4 ms·

git is one thing I've really wanted to introduce to my wife, who is an author, but she's so tied to Word and there's just nothing I've found that ties the two t

by zeven7 4y ago

git is one thing I've really wanted to introduce to my wife, who is an author, but she's so tied to Word and there's just nothing I've found that ties the two technologies together well (I have tried a couple options, but they were disappointing)

b112 4y ago
Hmm. On Linux, you could turn on autosave, then tie it in with a short script for inotify + auto checkin + update. Very messy I guess, would probably be easier to write a patch for libreoffice, tied into undo/redo edit history. Seems like a killer feature for some people. Infinite rollback. Would work best in an optional separate window, so you could copy historic text back in.
- adtac 4y ago
  this is literally https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 all over again. just use dropbox, they have file history.
  - b112 4y ago
    My second part (OOo tie in), would be too much in this case. Imagine a full file upload every change. Instead, having a git style history for edits, right in OOo would be awesome. Maybe a ${filename}.hist file for each file. You could exclude this from git/svn/dropbox whatever backups too, so only purposeful saves get sent upstream. The GUI interface, its nuances would be key here. Imagine being able to open the history window, scroll to, or search text of all changes, then click and be taken to the location in current document, with a placement option once there. That's next gen history, and gp is right, why isn't this a thing?
- leonidasv 4y ago
  Windows has a built-in file history feature. You can customize folders to backup to a network drive or connected drive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/file-history-in-windows-5de0e203-ebae-05ab-db85-d5aa0a199255 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/file-history-in-... MacOS also does the same via Time Machine. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mh15136/mac https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mh15136/mac Other options are Google Docs (the editor has version history support) and cloud storage services that support versioning (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc).
Jistern 4y ago
First and foremost, it's unlikely that most professional authors would need to use another tool for writing in addition to Microsoft Word. I haven't used Microsoft Word in over a decade; I've been using Linux and Google Docs for about a decade. I hate Microsoft, but I try to be realistic. Nonetheless, Google Docs is a much better tool for most ordinary users than Git. With Google Apps Script you can easily use Google Docs as a CMS (content management system). If indeed your wife actually needs to use Git, instead of teaching your wife markdown, make a bunch of customized headings and explain to her she must not use all of the formatting options in Google Docs. Techies often tend to try to convert ordinary people to "techie technology." It is usually a mistake.
- eru 4y ago
  Yes, Google Docs is probably better for most ordinary users. It's not nearly as good at merging complicated histories as git, and doesn't help you keep commits atomic when working with multiple files. But that's seldom much of an issue with human language texts. Google Docs' suggestion feature is probably better than reviewing pull-requests for normal people. Its ability to let multiple people edit the document at the same time can be really great (but would be crazy to do when editing source code).
wyager 4y ago
Would latex or markdown work for her?
- shadowofneptune 4y ago
  I did most of my nursing school papers in LaTeX after finding APA7 formatting and citations difficult to comply with on a short deadline. I found that the headaches of the tools and of learning the many small packages far outweigh the benefits of separation of layout and content, and I've since uninstalled TeX Live. For anyone less inclined to tinker, I hope that the process of installing TeX Live would scare them away before the damage can be done. If the default behavior of a package manager is to download the entire repository, it's a sign of serious issues with the ecosystem. EDIT: Markdown on the other hand is far too simple to format formal writing. It was never the intention of Markdown to be that.
  - thangalin 4y ago
    > EDIT: Markdown on the other hand is far too simple to format formal writing. It was never the intention of Markdown to be that. Here are some Markdown documents I've written and/or typeset using ConTeXt: * https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf * https://www.docdroid.net/VQU9VEZ/design-pdf https://www.docdroid.net/VQU9VEZ/design-pdf * https://www.docdroid.net/rHlVyPV/autonoma-pdf https://www.docdroid.net/rHlVyPV/autonoma-pdf * https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/28/typesetting-markdown-part-8/jekyll-hyde.pdf https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/28/typesetting-markdow... My Typesetting Markdown series[0] does a deep dive into how to keep content and presentation separate, which is much easier using ConTeXt than LaTeX, IMO. Part 8 of the series delves into typesetting annotations. As for TeX Live, I agree. The instructions for installing ConTeXt on Windows is basically: download, unzip, run two batch files.[1] [0]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/ https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/ [1]: https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Installation https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Installation
    - shadowofneptune 4y ago
      Your work is spectacular. In particular that first link is striking. Unfortunately your series loses me with how it introduces the build system first rather than tools. That is not a trivial shell script or toolchain for me, and certainly is too much for someone looking for a Word replacement. Looking at further pages, it becomes less Markdown and more a home-grown formatting system that has Markdown as a subset. That said, ConTeXt looks great for my purposes! So much more is done out-of-the-box, the documentation is well-laid out, and I can see looking at its main pages how I could set up formatting for a style guide myself, unlike LaTeX. Thank you.
ht_th 4y ago
pandoc (https://pandoc.org https://pandoc.org) might help. It can read and write DOCX, convert it to a plain text format of your liking. I recommend to be wary of changing someone else's workflow, however. Particularly if it is someone you live with. Unless the other wants to change their workflow, they won't accept it. And if something goes awry, you're the first person they call, and make responsible to resolve the issue NOW. For example, when stuff breaks a day before a deadline, you know what you'll be spending that day on :-)
jhanschoo 4y ago
If you manage the documents on OneDrive, you can use the document revisioning on OneDrive. (GDrive has it too, I think, for that matter)

by zeven7 4y ago

b112 4y ago

Hmm. On Linux, you could turn on autosave, then tie it in with a short script for inotify + auto checkin + update. Very messy I guess, would probably be easier to write a patch for libreoffice, tied into undo/redo edit history. Seems like a killer feature for some people. Infinite rollback. Would work best in an optional separate window, so you could copy historic text back in.

adtac 4y ago
this is literally https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 all over again. just use dropbox, they have file history.
- b112 4y ago
  My second part (OOo tie in), would be too much in this case. Imagine a full file upload every change. Instead, having a git style history for edits, right in OOo would be awesome. Maybe a ${filename}.hist file for each file. You could exclude this from git/svn/dropbox whatever backups too, so only purposeful saves get sent upstream. The GUI interface, its nuances would be key here. Imagine being able to open the history window, scroll to, or search text of all changes, then click and be taken to the location in current document, with a placement option once there. That's next gen history, and gp is right, why isn't this a thing?
leonidasv 4y ago
Windows has a built-in file history feature. You can customize folders to backup to a network drive or connected drive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/file-history-in-windows-5de0e203-ebae-05ab-db85-d5aa0a199255 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/file-history-in-... MacOS also does the same via Time Machine. https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mh15136/mac https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mh15136/mac Other options are Google Docs (the editor has version history support) and cloud storage services that support versioning (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc).

Jistern 4y ago

First and foremost, it's unlikely that most professional authors would need to use another tool for writing in addition to Microsoft Word. I haven't used Microsoft Word in over a decade; I've been using Linux and Google Docs for about a decade. I hate Microsoft, but I try to be realistic. Nonetheless, Google Docs is a much better tool for most ordinary users than Git. With Google Apps Script you can easily use Google Docs as a CMS (content management system). If indeed your wife actually needs to use Git, instead of teaching your wife markdown, make a bunch of customized headings and explain to her she must not use all of the formatting options in Google Docs. Techies often tend to try to convert ordinary people to "techie technology." It is usually a mistake.

eru 4y ago
Yes, Google Docs is probably better for most ordinary users. It's not nearly as good at merging complicated histories as git, and doesn't help you keep commits atomic when working with multiple files. But that's seldom much of an issue with human language texts. Google Docs' suggestion feature is probably better than reviewing pull-requests for normal people. Its ability to let multiple people edit the document at the same time can be really great (but would be crazy to do when editing source code).

wyager 4y ago

Would latex or markdown work for her?

shadowofneptune 4y ago
I did most of my nursing school papers in LaTeX after finding APA7 formatting and citations difficult to comply with on a short deadline. I found that the headaches of the tools and of learning the many small packages far outweigh the benefits of separation of layout and content, and I've since uninstalled TeX Live. For anyone less inclined to tinker, I hope that the process of installing TeX Live would scare them away before the damage can be done. If the default behavior of a package manager is to download the entire repository, it's a sign of serious issues with the ecosystem. EDIT: Markdown on the other hand is far too simple to format formal writing. It was never the intention of Markdown to be that.
- thangalin 4y ago
  > EDIT: Markdown on the other hand is far too simple to format formal writing. It was never the intention of Markdown to be that. Here are some Markdown documents I've written and/or typeset using ConTeXt: * https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf * https://www.docdroid.net/VQU9VEZ/design-pdf https://www.docdroid.net/VQU9VEZ/design-pdf * https://www.docdroid.net/rHlVyPV/autonoma-pdf https://www.docdroid.net/rHlVyPV/autonoma-pdf * https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/28/typesetting-markdown-part-8/jekyll-hyde.pdf https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2020/04/28/typesetting-markdow... My Typesetting Markdown series[0] does a deep dive into how to keep content and presentation separate, which is much easier using ConTeXt than LaTeX, IMO. Part 8 of the series delves into typesetting annotations. As for TeX Live, I agree. The instructions for installing ConTeXt on Windows is basically: download, unzip, run two batch files.[1] [0]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/ https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/ [1]: https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Installation https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Installation
  - shadowofneptune 4y ago
    Your work is spectacular. In particular that first link is striking. Unfortunately your series loses me with how it introduces the build system first rather than tools. That is not a trivial shell script or toolchain for me, and certainly is too much for someone looking for a Word replacement. Looking at further pages, it becomes less Markdown and more a home-grown formatting system that has Markdown as a subset. That said, ConTeXt looks great for my purposes! So much more is done out-of-the-box, the documentation is well-laid out, and I can see looking at its main pages how I could set up formatting for a style guide myself, unlike LaTeX. Thank you.

ht_th 4y ago

pandoc (https://pandoc.org https://pandoc.org) might help. It can read and write DOCX, convert it to a plain text format of your liking. I recommend to be wary of changing someone else's workflow, however. Particularly if it is someone you live with. Unless the other wants to change their workflow, they won't accept it. And if something goes awry, you're the first person they call, and make responsible to resolve the issue NOW. For example, when stuff breaks a day before a deadline, you know what you'll be spending that day on :-)

jhanschoo 4y ago

If you manage the documents on OneDrive, you can use the document revisioning on OneDrive. (GDrive has it too, I think, for that matter)