From: Samuel M. <le...@ab...> - 2007-09-16 20:29:23
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Wayne Walter wrote: > I would expect double and triple clicking to either select > the word, or the whole line of text. Yes, that is the case in an editing box, and also in a browser, for example. But again different programs do it differently. If I double click a word in Opera (browser), a context menu pops up. This doesn't happen in any other browser. If I triple click in Thunderbird, it selects the line, but if I quadruple click, it selects only the word. So different programs do it somewhat differently. > It turns out you lose those abilities in the program because > double-click changes the segment. True, but I think the double-clicking was actually requested by some users some time in the past. Single clicking simply puts your cursor there. Double clicking enables editing. Actually, I have seen this concept before (can't remember where)... double clicking changes a view box into an exit box. One can decide which is better... a program that is easy to learn, or a program that is powerful to use. The best option is a mixture of the two, but it would necessarily mean that some "easy to learn" things are left out in favour of "powerful to use". > The only way to solve this properly is to have the source > and targe side-by-side because a related issue is that I can't > see both my source and target at the same time unless I select > the segment. There are two types of CAT tools... those that display the source and target in two boxes (side by side or whatever, but the whole source and the whole target) and those that display the current segment inline. OmegaT is one of the latter. There are also hybrid tools, like Wordfast, that display the target text inline but doesn't hide non-active segments from the user (the result is something you really, really have to get used to). An opensource program that does the side-by-side thing, is Isometry, written in .NET. It has some nice features too... for example fuzzy matching that ignores word boundaries. There have been suggestions to have the option to let OmegaT to display all segments Wordfast style (inline and without hiding)... I'm sure there are various ways to do it. > So to review my work, I had to use both hands to operate both > a control-key and the enter key to move backwards or just enter > to move forwards. Using both hands is normal in CAT tools. The idea I think is to use single hand for the normal editing functions, and both hands for CAT specific functions... except possibly for very common functions like "next segment". I would think that it is less intuitive to assign a non-normal action to a single key. > One tab gives a view of only the source language for quick reviewing, > searching, normal copy and paste, etc. ... > Another tab gives a view of only the target language that's fully editable. Having multiple views in multiple tabs is a feature in some CAT tools, but it is usually reserved for different types of previewing. Still, if it won't be unnecessary overhead, it could be an option in OmegaT to have different tabs (minimised by default, perhaps) that display the text in different ways -- one tab for inline and hiding, one tab for inline and non-hinding, one tab for two-column editing... the possibilities are endless, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to add all these things to OmegaT. > Note the user should be able to dock / arrange these two views either > Side-by-side or top-and-bottom. The software should automatically scroll > and focus the view on the other pane highlighting the phrase/segment > in progress. Or... or why? Why not let the user decide if he wants the tabs to keep synched? By allowing the user to keep the different views out of synch with each other, you give him greater freedom to use OmegaT in more powerful ways. An option "keep different views synchronised" could be deselected somewhere. Then, if a user wants to synch two tabs, there should be a way for him to do it (perhaps click once in one tab, then once in the second tab, then do the keyboard shortcut, which syncs the second windows to the first). There is a lot of stuff being said here... very difficult to keep up with all the ideas. Samuel |