About making and reviewing comments
Making comments is the raison d'être of Ensembling.
To make a new comment
You need to be looking at the page preview for the most recent
version of a document.
Do one of the following:
- click somewhere on the page to say what your comment applies to and then say what your comment is in the box and using the buttons provided
- click and drag on the page to mark a whole word, paragraph etc which you want to comment on
- click on the dog-ear at the top left of the first page to make general, position-unspecific comments
Type your comment and then click OK when you are ready to save the
comment.
To reply to to an earlier comment
Choose at the top of the comments so far
to add your tuppence worth.
If you made the comment and no one has responded to it, you can
also or it
(on the menu). You can't do this if someone has already responded because
their response would then probably be out of context. You can't edit or delete other people's comments.
Lots of strange buttons when making a comment
You often need to describe your suggested change in words, so just type it in.
Sometimes, though, you can just indicate a change by selecting one
of the many proof marks (for example,
,
,
).
Most of these are derived from paper mark up conventions for proof reading,
though some from the internet age are introduced (the last one above,
for example, is the shorthand many people use for 'I agree').
,
,
).
Most of these are derived from paper mark up conventions for proof reading,
though some from the internet age are introduced (the last one above,
for example, is the shorthand many people use for 'I agree').Hover over the button for a description of what the proof mark
means.
So in many cases you can just press the button for the proof mark
you want. You can add a description as well if you need to. If the
comment refers to a single place on the page (you just clicked), the
proof mark is also used to mark its position. For a range of text (you
dragged), square brackets are still used to indicate its location.
Press OK and you're done.
Once a proofmark appears on the page to mark its position, you can
click on it to show the text etc. for that comment.
Changing the order of comments
Normally when you go to the next or previous comment, you move down
or up the page. But you can change the order you see them in based on
who made them and when, and also whether you have marked them with a
flag.
Use the menu to see additional items
Choose to set a flag.
is a short cut for
saying 'I've dealt with it', indicated thus
,
which you can use to keep track of which
comments you've applied as you edit the original
file. The 'seen' flag
is set automatically as you
look at comments.
You can use these flags and others to control what order you see comments in.
For example, if you set each to 'done' as you apply comments, you can change order
to 'importance' to see any you've missed.
Choose
. You can then choose to suppress
comments you've flagged in certain ways, and what order to display them in.
What do all the symbols in the yellow banner mean?
These symbols are buttons for moving between groups of comments
(the corresponding menu entries do the same thing)
The yellow bar across the top of the panel displays the comments
page number and sequence added, and also any flag you've assigned to the
comment. For wide documents the panel may occasionally be in the way. Just drag this bar to move it.
| One of several possible flags, this one indicates you've seen the comment before (and it hasn't been changed since) and is set automatically when you look at a comment. Choose to choose other flags. | |
 | Sometimes the proof marks obscure text underneath which you want to be able to read. Click the eye button to hide the proof marks temporarily. Click it again to bring them back. |
  | the up and down arrows let you move to the previous and next comments respectively. Uusally this is up and down the page, but you may have changed the order as above, for example to see newest comments first. |
 |
the right arrow jumps the page view to the comment (if you've scrolled away from it since, for example). |
Reviewing comments
When everyone has made their comments (or a deadline has expired,
or whatever) the comments need to be reviewed: the editor(s) decide which comments to adopt
('accepted') and which to reject ('rejected') and set the status
accordingly. To do this, click the button showing the current status
(e.g. 'new') to show the form to change
comment status.
Once the status for all the comments is set, the author or person
doing page layout etc. can work through the already collated comments
in order, acting on the editor's decisions. Of course, for some
projects these may all be the same person. Neverthless, separating the
procedures maintains a record for other project members and can make
the review process easier.
To apply comments the author would the version to collect the file
if they don't already have it, and to let others know that's what they
are doing, to avoid clashes. When they have edited the original file,
they would choose to upload
it. A further round of comments can then be made on the new version
and so on until everyone is happy. For more about the life cycle of a
document, see workflow.
The comments on the older version are still available. Click on
(on the menu)
to see a list of the older
versions, and select the one you want. It is displayed along with all
its comments.
Does it always say 'new'? About comment status.
Those colleagues designated as editor for a project can change the status of the comment
by clicking on the button showing the
current status, initially shown as 'new', as part of the review
process (see above).
The possible statuses are:
new | comment has yet to be reviewed |
accepted | yes, the suggestion should be adopted |
rejected | thank you, but we won't be taking up this suggestion |
undecided | the comment has been reviewed but the editor isn't sure what to do and will revisit it later |
optional | we'll make the change if formatting etc. allows |
noted | the comment has been reviewed, no action is necessary |
revised | we quite like the suggestion but want to make the change in another way (a new comment should be added to that effect) |
How can I get to see what comments people are making?
You can either set a watch using
(on the menu)
or subscribe to the page's RSS feed (you can get the link using the form).