Slashdot Mirror
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."
... It's right there marked demo.
http://www.aviz.fr/gliimpse/GliimpseDemo.zip
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.
Where would the animation transition to if you were changing a line in your CSS?