A Few (More) of My Unfavorite Things

18 May 2006 ~ Link ~ Category: App ~ Comments: 13

In the spirit of beating dead horses (making things better), I've continued my wish list for MT changes:

Real Power-editing: Marie from disarranging.com mentioned in the previous article that the power editing mode should allow for assigning multiple categories. I personally think the power editing mode could use even more oomph than that. How about being able to customize just exactly which fields can be edited in that batch mode? I have personally found myself wanting Flickr like managability where I can edit entries, titles and categories en masse just by clicking.

Messy Input: Mark griped that MT allows for "bad characters" in an entry, but I would go further to add that MT's input processing needs a bit of a kick-in-the-pants. This has reared it's ugly head during The Style Contest and numerous times on ProNet. Technically the W3 calls for

tags to go inside of

tags. However, MT's 'Convert Line Breaks" function will either a) nest paragraph tags improperly or b) simply place
tags without

tags, depending on how you break your lines. Not to mention it's fickle handling of all other block level HTML tags. Certainly this would take some thinking through because what we want is for the program to figure out what the heck a user is trying to do based on what is entered. But no matter how the user enters text, the program should output valid code (and characters).

More Little Things: Often it's the little things that make the difference between love and hate. You know the options at the bottom of an entry? Imagine a checkbox beneath them marked: "Do this for all entries". Yeah you can change that in the overall settings, but why not put it here while people are thinking about it? For that matter, why not apply that principle across the app? Almost all the great applications give users multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. The program wraps around your style instead of forcing you to think like the programmer who created it.

Tidyness/File Management: One thing that has annoyed me beyond compare is how messy MT is. MT loves to create files, but never seems to get rid of them when changes occur. So you can literally have scores of directories no longer used by MT that are just sitting there taking up your precious disk space. Yes, I realize all the complexities behind fixing this problem. I also realize that this happens only with static publishing, and that's a debate I'll leave to people far more qualified than myself. Perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone and add some simple file management tools. This would certainly help alleviate the upload file issue I complained about last article. This one certainly deserves some more discussion.

Ajaxify: Now, I avoid buzzwords at all costs; but with a recent surge in websites that look more like desktop apps, we really need to hop on that train. I'm not talking about overusing throbbers *coughArvindcough*. I'm talking about throwing the click-wait-click-wait experience out on it's head for something that'll do for blogging what del.icio.us did for social bookmarking and Google Maps did for going places.

Please, keep the comments coming. I think this is a great discussion, and the more we can get out in the open, the greater the chance for change.

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I thought of something else: I really really don't like the search function in the admin interface. Unless you understand regex (which I don't), you can't do anything worthwhile. You can't, for example, search for comments that come from commenters with "poker" in their name, including "online poker" and "poker online" and "poker playing tips". Instead you have to do each query separately. Searching "poker" will only come up with commenters whose name is just "poker".

Posted by: srah on May 18, 2006 6:27 AM

How about the ability to close comments and trackbacks for a whole bunch of entries at one time? Instead. of. going. into. each. entry. and. clicking. lots. of. buttons. and. links.

Posted by: Lola on May 18, 2006 7:00 AM

@srah: It's a hard call on the regex thing. You can search for pretty much anything using regex and it's a common component for most languages as well. Even most text editors have regex functionality. Perhaps a switch between beginner and advanced to fulfill all needs?

@Lola: AMEN. Another thing to add to our power editing mode.

Posted by: Jesse Gardner on May 18, 2006 8:43 AM

I really wish they had better entry editing and formatting. I know there's a plugin for it, but it really doesn't do a fabulous job.

What I would really like is the ability to upload a photo into an entry and add padding around it. Right now if you add an image into an entry, I have to use css to format it properly.

I know Typepad has a better entry editing interface, so it shouldn't be too difficult to do.

Posted by: Megan on May 18, 2006 11:03 AM

Messy input: Please define what a "bad character" is, and in what context.

You know the options at the bottom of an entry? Imagine a checkbox beneath them marked: "Do this for all entries".

I'd like to see more about what this checkbox would do. Yes, this is a trick question.
Also, please cite the great applications you're referring to and how they exhibit this behavior.

Tidiness: It's great that you realize the complexities behind "fixing" this. How about sharing them with the rest of the class, or at least linking someplace that does explain them? You also seem to be mashing together different issues here.

Ajax: Meh. It's possible to avoid buzzwords while still buying into the hype, you know. AJAX has serious usability(and accessibility) issues that haven't even all been discovered yet. While I wouldn't particularly object(actually, even care) if more software made use of it, I can think of many reasons to avoid it for the time being.

Lola: Go downlaod Accept Comments/Pings, which fully integrates with the system. You don't even have to open PE mode.

Posted by: Su on May 18, 2006 1:24 PM

As a sidenote, you've all filed feature requests for these things, right?

Individually?

Great!

Posted by: Su on May 18, 2006 1:33 PM

A feature request? Where is that? I've never seen that option before.

Posted by: Megan on May 19, 2006 8:19 AM

@Megan: I've dealt with many clients who have switched to MT for things like podcasting, but want the user tools of TypePad; then they frustrated that MT doesn't offer as much in terms of usability.

@Su: Let's go down the list, shall we?

Messy characters: I'm thinking specifically of the problems that arise with character encoding when you copy and paste from Word or Photoshop. Think curly quotes, copyright and elipses dots. I solved this (nearly) by using MTMacros to grab any of the messy characters that might get posted and replace them with their html entity equivalient. It would have been nice to have it solved inside the app itself.

The Checkbox: It would simply be another way to either turn comments off and on for the whole site or set the text formatting for all entries. Like when you transfer existing files to SmartFTP and when it asks you if you want to overwrite this file, there's a checkbox at the bottom that is essentially: "Do this for all files." As for examples of programs that give you multiple ways of doing things, do I really need to list them all?

Tidyness: "This one certainly deserves some more discussion." It's funny how even though you make that statement, people still want you to have all the answers. :-)

Ajaxify: Su, I completely I agree that accessibility is important! That's one of the mantras of my design business. And I am familiar with many of the AJAX accessibility issues, but we're talking about using it to power an application. Perhaps others would disagree with me, but I think sacraficing accessibility in an application for the sake of enhancing the UI is an acceptable loss. For instance, have you ever tried to use MT with javascript off? Many of it's features depend on javascript (try to rebuild!) but I would consider than an acceptable risk, considering all of the benefits we draw from it. Also, keep in mind, AJAX accessibility problems are usually issues like working with screen readers, using the back button and clean urls, most of which don't really matter as much in an application setting (again, see Google Maps).

As for your feature request comment, you have no idea!

Posted by: Jesse Gardner on May 19, 2006 8:39 AM

Messy characters: This likely comes down to a fundamental difference in approach. The fact is that MT takes whatever you put into the entry form and spits it back out. If you want to change that, it's your responsibility to do so. Whether this is more correct than coddling the users is a separate debate, opening questions of whether you prefer named entities, or numeric(decimal? octal? hex?), among other things, and which is supported by browsers better, etc.
I'm personally of the opinion that if people are going to publish to the web, they need to take a moment to bother learning some basic rules. I once managed to actually make a site validate for a client who threw damned near anything into MT. It took running every single bit of content through six filters, but I got it. This because they refused to learn either how to publish to the web, or how to make Word not export all that crap. I'll vote for education every time.

The checkbox: You're still not thinking this through far enough. MT is a multi-user system, in which some users may be able to edit other user's entries. As for those applications, I'm not asking for all of them, no. Simply suggesting that this checkbox be jammed into the bottom of the entry screen is an interface problem itself. Everything down there applies only to the immediate entry, and that is a global option you're proposing. Why not just leave it in the blog settings with the rest of the global options? Many novice uses already say they find the MT interface very confusing at first.

Tidyness: Who asked you for answers? I'm asking you to take responsibility for saying it's complicated by actually pointing out those complications for people who might not see what those problems are. All they take away here is, "MT is messy and dumps files all over the place." The more likely reality(one of them, at least) of this occurrence is that you changed your archiving structure because it was poorly considered in the first place(Cool URIs not changing, and all that).
And let's never mind that "cleans up after itself" in this case equates to "creates 404 errors." Or are you assuming everybody is versed in writing .htaccess redirects with regex?

but I think sacraficing accessibility in an application for the sake of enhancing the UI is an acceptable loss. [...and so on]

I'm not even going to touch this. There are people much more qualified and invested in the topic than I am. I will mention that I find it curious you use an existing accessibility issue to justify only increasing the problem.

You have to understand that I'm not necessarily objecting to the general desires being expressed. But I do think that they're being expressed horribly in general, and fail--even refuse--to acknowledge the real, non-obvious, problems inherent to applying them.
As I've said many times before: Sometimes it's just better to make the user/developer completely responsible for what a program does.

Posted by: Su on May 19, 2006 8:49 PM

I appreciate many of your points, Su, though I will say you seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.

Please understand I wrote this article not to get everyone to switch to WP--that would be too much work because I'd have to change my domain name; I wrote it to simply explore some of the weaknesses of the UI and either call for changes from 6A, the community or just make those changes myself. That's part of the reason I didn't go into a great amount of detail in the tidyness section, because I don't claim to have all of the solutions. But I do know that if I move a file to a new category, there's still a copy left in the old one. I know that if a client puts the wrong name in the upload file box, they've just created a new directory. I know you never make mistakes and enter everything perfectly the first time, and for that I congratulate you. The rest of us wish the app was more forgiving of our second-guessing.

I am a big fan of educating my users; but then let's at least be consistent. If we're going to allow characters that can't be displayed with the default character set and expect users to replace them with their corresponding html entity, why do we have those patronizing bold, italic and underline buttons on the edit entry screen?

"As I've said many times before: Sometimes it's just better to make the user/developer completely responsible for what a program does." Sigh. Thank you Bill Gates.

Look, Su, I agree, I am oversimplifying. I'm not so asinine as to think that these problems didn't arise because people at 6A are stupid. They have difficult solutions; but I don't think that invalidates them. Yes, you made a great point about global options on individual entries; but please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I work with many people who use MT and have shared their frustration over some of these things. I'm simply trying to put them into words and let people weigh in on them (which I think we're doing right now).

Posted by: Jesse Gardner on May 19, 2006 10:13 PM

arguing for the sake of arguing.

Yes, you've busted me. That's exactly it.

Posted by: Su on May 20, 2006 12:19 PM

Can we get back to the discussion at hand? Now where were we?

Thoughts (not always perfect) on improving an already great interface.

Posted by: Jesse Gardner on May 30, 2006 2:27 PM

i'm anxious to see what MT 3.3 is going to have when the beta releases within the next week or so... i'll be upgrading as soon as it comes out, which means that i'll have to redesign my site again... LOL... or maybe i'll just temporarily use a style from the style contest

lj.

Posted by: LaRosa Johnson on May 31, 2006 1:00 PM

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