On Sunday, September 15, 2013 19:35:06 Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On 15/09/13 13:32, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> > It's not an improvement at all. Ctrl+F doesn't work with this (like
> > you mentioned), and the items list is not even sorted
> > alphabetically(!), so now we have to hunt down a symbol before we can
> > jump to it. Also, what used to be just one step (click), now becomes
> > more (click, scroll, click).
> 
> Agree, being able to use Ctrl+F is crucial.  Anything that kills that is a problem.

Yeah. It feels a lot like when you can't resize a Window like Microsoft won't let you done with the dialog for setting environment variables. When I mess with my PATH in Windows, I typically have to copy it elsewhere, edit it, and copy it back. This feels a lot like that except that it relates only to finding data and not editing it. I would much rather have the list of links at the top that we have right now.

Really, the main problems with the current list of links relate to the fact that it completely ignores scoping.

1. All of the functions with the same name end up with the same anchor even if they're inside a struct or class (so std.datetime ends up with 3 day links - for SysTime, DateTime, and Date - and they all end up just going to SysTime, because it just so happens to be first).

2. You just get a long list of functions with no organization and no indication of what type (if any) they belong to. You should see something like SysTime.year, DateTime.year, Date.year rather than year three times in a row. And the links as a whole really should be organized by the type that they're in (e.g. all of the SysTime functions would be grouped together and separate from functions in the module which are in other types or which are free). Right now, all we get is a big long list with no hierarchy whatsoever.

The case of std.algorithm shows the need to organize free functions based on what they do, but I think that that pretty much has to be done by hand, and if it's really needed it, it implies that separating the module (as we've discussed) is probably a good idea. The hierarchy of the functions themselves however _is_ something that can be done programmatically and would really help any module which has any user-defined types in it.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 18:31:16 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 18:25:03 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
>> I assume Ddox has failed to be integrated because it was a server-side process. It also places each symbol in its own file, which will break existing links. Perhaps it be feasible to reimplement only its basic index-table functionality in JavaScript, to replace the word-blob/dropdown?
>
> Admitting that server-side process has failed and moving to JS is akin to accepting failure to do proper documentation at all. Static documentation which requires JS to be conveniently usable is disaster.

Using JS has several disadvantages, but would require much less effort for everyone involved. (If effort is not a factor, how come we don't have Ddox on dlang.org yet?)

Am 15.09.2013 19:20, schrieb Walter Bright:
> On 9/15/2013 12:53 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
>> What happened with Ddox? This looks like an improvement in both
>> function and
>> aesthetics:
>>
>> http://vibed.org/temp/phobos/std/array.html
>
> It doesn't document the parameters, return type, and doesn't recognize
> embedded hyperlinks.

Just as a reminder, this is the current version:
http://vibed.org/temp/d-programming-language.org/phobos/std/array.html

On 15 September 2013 19:22, Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@webdrake.net> wrote:
> On 15/09/13 19:47, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>
>> Not sure what that's based on, but at least for me that only works up to a
>> few
>> words. For large modules that's hopeless. Just look at:
>>
>> http://dlang.org/phobos/std_datetime.html
>>
>> Can you really pick up the desired term?
>
>
> It's very unwieldy as is, but what if it was split up into a categorized table and cheat-sheet à la std.algorithm?

I'm sure you could make a t-shirt out of such a cheat-sheet.

-- 
Iain Buclaw

*(p < e ? p++ : p) = (c & 0x0f) + '0';

On Sunday, September 15, 2013 11:02:11 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> One obvious
> drawback of ^F working is that all symbols are there in sight.

I actually consider it a serious drawback when they're _not_ in sight. The problem that we have is not that all of the symbols are shown as links but how they're organized. Trying to hide them doesn't help.

- Jonathan m Davis

On Sunday, September 15, 2013 10:47:06 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 9/15/13 12:53 AM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> > On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 07:14:15 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >> Check out the new navigation at http://erdani.com/d/phobos/std_array.html. The ugly "Jump to" list as the top gets replaced by a slick drop-down. Once you jump to a name, you can go back by pressing the up arrow on the right or simply go to top.
> > 
> > I'm not sure this is an improvement, functionally. Finding the right item in much faster when you can see all items at once, and not lined up on only one direction.
> 
> Not sure what that's based on, but at least for me that only works up to a few words. For large modules that's hopeless. Just look at:
> 
> http://dlang.org/phobos/std_datetime.html
> 
> Can you really pick up the desired term? I think http://erdani.com/d/phobos/std_datetime.html is a real improvement over that (it also reduces the size of the list to the top-level ones, which helps).

It's an improvement because it shows the top-level symbols only rather than putting all of the symbols inside of the types at the top level like the current links do. The fact that it's a drop-down hurts rather than helps.

- Jonathan  Davis

On Sunday, September 15, 2013 19:56:43 Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 17:47:06 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
> 
> wrote:
> > Not sure what that's based on, but at least for me that only works up to a few words. For large modules that's hopeless. Just look at:
> > 
> > http://dlang.org/phobos/std_datetime.html
> > 
> > Can you really pick up the desired term? I think http://erdani.com/d/phobos/std_datetime.html is a real improvement over that (it also reduces the size of the list to the top-level ones, which helps).
> 
> I believe that example is invalid. std.datetime is too big, as abundantly discussed previously. The module's documentation web page is over 130000 pixels long (for me)!

I've got the code split into a package on my box locally, but I need to finish fixing the documentation before I can create a pull request for it. Once I do that, the blob of links won't be so bad, since it'll be split across modules. Unfortunately, I'm quite slow in getting the job finished though as I'm quite busy at the moment.

But what I think will really help deal with the blob of links for any module which isn't just a huge list of free functions (e.g. std.algorithm) would be if the links were actually hierarchical instead of treating all symbols like they are at the top level of the module rather than inside an enum or a struct or any other deeper scope.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 9/15/13, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote:
> Yeah. It feels a lot like when you can't resize a Window like Microsoft
> won't
> let you done with the dialog for setting environment variables. When I mess
> with my PATH in Windows, I typically have to copy it elsewhere, edit it, and
> copy it back.

P.S. you may want to give this app a shot: http://www.rapidee.com/en/screenshots

On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 18:02:10 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Vladimir, do you think you could easily implement such an incremental search box (with autocompletion)?

One of the things that pisses me off most about facebook now is they hooked the / key to go into their own search, thereby breaking the browser's search hotkey (which i use often) and my expectations.

Let's let the browser do what it does and not get too smart about it.

On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 07:53:23 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> On Sunday, 15 September 2013 at 07:14:15 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Check out the new navigation at http://erdani.com/d/phobos/std_array.html. The ugly "Jump to" list as the top gets replaced by a slick drop-down. Once you jump to a name, you can go back by pressing the up arrow on the right or simply go to top.
>
> I'm not sure this is an improvement, functionally. Finding the right item in much faster when you can see all items at once, and not lined up on only one direction. Also, Ctrl+F was more likely to find the link to the correct item before than now (and if you used your browser's inline search feature, then you could activate that link by pressing Enter).
>
> I think some kind of outline would be more useful.
>
> What happened with Ddox? This looks like an improvement in both function and aesthetics:
>
> http://vibed.org/temp/phobos/std/array.html

Agreed. Sorry Andrei but this is not an improvement for usability. It disables being able to search the index via page search (Ctrl-F). Also i thought combobox navigation died out in the 90's!?

Seriously though, the navigation needs to be available no matter where you are on the page. For me this is a huge step backwards, you've effectively hidden the navigation and introduced a dependency on javascript.

Is there any chance some money can be spent to employ a good web developer to develop a nice user friendly site? IMHO the website really lets D down and to be honest looks very amateurish.