Demo: Ctrl-key + right-click
A perennial problem of Online Communication is to let the readers feel that they can make your document "their own": They can not only read it but add their own notes , enter it to their own data base , etc. This article will show you an easy way to do that.
What makes Online Communication different from conventional web design is, thinking beyond the mere Internet: "That's no end in itself, just a medium to bring your document to your readers. To have your readers accept your document, you should take some effort to enable them to make it their own - by storing it in a data base, writing their own notes into it, etc."
One way to do that are Extra Notes (Details in my article Involve your Readers - ...). Some people might argue, however, that this still has some deficiencies. What's needed is a technology that:
In addition, Inline Notes are more reader-friendly than Extra Notes. (For example: When printing to paper, Extra Notes are gone. Inline Notes, however, are printed along with the original text.)
| E | '…' is a string of keywords for options, separated by a blank space. For example, if you want to give your readers a chance to save your document, this string should be 'snapshot' . (This option does not create a file right away; that's why it was not called "SAVE". For details see section Snapshot) If you need no keywords at all, leave the bracket empty: Flipchart(); |
a FloatingMenu will be pop up near the mouse location, offering a menu with several kinds of items:
In the above list, click the item you want to know more about!First, the readers should make sure that no text selection was left over from previous operations. Then, move the cursor to the place where the insertion is to be made, and Ctrl + right-click . A FloatingMenu will pop up, with the top item being Insert .
When the readers move the mouse cursor over this item, a temporary
| E | By default, the contents are taken "as is", though the HTML code might be altered to make it fit the given context. For example, attempting to insert a table cell into a context that does not contain a <TABLE> tag might cause inserting <TABLE>. For predictable results, the readers should insert only well-formed HTML code that is appropriate for the given context. Sometimes it might be that the HTML code to be inserted is not accepted right away. If so, an error message comes up: Incorrect input: "..." Could not insert. Then the readers should modify their input and click the Ok-button once more. Usually only one blank space more or less is needed. |
| E | Evidently, this text area makes only a very simple text editor, good for rather plain HTML code only. For a more complex HTML code it's a good idea to prepare it in any other editor, copy it there to the clipboard, and paste it into this text area. |
| E | By default, an insert is made standing out of the original text by a beige background color and a smaller letter size. If the readers want another insert style, they should click the auxiliary item Insert/Overwrite Style . The file OnlineComm.css will be opened in the system's default editor. In it, they should search for .insert . Within the {}-brackets following it, they should enter the desired style in normal css-code and save the file (see auxiliary item Insert/Overwrite Style). As well, they can comment it out by writing // at the beginning of the line. Then the user inserts will look the same as the original code. |
First, the readers should select the text to be overwritten: character[s], word[s] or block[s] - see Selection Help. A FloatingMenu will pop up, with the second item from top being Overwrite .
When the readers move the mouse cursor over this item, a temporary
| E | By default, the contents are taken "as is", though the HTML code might be altered to make it fit the given context. For predictable results, the readers should overwrite only by well-formed HTML code that is appropriate for the given context. Sometimes it might be that the HTML code for overwriting is not accepted right away. If so, an error message comes up: Incorrect input: "..." Could not overwrite. Then the readers should modify their input and click the Ok-button once more. Usually only one blank space more or less is needed. |
| E | Evidently, this text area makes only a very simple text editor, good for rather plain HTML code only. For a more complex HTML code it's a good idea to prepare it in any other editor, copy it there to the clipboard, and paste it into this text area. |
| E | By default, an insert is made standing out of the original text by a beige background color and a smaller letter size. If the readers want another insert style, they should click the auxiliary item Insert/Overwrite Style . The file OnlineComm.css will be opened in the system's default editor. In it, they should search for .insert . Within the {}-brackets following it, the< should enter the desired style in normal css-code, and save the file (see auxiliary item Insert/Overwrite Style). As well, they can comment it out by writing // at the beginning of the line. Then the user inserts will look the same as the original code. |
| E | Sometimes the readers might launch the FloatingMenu unintentionally, e.g. when selecting a text for searching or printing. Then, by clicking |
When the readers select any portion of the text in any of the ways described in section Selection Help), the FloatingMenu will pop up. When clicking item Selection then, the full HTML code of the selected text will be displayed in an extra window. (If it should not come up automatically, it is always launched when doing Ctrl + right-click anywhere on the text or white background.)
There it can be read but not changed.
When pressing the Esc-key or clicking the
The keyword you need to enter when calling function Flipchart() is select .
By this option an optional item Selection in the FloatingMenu is controlled. By default, this item is left out. When calling function Flipchart() with that keyword, however, this feature is made available to the readers.
| E | What is displayed in the extra window is the full HTML-code, including comments, hidden text, etc. As an author, you might want not to disclose all that! |
When a reader clicks this menu item, the full HTML code of the document's <BODY> (including the reader's own inserts) is copied to clipboard. From there it can be pasted in any text editor and made to a new version.
| E | The new version is basically just as usable like the original document. Only SectionMenu and the SectionFooters are simplified, to make them useful in any environment. |
If you want to include this option, the keyword you need to enter when calling function Flipchart() is snapshot .
By this option an optional item Snapshot in the FloatingMenu is controlled. By default, this item is left out. When calling function Flipchart() with that keyword, however, this feature is made available to the readers.
| E | To the author, it might make a difference to present a document
|
By default, the readers can only
By this option, however, the author can let them overwrite or also delete parts of the original text.
Of course, this is only local to the reader's PC. It does not mean that the original document on the web site is changed.
The keyword you need to enter when calling function Flipchart() is univ .
Contrary to the others, this option does not control an optional item in the FloatingMenu. Instead, with that keyword the feature associated with permanent item Overwrite in the FloatingMenu is applicable not only to the reader's own inserts but also to the original text (see section Overwrite).
| E | Quite obvious, some authors might hesitate to allow their readers to change their documents. So it is clear why this feature was made optional. |
In the concept of
Currently the following auxiliaries are available:
After performing a number of manipulations, the reader might want to restore the original state. Of course, this could be done by closing the document and downloading it again. A more efficient way it is to have it done automatically, by clicking this item.
| E | Instead of a boring check back Do you really want to refresh? this item was consigned to a |
The default style for reader inserts is smaller letter size on beige background . Some readers might want to change that, or they would even prefer different insert styles at different documents.
When clicking this item, the file OnlineComm.css is opened in the system's default editor (usually Notepad ) To change the insert style, the following should be done:
Starting from the next insert/overwrite, the new style will be active.
| E | This item will rarely be needed. So, for a compact menu design it might not be good to present it in the main menu. That's why it has been out placed to a |
There are many ways to do a selection - in fact, more ways than what you have in the standard browser. You can select by:
Be sure your selection does not comprise any hidden information! Else, the manipulation you intended for the apparently selected text will apply to the hidden information as well. (To that purpose, an item Selection was provided in the FloatingMenu.)
For removing a selection, it's enough to click anywhere on the <BODY> of the document.
By clicking the menu item
In the following
If you want to select whole lines, you have a shortcut:
Right after dragging, the FloatingMenu will pop up offering all the modifications available at this point.
If you want to modify the selection later, you can do that by clicking with the shift-key pressed.
Selecting by double-clicking on a word is a shortcut to select a single word.
To be exact: Not only is the word selected but also the following whitespace, if any. If the word is delimited by any punctuation character, the selection stops before it.
If that's not what you want, press the shift-key and modify the selection by any of the other selection methods described here.
To select a whole block of text (e.g. paragraph, list item, table cell, … ), just triple-click on that block. After clicking twice, the word located by the cursor will be selected. When you click a third time, the selection will be expanded over the entire block.
A selection, once changed by using the shift-key, can be changed again by using the shift-key.
Now and then you might have a selection on screen but the FloatingMenu does not pop up automatically (e.g. when you selected by dragging, far out to the margin between text and screen edge). Then you can enforce the FloatingMenu popping up by a Ctrl + Right Click. Be sure, however, that you right-click anywhere within the selected text - or the selection will be removed!
Article by Gunter Gerdenitsch, international IT-specialist with focus on Communication. IT service providers - looking for a freelancer for peaks in your workload, want to get your ideas across? Then you should visit http://www.ITspecial.org or mail to gg@ITspecial.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article is free to be re-printed, if complete with this resource box. It can be included in a web site if the URL mentioned above is linked to www.ITspecial.org. |
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| Keywords: | internal note, external note, insert, overwrite, reset, selection, snapshot, univ, refresh, insert/overwrite style, dragging, double click, triple click, |
| Word count: | 3295 |
| File size: | 43kB |