On 3/3/2010 4:16 PM, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote: [snip]
the idea is that the proofer does the word-by-word scan _not_ against a web-page's textfield version of the page, but rather against an .html-realized version of the page... ... the main benefit is that you free 'em from having to look at the markup, because that's an unnecessary distraction. they see actual rendered italics, not the markup for italics.
FWIW, I like this idea very much. I think it meshes quite nicely with Mr. Frank's notion that markup should never be separated from its associated text.
it's also possible this way to red-flag any possible scannos, as well as capitalization and punctuation improbabilities...
you can also colorize quotations, which helps locate any missing or incorrect quotemarks.
This would have to be done subtly, so as not to influence users to make changes where they are inappropriate, but I think the idea has merit. [snip]
then, only if there are changes to be made will the proofer summon the textfield for editing.
The Kupu editor which is part of the Plone and Apache Lenya projects could be a very nice choice for this editor (good software engineers never want to reinvent wheels). In fact, I think it may be possible to use Lenya to build a prototype of this very sort of application. I'll do a little research and get back to you.