Re: Page preview can now be implemented rather easy

On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 03:32:23PM +1200, John Rankin wrote:
> What about a page layout that's landscape, instead of portrait, eg:
> 
> Edit view here                 Preview view here
> 
> the buttons                    the headers
> 
> the edit box                   the body
> 
> the edit quick reference       the footers
> 
> a jump to the right link       a back to left top link

Just to weigh in with my opinion:

In lieu of John's excellent idea above, I think the preview should
appear below the edit box.  

It should also render as faithfully as possible (e.g., headers, footers,
styles, includes, etc.) such that the actual page looks just like the
edit page preview but without the edit box on top. Thus I favor the
version shown at
http://www.pmichaud.com/wiki/Development/PreviewEdits?action=edit

Either way, there should be something near the top of the edit page that
says "The preview is below the edit box, scroll down" or "The preview is
to the right scroll rightward". That's one of the things that has
annoyed me about other wikis that do previews. I click on the preview
button and the page appears to not have changed, I'm still looking at
the same edit box, etc. Granted this is a small thing, but it might be
important to not-so-technical users.

And there should be big flashing neon signs that say THIS IS A PREVIEW
ONLY. YOUR CHANGES ARE NOT YET SAVED. Okay, maybe not flashing :-)

-Scott
-- 
Jonathan Scott Duff
duff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx