Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Feature requests, and in-depth discussions of features and the way Mellel works

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Ideally, when Mellel has track-changes, how would you like it work? (mark any that apply)

Poll ended at Fri Oct 02, 2009 9:55 pm

What's "track changes" anyhow? Don't use it.
1
1%
Just like MS Word/Pages. I like the way they do this. Please, don't change anything there!
3
3%
When there's more than one reviewer/changer things tend to get messy. A clearer interface would help.
20
18%
Getting in and out of track changing "mode" could be clearer.
6
5%
Getting in and out of track changing "mode" should be easier. Don't force me to accept or reject all the time.
13
12%
I would like to review the final/with/out deletion at the same time.
10
9%
I would like the reviewer/changer identity to be independent of the machine user identity.
11
10%
I would like to be able to show/hide/minimise changes by different reviewers.
17
15%
I would like to be able to accept/reject/ignore changes by a specific reviewer, selectively.
16
15%
I would like to mix changes, comments and markings together.
13
12%
 
Total votes: 110

Ori Redler
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Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by Ori Redler »

Again, do not read much into this, yet. And do choose only those that are really important to you.
Ori Redler from RedleX
ddauerbach
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by ddauerbach »

This is just *my* need: I don't need the elaborate collaborative features. Basically, I need: get a student paper, write comments/markups, return. If the student uses Mellel, good. If the student can tolerate a pdf with the markups/comments clearly indicated, fine. If the student needs a word/rtf version then the Mellel markup should export cleanly, but I wouldn't need the elaborate author/date/time etc. stuff.
Put another way, I'd be happy with deletions indicated as strikeouts, additions indicated by some color and comments as marginalia (with I want too!).
Others may have more elaborate needs.
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kga1978
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by kga1978 »

Let me just add my 2c here. Whilst I hate the way track changes is handled in Word/Pages, the MOST important thing for me is that track changes in Mellel would be compatible with Word track changes.....

Track changes is the ONLY reason why I still have Word on my computer - all the collaborators have yet to see light (despite being on Macs)!
Ori Redler
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by Ori Redler »

ddauerbach wrote:This is just *my* need: I don't need the elaborate collaborative features. Basically, I need: get a student paper, write comments/markups, return. If the student uses Mellel, good. If the student can tolerate a pdf with the markups/comments clearly indicated, fine. If the student needs a word/rtf version then the Mellel markup should export cleanly, but I wouldn't need the elaborate author/date/time etc. stuff.
Put another way, I'd be happy with deletions indicated as strikeouts, additions indicated by some color and comments as marginalia (with I want too!).
Others may have more elaborate needs.
It seems that a "flatter," clean way (similar, in a way, to written comments on paper) would have been the way you'd like it. Am I right?
Ori Redler from RedleX
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by Ori Redler »

kga1978 wrote:Let me just add my 2c here. Whilst I hate the way track changes is handled in Word/Pages, the MOST important thing for me is that track changes in Mellel would be compatible with Word track changes.....

Track changes is the ONLY reason why I still have Word on my computer - all the collaborators have yet to see light (despite being on Macs)!
You're option 2, then, without the "like."
Ori Redler from RedleX
aechallu
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by aechallu »

I think that a lot can be improved to the usual interfaces to track changes (Word, Pages), but first and foremost it is important to have comprehensive, roundtrip compatibility with Word. As pointed independently in other postings by a handful of users (myself included) track changes with no compatibility is useless for collaboration.

My suggestion, is to replicate functionality, make it perfectly compatible, and then improve on a 2.8.1 or 2.9 release. Yes, there's a lot to improve, but it's important to have a working solution sooner than later.
redlers
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by redlers »

aechallu wrote:I think that a lot can be improved to the usual interfaces to track changes (Word, Pages), but first and foremost it is important to have comprehensive, roundtrip compatibility with Word. As pointed independently in other postings by a handful of users (myself included) track changes with no compatibility is useless for collaboration.

My suggestion, is to replicate functionality, make it perfectly compatible, and then improve on a 2.8.1 or 2.9 release. Yes, there's a lot to improve, but it's important to have a working solution sooner than later.
As this is a collaboration tool, compatibility is, of course, essential. The option named above strictly touch on issues that are not related to that such as how to get in and out of track changes mode, messy appearance of changes, and so on. Getting in and out you need to be compatible, but that doesn't mean that in needs to look back while working.
verma
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by verma »

Ori Redler wrote:
It seems that a "flatter," clean way (similar, in a way, to written comments on paper) would have been the way you'd like it. Am I right?
That would certainly be the way I like it: I consider it also real lazy editing if students/colleagues just have to click "accept" and they're done (in some cases that's precisely what they want...). In my experience, there are always better options, and one shouldn't be too easily satisfied about hastily suggested corrections. And people tend to focus exclusively on sentences, skipping a good read-through of the whole paragraph.

On the whole, commenting/revising/correcting someone else's text is, for me at least, quite a complex procedure: you want to avoid rewriting stuff yourself, or intervene in an author's personal style. Therefore I prefer the software behind it, to be simple.

The best system I could imagine, is one where you can refer to line numbers/words much like bookmarks, and comment/suggest improvements in a separate window/module (not like the balloons in word!). Very much like in the old days, I know. I'm a creature of habit...
Jake-1
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by Jake-1 »

For me, a Word/Pages-style track changes feature would be enough: everything else would just be gravy. Perfect Word compatibility would be a delight, but that's the extra 20%, not the 80%.
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by fliegenderrobert »

For me just a marking on either side of the line which has changed would be sufficient,
in order to make one carefully read the text / line(s) which have changed.

All the fancy W*rd stuff slows down an application so much and makes the text almost unreadable.
Furthermore I have found that one tend to forget to accept the changes. If I have a large document it only gets detected once it goes to print.
Best Regards
Fliegenderrobert
Ori Redler
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Re: Track Changes, what would you like to have?

Post by Ori Redler »

Thanks to all who commented and all who voted. Interesting stuff and lots to think about for us.
Ori Redler from RedleX
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