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Animating From Markup Code To Rendered Result
New submitter lulalala writes "Writing documents using markup languages isn't always easy. Take Wikipedia, for example: one often needs time to relocate the current focus when they switch between previewing and editing mode. Now with Gliimpse, one can watch the markup code gradually turn into the rendered result. The demonstration on Youtube simply looks amazing, and shows that the software supports many markup languages, including LaTex Mathematics."
Having just watched the video, it looks like the reason it's better (as alluded to in the summary) is eye focus. When you tab to a different browser you have to then find your place in a potentially large document. Ditto when you tab back. With this thing, if you keep your eye on where you are in one view and follow the animation you end up looking in the right place in the other view.
I find this a genuine problem, and as a solution this looks positively awesome.
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
The point is also that you can connect effect and cause of parts of the site. This is not easy by just a preview.
This is also what Bret Victor talked about in Inventing on Principle: To be effectively creative and productive, there must be an immediate connection between what you do and the consequences.
That principle is broken when you have to go over, and reload. (anything longer than 500ms is broken).
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
For all the "I don't get it comments", the issue is that people don't understand or like markup languages. This helps people literally see the connection between the markup and the result. This problem was studied and documented extensively by Wikipedia:
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_and_Experience_Study#What_I_see_Vs._What_I_get
Wikipedia addressed the problem by making a JavaScript GUI editor to hide the markup. IMHO the problem with that approach is that it solves the wrong problem. The problem isn't that the markup is to difficult (although learning more then the basics is), it's that people just don't care to put any effort into understanding it and would rather complain that it's 'to hard'. The solution shouldn't focus on teaching people markup. It should either remove the markup and only allow a GUI, making the encoding inaccessible like document editors do, or use the effort required to understand markup as a barrier to entry.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Where would the animation transition to if you were changing a line in your CSS?
I was using notepad as an example, especially since I know for a fact that I can code a simple web page design by hand in notepad faster than the office's contracted "web designer" with her wysiwyg tools. (we tested it one day after I got irritated and let my mouth get away from me)
I actually prefer to use Vim for editing. (with a ton of customization, and a few wrapper scripts)
If I am working on a web design, I have a large set of tricks that I use to get the best features of GUI editors without the issues.
For example,
I add a javascript autorefresh on a 10 second timer to the header of the page
........(I have a 3rd monitor set aside just for this, and if I have more than a few browsers, I'll open some on my laptop as well)
ssh into the dev server and open the page in all of the browsers that I need to be compatible with.
I also use a script that tests the page for validation errors every minute and changes the background color of my terminal window to let me know I broke something.
And I never claimed to be a professional.