Fwd: Re: Comparative review of XML editors

trying again.

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: Comparative review of XML editors
Date: Sunday 24 April 2005 22:35
From: Sean Wheller <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]

On Sunday 24 April 2005 18:54, Steinar Bang wrote:
> >>>>> Sean Wheller <[email protected]>:
> >
> > On Wednesday 20 April 2005 20:41, David Malcolm wrote:
> >> Alas, Conglomerate doesn't get a mention
> >
> > Mainly because people feel conglomerate is hectic and lost its way.
>
> Er... in what way?
>
> In my view, conglomerate is the most promising document oriented XML
> editor around.  

In my contributions to the documentation efforts of several distributions, in
particular those where GNOME is the default desktop environment, I have had
interaction with authors who seek a better alternative to editing XML
documents in source view editors such as VIM or emacs. My suggestion for
these users has been to move in the direction of WYSIOO structured editors
such as Morphon XML or XMLmind. Mainly because they are none technical people
and just want an easy way to write and contribute documents to their favorite
distro but find the barrier to entry high.

On many occasions I have recommended the the use of Conglomerate. The
responses, after trying it, have always come back in favor of XMLmind.
Statements I have received during IRC discussions with regard to Conglomerate
have included some trivial and some major issues:
* to slow in opening documents
* over complicates the editing process
* too many boxes and colors between text distracts me from writing
* conglomerate crashes for no apparent reason losing work, it did it twice
 and I decided to give it a miss
* its the most stupid app, close and quit both terminate the application when
all I wanted to do was close the current document
I don't like the way I have to open dialogs in order to view or edit
attributes.
* it does not support basic stuff like entities and we use xinclude and
xpointer so I can't even read the whole document
* validation is bad on complex documents
* tried installing but failed, need to install to many things just to get an
editor working

I can't remember all the comments I have had, but people see the editor as
crippled and poorly designed with little functionality or support for basic
things. In this view they see it as a poor choice when you have alternatives
like XMLmind to use.

Oh yes, one person remarked that the web site was unhelpful and that they saw
I had written the help, but that it was mostly empty. They ask if I will be
finishing the document. Puts me in a sticky situation and I have to explain
the essence of what I am about to tell you next. Just not is so many words
and not as forthright.

From my own experience I can say that I agree with their feelings. In
addition, back when I planned documenting the editor. I found that, with the
exception of a few, that people were insensitive and unsupportive of new
people joining the project and voicing their ideas and problems. Often to the
point where the views of others where over showed by the religious focus of
certain members. Often very valid user input and points where totally
disregarded.  Responses to questions often seemed more like an effort to
prove a persons technical ability and knowledge that trying to help a person
understand or solve an issue. Contribution to the project became an argument
and there was no more fun left.

In a recent effort to try and understand the problems a user who had
 installed Conglomerate and was speaking about. Since I had not touched the
 program in some time, I tried installing the latest release on SuSE 9.2 and
 was met by the following error
conglomerate.rpm install failed
rpm output:
/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.26168: line 2: gconftool-2: command not found
error: %post(conglomerate-0.9.0-1.1.fc2.rf) scriptlet failed, exit status 127

I did not bother continuing. Firstly I was scared to ask for help for fear of
being abused on the list because of my ignorance and second because I don't
need gconftool for anything else. My main desktop is KDE, I have installed
numerous GNOME apps and have yet to be required to install gconftool.
everything GNOME installed on my box, "just works" afer installation.

Please, I realize that my comments and input here may offend and anger
 certain people. I ask that you take my input and commnets as constructive
 input. I do not mean to be derogitory or demeaning to any person, I am just
 trying to give you a perspective of a person looking in to conglomerate as a
 project from the outside.

Warm regards,
--
Sean Wheller
Technical Author
http://www.inwords.co.za
Registered Linux User #375355

-------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Sean Wheller
[email protected]
http://www.enbaya.co.za