integrate
> it into the tagging system, though not without some
> complications.
> Complication is coming from the fact that this way
> we would have a new
> concept: conflicting tags (font and preformatted).
> Also, as you mentioned too, turning preformatted
> on/off would make all
> previous tags disappear forever, as I really think
> we shouldn't get
> into trying to preserve those.
> For visualization I thought about dotted underline,
> as it should be
> something, what the user can not choose as style.
> 
> After all, the only advantage of all these I can see
> is that normal
> and preformatted could be mixed in one note. I'm not
> sure if it's
> worth it.
> I'm afraid we're already on that slippery slope
> Brian and others mentioned...

Here is an idea worth considering:

1) Remove the Preformatted option.

2) Add a "word wrap" option.

3) Only provide three font face options: "Mono",
"Sans", "Times". Each platform would have to translate
each font face option to an actual font face. On my
computer, "Mono" would translate to "Courier", "Sans"
to "Arial" and "Times" to "Times New Roman".

I think #3 has multiple benefits:
* It makes it more obvious to the user how to select
"fixed-width" fonts (possibly more obvious than
"preformatted").

* We don't have to attempt to reconcile obscure font
face types between multiple platforms (how many people
out there have the "Berlin Sans FB Demi" font? I do).

* It provides support for mixed "fixed width" and
normal fonts in notes.

* I makes the slope less slippery.

Thoughts?

~Brian