Marcelo Galv?o Póvoa wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:56 PM, Nico Williams <n...@cryptonector.com> wrote:
> > BTW, this has all been solved before (clearly). Research it and use
> > whatever protocol pattern is most appropriate (or, if you can't
> > because of patents, invent a new protocol).
> >
> > Some posts on this list pointed at some such prior work.
>
> I recently implemented a simple collaborative text editor focusing on
> maintaining consistency across multiple users edits. I have been
> following the discussion about the consistency related issues and
> there are indeed several possible approaches. I will try to briefly
> describe mine and you can comment about its (in)feasibility.
I can't comment whether your approach would work, but please think
how your approach work with several random bits:
- we don't have just linear structure of the document and sometimes
distance of change can be tricky thing, e.g:
- you delete title subsection 1.3.2, now all 1.3.4/5.. subsections must
be changed and numbering/reference from other parts of document must be
correctly
recomputed. If there was label in 1.3.2, you have to find all crossrefs
on it and mark it broken.
- you change the depth of subsection/paragraph - it affects the whole
structure
around.
- innocent looking actions like cursor movement can change document strucutre
- DEPM -> you delete all characters in title of subsection 1.3.2 but
still let the empty line. Now another user _just_ move with the cursor
around this empty point. DEPM will immediately collapse the structure.
The same with double blanks.
- add/delete text is not enough. We modify. E.g. we make from equation 1.3
unnumbered formula. Now all crossref links must be checked and other equation
number recomputed. While I agree that we could disable some aspects of
editation
disabling everything except add/remove text seems to make LyX slightly better
notepad.
Pavel
