From koffice-devel Sat Feb 10 10:29:30 2001 From: Thomas Zander Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 10:29:30 +0000 To: koffice-devel Subject: Re: KWord status X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=koffice-devel&m=98180099622431 > I do not intend to make anybody angry, to offence anybody or to make > anybody feel personnaly attacked but I would like to say a few things about > the current situation of KWord. No problem. > It is not good that the application that many people considers the most > important one (or that they await the most) in the whole KDE project is in > such a uncertain state. Agreed... Well, start coding allready !! :) > 1. File formats > It would help if the work around KWord's core could still be continued in > the meantime. When the new KWord will be ready, most of what is needed > beside it would be there already. So it would save time until a stable > KWord exists. I recently noted this as well, development will continue in the HEAD, on other stuff. > To achieve that filters work with the new KWord and that new developers > feel welcome to KWord's world, I think that a few things are needed in > particularly on the level of KWord's file format: > - How does the new file format of KWord look likes (I am not naive enough > to think it would stay the same!) Be surprised, they will stay the same. Special commitment from the start ;) I want to pick 2 comments to make a point: > - Avoid tags that can represent many things at the same time. (Why is an > anchor a in KWord?) Because we want to create generic enough tags that allow us to easily expand on current funtionality. Meaning that it is easy to create a new version of kword, with different internal formatting, maybe extra funtionality, and still use the same file format. > - In one word, please think also about filter developers and don't make a > file format that is just good for (one version of) KWord! We know, and we did. (btw, thats much more then one word ;) > 2. External style sheets > Personnaly I dislike to take out the style sheet from the document. I > understand why HTML/XHTML does it but I do not understand why KWord should > do so. The reasoning is the following (just like with stylesheets) That a company can force styles to be used company wide, and individual workers can not change the formatting. This is something a _lot_ of companies want.. But I recently was confinced this is more trouble then it is wourth, basically because it is a half solution.. What you (well all those companies anyway) really want is a way to store the info in a markup-independent style. And format it the way you want at publishing time, but thats in the far future.. > 3. KWord in general. > Many (potential) users awaits an application like the old word processing > application they have used. Care should be taken not to break this too > much. To give a recent example, forbiding users to have double spaces is a > bad behaviour for KWord (even if it looks odd!) (And filter developer > cannot do miracles. For example tabulators do not exists in HTML!) We agreed it is to be a config option. I don't understand your pointer to html, html does not do multiple spaces either... And my opinion is that we are trying to create a good WP, not a new WP on a non-Windows platform. So we should look closely at the mistakes made earlier and fix those. As to double spaces; ask any proof reader, it is the most made mistake.. > 4. Depreciated Files > Please note in the current CVS which files are depreciated, so every > programmer knows that he/she should not modify anything in it, but a very > serious bug! > On the other side, files whitout it can be modified and the programmer > could be fairly certain that his/her modifications would stay, even after > the change of KWord's core! > Example: at the top of those files add: > // This file is depreciated Good point, but quite hard to accomplish.. I'll try.. -- Thomas Zander zander@earthling.net The only thing worse than failure is the fear of trying something new _______________________________________________ Koffice-devel mailing list Koffice-devel@master.kde.org http://master.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel