Dan Shafer : Wired HC Article - rev too complicated?

[Wolfgang M. Bereuter]

On Friday, August 16, 2002, at 09:45 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> Pierre-Marie writes:
>
>> To illustrate the problem see http://www.macintouch.com/hypercard.html
>> Perhaps "Norpath Elements Studio" is the solution for beginner
>> Perhaps Revolution understands the threat and will make a good 
>> and easy
>> entrance.
>
> I took a gander at the screen shots for Norpath.  There are some tasty
> features there, but it got me thinking about tool scope and 
> flexibility:
> It looks like one of us could build Norpath in a couple weeks with Rev
If this is possible why they did not make in 2 years?
* the Applov (Application Overview) Window rezisable
* Drag and drop
* Rtf import
* A better palettes handling
* etc

> , but
> could one build Rev with Norpath?


But i prefer it less overloaded and windowstyled - f.e. like 
iShell. Make an iShell style (not a copy) Ui run on Rev/Mc 
engine. I can give you a list of Apps wich have also a great UI. 
A brainfriendly no coder (!) Interface for the rest of us: Not 
more! Crossplatform and fast as rev without the need of QT (but 
the possiblity to run it). This will be *the* killer app in 
authoring.
If you can do that I´ll be you first customer!!
I have proposed something like this long time ago on the list, 
in times of rev´s beta, but I think they have only laughed at 
me. At this time there was no Norpath, no Supercard 4.0, no 
iShell for OSX, no Quarbon, etc... Now there are some of them 
here and alot more on the horizont and still further developed 
and "refuirbished" tools like Flash Mx, or (good) old fellows 
like Director...

...
>
> For example, one of my recent projects was building a prototype 
> of a medical
> training system, which will ultimately be part of a 10-CD set 
> of tutorials.
> With the instructional design and supporting object structure 
> worked out,
> we've begun work on a custom authoring environmemt to produce 
> the CD series
> at a significant cost savings over what it would take to do 
> without such
> tools, turning a production cycle of a week or two down to a 
> couple days

How did you do that with revs texthandling poor html, and 
without importing of rtf or pasting of styled text in a couple 
of days for 10 CD´s? I m really keen to know how you did that?

Maybee you did (only) the scripting part of the project, knowing 
MC and Rev very well since a lot of years..?
But the thread here is, that rev is to complicated for normal 
user, power user, scripting beginners, occasional programmers, 
multimedia authors, educators, pupils, trainer, without a couple 
of persons in background wich can do the rest of the stuff...

> The power of Rev over a lot of competitors is just that sort of 
> sweet spot:
> you can build stuff, but you can also make tools to build stuff for you

...

> Rev's flexibility in this regard is also a pitfall:  with so 
> many options,
> where do you start?  Thinking in terms of the "progressive disclosure"
> principle (see
> <http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/mac/HIGuidelines/HIGuidelines-62.html>
> )
> I've long wondered whether it might make sense to build a sort 
> of "RevLite"
> UI, something with the bare essentials exposed to let folks get 
> their feet
> wet with confidence.   As they gain more experience and crave 
> more options,
> those options would become available.

If Omni Graffle goes further in the direction where its going 
now with links and scripting, than imho you are wasting your 
time writing "RevLite"...


>
> Ah, if only I had more time to actually flesh such things out, 
> rather than
> ramble about them on an otherwise interesting list...  :)

I know this problem too ;)

Finally we have rev as a great scripting tool but its not an 
Authoring tool. Therefore it will loose this kind of users. The 
posting from Bruce Lewis on 
http://www.macintouch.com/hypercard.html describes perfectly my 
situation. An I have to think in my future trainingsmaps© 
developer net. I have no idea, this was my naively thinking 2 
years ago when I have decided to buy rev as an authoring tool. 
Now I ask myself how should this (type) of developer understand 
rev and how should I (teach) or at least demonstrate how it 
works to them... Really NO idea!

I m not a scripter, but may bee a kind of power user. After 2 
years struggling with rev, I fear a couple of Director Licenses 
(or/and some hours of Director programmers) would have been 
cheaper than one Pro License of Rev.
I like this guys at the run rev team and the support they do is 
really great. But if I need  help/support for so much things and 
still have so much UI and stability problems wich never have 
been solved, than i have to think in an alternative solution. 
I´ll do that now.

The help from these lists (use and improve) the support of the 
team, the intelligent marketing and the price structure are the 
real power of rev, the tool itself - hmmmm..?

regards
Wolfgang M. Bereuter

Learn easy with trainingsmaps©

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