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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: Hopeful suggestion for kword
From:       Mike Richardson <mike () quaking ! demon ! co ! uk>
Date:       2001-04-25 16:57:51
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On Wednesday 25 April 2001 17:04, David Faure wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 April 2001 16:30, Nicolas Goutte wrote:
> > Yes, but it makes it incompatible with most XML tools, which suppose that
> > formating is either automatic ( <?xml-stylesheet ),  in the tags (like
> > the "id", "class" and "style" attributes of XHTML with CSS)  or inline
> > (like for example <b> element in XHTML.)
> >
> > Yes, KWord's maindoc.xml file is in XML, but not in a way that permits
> > the use of any extension of XML, like XSL for example.
> >
> > The main problem are the "pos" and "len" attributes of <FORMAT>.
> > If a citation program for example, have to change a two letter sequence
> > by a six letter one, you have to change all <FORMAT> of that paragraph
> > that points at the first character of the two letter sequence or later.
> > In another word, you have to know exactly KWord's format, as this
> > relationship is not in KWord's DTD. (I am not meaning in the comments!)
>
> Yes... but is this really what you want to do ? Applying processor scripts
> out of KWord ? I'm not sure I understand what exactly this is about, but
> if it's indeed about inserting a citation... why not do that as a
> data-tool, which can be run interactively ? This would lead to a better
> (much more intuitive since graphical) user interface, and it would solve
> this problem (of trying to hack into the kword file directly).

Maybe, but in many cases it would be _really_ useful to be able to "hack" the 
file directly. Not being able to do this is why so many things are really 
hard work, or at best extremely tedious, when working with a GUI. One can 
even imagine doing stuff like generating entire KWord documents directly from 
a script, say to generate a particularly fancily formatted report from a 
database.

Assuming by "data tool" you mean a GUI component, then that is great if you 
are selecting a handful of (say) citations. But suppose I want to append all 
citations where the authors include both Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, which were 
written between 1882 and 1887 and which were originally published in German 
or on a German publication, or written between 1888 and 1894 in any language 
..... you get the idea

Regards
Mike 

-- 
mike@quaking.demon.co.uk
http://www.quaking.demon.co.uk

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