Executive Summary

Etna is an open source XML editor, aimed to provide WYSISWYG interface, such as the MS Word interface. Up to the point the report is written, the editor does a good job in basic text editing, such as cut, copy, paste and delete texts. In addition, the editor can guarantee the file will not contain any XML errors. However, it needs immediate or future improvement in certain features. First of all, a help file is needed immediately. Without the help file explaining certain terminologies and procedures to operate the editor, the users will not know how to start edit an XML file in this editor. Second, the organization of the menu items can be revised. The “insert” and “surround” menus can be put on the top together with “file” and “edit”, which can save some space for the editing window and provide an interface more familiar to the users. Third, inserting and deleting content other than texts should be made easier. Fourth, it is important to add in a preview function in the editor. Fifth, it might be beneficial to provide formatting icons in the tool bar, like formatting font and font size. Finally, it might be helpful for intermediate XML users to provide a parallel source code window together with the WYSISWYG interface.

General Overview of Etna

Etna is an open Source XML Editor built on Mozilla's core, Gecko. It uses some RelaxNG schema to edit and validate XML Documents. Currently, the Etna 0.3.1 version has been released.

In terms of usability, the pros and cons for the general design of the software are listed below:

Pros:

1. To some degree, it provides a WYSISWYG XML editor. For some part of the editing, users need not to know about the XML tags.
2. The internal RelaxNG Validator allows users to create or modify documents without errors.
3. All the icons in the tool bar are intuitive to users. One minor improvement could be that some help words are added adjacent to the icon when the mouse moves over to it, such as what Word does (See the figure below).
4. The function provided by each icon is similar to what Word does. Users can cut, copy, paste and delete texts, undo or redo actions, and open, save and save as files easily. These functions work exactly like what MS Word does.

Cons:

1. There is no help file for this software, so novice users will have no idea how to start using the software.
2. The menus immediately above the document window are not clear to the users that they are actually menus. Some type of indication can be added to solve the problem.

3. The header part of the software takes up too much of the space. The menus such as “insert” and “surround” can be put on the top line of the menus so that more space can be allocated to the document itself.
4. There is no preview function. If a user wants to preview the file, he/she needs to upload the file to other media to preview it.
5. There is no way to open more than one window. If a user needs to move contents from one file to another, they cannot keep both files open.
6. It is not clear what it means by inserting some of the items listed in the pull-down menu under “insert,” such as emphasis, foreign, etc. The software claims that users need not know about the XML tags, but for novice XML users, they will not understand the terminology at all.

7. It is not clear for users to delete content other than texts, such as figures and tables.

Review of Etna’s performance in different tasks

For this part of the report, the review will be given based on Etna’s performance in different tasks. The tasks include edit texts, images and media files. However, since the software does not provide the function for editing images and media files yet, the current report will focus on the task of editing texts in Etna.

Section A. Edit texts in Etna

Pros:

It is very intuitive to delete, add or revise texts if the user knows MS Word. For instance, a user wants to change the name of the “Education” section to “Test” (see the figure below). First, the user needs to highlight “Education” and then either use delete key on the keyboard or use on the tool bar. After that, the user type in “Test” to replace “Education.” Therefore, it is like editing texts in MS Word.

Cons:

1. It is not intuitive for users to change the format of the texts, such as font and font size. A novice user will not find out the way to revise the format without a help file. For instance, if a user wants to emphasize the texts, he/she needs to first highlight the texts, click “surround,” and then click on “emphasis” on the pull-down menu. For this procedure, users will have a hard time figuring out what “surround” and “emphasis” mean.

2. There are no icons in the tool bar for formatting texts. In MS Word, users can make the text bold or italic by simply clicking on the icons. However, in the Etna editor, there are no such icons.
3. There is no spelling or grammar check function in this editor. When editing a large amount of texts, this is an important point.
4. It is not clear how to add a hyperlink to certain texts.
5. It is not clear how to edit the attributes of the texts for novice XML users. They will not understand what “attribute” or “value” mean.

Section B. Edit Images

Pros: [no known yet]

Cons:

1. It is not clear how to insert an image. No icon is provided for this function. The inserting procedure is not intuitive and complicated.
2. When a figure is inserted, it is very difficult to find a way to delete it.