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From: Reklaw <adam@localhost.localdomain>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Word Processors
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Is GWP still actively developed?
I have been looking at Maxwell (a pain to compile) for porting and want to
know if I should bother. It *could* be a nice program if the gui was changed
, switched to autoconf, cleaned-up. All this is in thier TODO file.
Thanks
--
==========
Reklaw - I code therefore I need beer.
The page has moved!!! No more ads!!!!
http://home.earthlink.net/~nawalker/
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
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To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Word Processors
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Pathetic Writer looks good and it's an easy compile. RTFs are
supported, but with not quite the original formatting as per Word rtf.
Hope this isn't a rehash of old news.
--
Rebecca Ore
From nawalker@earthlink.net
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From: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
To: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Reply-To: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
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Maybe we (I) should look it to useing Maxwell's rtf import/export
code to write import/export plugins for PW.
And fix the little bugs in PW, like it ignoring the last charactor
of the selection. I really like it's UI (when compiled with the
neXtaw toolkit) better than Maxwell's, it's cleaner and there is much
less of it to port <grin>. I haven't looked at the code yet.
A Quick Comparison of a couple-a-three of Word Processors
* = Not real sure, but this is my Guess
+ = My personal opinon
GWP MAXWELL PW
-----------------------------------------
CVS Yes Yes No (*)
Toolkit GTK+ Motif/(Qt?) awt and varients
Desktop GNOME KDE? NONE(Yet)
Plugins? Yes No YES!
Usable No(+) Yes Yes(+)
Formats Few Good Few
Active ? Yes Think So
Tables ? Yes Maybe use Siag as plugin and use PW as plugin inside of pw?
(BTW active means actively developed)
I haven't received an answer yeah or nah on GWP status (I think
the author maybe buzy on Gnome-Mozilla?)
I would like to work on one of the these soon (Still doing pharmacy).
I still haven't looked into Maxwell's CVS stuff (the 0.5.3 is a
nightmare, but the author says the build is cleaner from CVS).
I haven't looked into PW's code (or talked to the author) but it's
been GPL and open from the start.
GWP doesn't seem active and I don't "get" it's UI.
Maxwell has the BEST RTF import/export of all three. Since the
other accept plugins, maybe I could port max's rtf to plugins for
both.
The real issue in the upcoming document model. GNOME users will prob
want compound documents. This means if we have more than one WP
gnome-i-fied, then they should IMHO be able to view/edit each others
files. With GWP and PW, this is should not be a problem (aren't plugins
great) -- The gnome version of PW (non-existant right now) would need
ext's to the architecture for BABOON.I think we should follow gnumeric
example and use XML for the 'standard gnome WP doc' (now I'm saying
things people allready know :) ).
Maybe a good course would be to have multiple WPs and one 'standard
GNOME WP document format'. After all, GNOME supports multiple human and machine-readable langauges. I don't know, fodder for debate.
On Tue, 15 Sep 1998 16:41:16 Rebecca Ore wrote:
>
> Pathetic Writer looks good and it's an easy compile. RTFs are
> supported, but with not quite the original formatting as per Word rtf.
>
> Hope this isn't a rehash of old news.
>
> --
> Rebecca Ore
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe: mail gnome-list-request@gnome.org with
> "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
>
==========
Reklaw - I code therefore I need gin and sprite.
GNOME software projects - Pharmacy * gnome-standalone
http://home.earthlink.net/~nawalker/
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
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Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 15:18:07 -0400 (EDT)
To: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
Cc: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
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Reklaw writes:
> Maybe we (I) should look it to useing Maxwell's rtf import/export
> code to write import/export plugins for PW.
Yes, it's definitely bringing in more than PW. Haven't noticed the
last character bug in PW at this point.
Maxwell is desktop independant in the binary I have. I don't think
they've gotten it working with Qt yet -- and the word from the kde
developer I exchanged emails with was that kde had klyx (and welcome
to it, I say). I still don't know what Maxwell means by Word6. It
won't import Word 6 for DOS. Obviously with PW, one could create
plugin format filters. You could, not me. I don't code.
PW is definitely under active development. What I downloaded this
morning is the current release. See freshmeat.net for more details.
It comes bundled with Siag and some animation program.
Kidnap the both of them, I say. Siag looks pretty good, too. They're
well behaved on the desktop and open straight to the program rather
than to an interface as per Maxwell.
> And fix the little bugs in PW, like it ignoring the last charactor
> of the selection. I really like it's UI (when compiled with the
> neXtaw toolkit) better than Maxwell's, it's cleaner and there is much
> less of it to port <grin>. I haven't looked at the code yet.
>
> A Quick Comparison of a couple-a-three of Word Processors
>
<Snipped>
> (BTW active means actively developed)
(I've been a beta test groupie long enough to know that)
>
> I haven't received an answer yeah or nah on GWP status (I think
> the author maybe buzy on Gnome-Mozilla?)
If they aren't actively developing a word processor now, I dunno.
What I need is a word processor which will give me non-proportional
type faces and a format that my Hearst masters with their all MS shop
can read. If I can write web pages with it, too (PW has that
feature), I'm really going to be happy
(snipped)
>
> Maybe a good course would be to have multiple WPs and one 'standard
> GNOME WP document format'. After all, GNOME supports multiple human
and machine-readable langauges. I don't know, fodder for debate.
The 500 pound gorilla is Word. Talking to Word is really critical
(as per my own situation). And the more the wp works with C^ zxcv
keybindings, the happier the standard office workers will be (if you
want to make them happy -- nobody in alt.sysadmin.recovery wants them
converted to Unix at all, it sounds like).
My guess is that the thing should enclose graphics, do tables,
handle forms, labels, and envelopes, read Word Files, write some kinda
html, plus the rest of it that fits the Gnome agenda. Highlight drop
and drag helps too, but I don't miss it that much as too often I
ended up over shooting or under shooting.
The truly right thing to do would be make a wp that could be
conformed to the user needs with plug-ins and extensions. GUI
interface which would give a different look if the operator was using
Unix style editing or C^ zxcv commands. (And I don't even know Perl
yet, so I know I'm just pieing your sky). That latter, actually would
be probably worth looking into as a couple of people said that their
reflexes get trained to the visual frame of the program they're using.
A one key, on the fly, shift of keybindings and visual look -- is that
do-able?
--
Rebecca Ore
From nawalker@earthlink.net
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From: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
To: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Reply-To: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
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On Tue, 15 Sep 1998 19:18:07 Rebecca Ore wrote:
<snip>
> Yes, it's definitely bringing in more than PW. Haven't noticed the
> last character bug in PW at this point.
I didn't know about the new version. Hope it (the bug) is not in it.It
may only be with neXtaw.
>
> Maxwell is desktop independant in the binary I have. I don't think
> they've gotten it working with Qt yet -- and the word from the kde
> developer I exchanged emails with was that kde had klyx (and welcome
> to it, I say). I still don't know what Maxwell means by Word6. It
> won't import Word 6 for DOS. Obviously with PW, one could create
> plugin format filters. You could, not me. I don't code.
Eck! I meant Maxwell's desktop to be none and KDE. The maxwell dev I
spoke to said some progress had be made on a KDE port in their CVS.
No effort on GNOME yet.
Hmmm... Maybe thier banking on no one having Word 6 <grin> I have no
idea what they mean by "Word 6" and I have no way to test it.
>
> PW is definitely under active development. What I downloaded this
> morning is the current release. See freshmeat.net for more details.
> It comes bundled with Siag and some animation program.
>
> Kidnap the both of them, I say. Siag looks pretty good, too. They're
Yeah but already got Gnumeric. But I'm all for choice.
> well behaved on the desktop and open straight to the program rather
> than to an interface as per Maxwell.
PW can also take files on the command line. Maxwell (0.5.3) can't.
> What I need is a word processor which will give me non-proportional
you mean "fixed"?
> type faces and a format that my Hearst masters with their all MS shop
I have no idea what "Hearst masters" are.
> can read. If I can write web pages with it, too (PW has that
> feature), I'm really going to be happy
>
> (snipped)
> >
> > Maybe a good course would be to have multiple WPs and one 'standard
> > GNOME WP document format'. After all, GNOME supports multiple human
> and machine-readable langauges. I don't know, fodder for debate.
>
> The 500 pound gorilla is Word. Talking to Word is really critical
> (as per my own situation). And the more the wp works with C^ zxcv
> keybindings, the happier the standard office workers will be (if you
> want to make them happy -- nobody in alt.sysadmin.recovery wants them
> converted to Unix at all, it sounds like).
Don't listen to them. If only sysadmins used Unix, sysadmins wouldn't
have jobs :)
>
> My guess is that the thing should enclose graphics, do tables,
> handle forms, labels, and envelopes, read Word Files, write some kinda
> html, plus the rest of it that fits the Gnome agenda. Highlight drop
PW needs help in those areas.
> and drag helps too, but I don't miss it that much as too often I
> ended up over shooting or under shooting.
>
> The truly right thing to do would be make a wp that could be
> conformed to the user needs with plug-ins and extensions. GUI
> interface which would give a different look if the operator was using
> Unix style editing or C^ zxcv commands. (And I don't even know Perl
> yet, so I know I'm just pieing your sky). That latter, actually would
Oh yeah, PW supports serval macros langauges.
> be probably worth looking into as a couple of people said that their
> reflexes get trained to the visual frame of the program they're using.
> A one key, on the fly, shift of keybindings and visual look -- is that
> do-able?
>
> --
> Rebecca Ore
I think PW may be the way to go porting wise. Wish they had code in
CVS (any CVS server).
==========
Reklaw - I code therefore I need gin and sprite.
GNOME software projects - Pharmacy * gnome-standalone
http://home.earthlink.net/~nawalker/
From ahu@vvtp.tn.tudelft.nl
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From: bert hubert <ahu@vvtp.tn.tudelft.nl>
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To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
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On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Rebecca Ore wrote:
> The 500 pound gorilla is Word. Talking to Word is really critical
> (as per my own situation). And the more the wp works with C^ zxcv
> keybindings, the happier the standard office workers will be (if you
> want to make them happy -- nobody in alt.sysadmin.recovery wants them
> converted to Unix at all, it sounds like).
We may want to look at the abi-source project. They seem serious enough.
Even uses GTK+.
Delft University of Technology, department of Physics
Phone: +31-15-2133685 / Donkerstraat 9a, 2611 TE, Delft, The Netherlands
Inspice et cautus eris - D11T'95
From nawalker@earthlink.net
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Tue, 15 Sep 1998 16:32:32 -0400
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Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 20:32:31 +0000
From: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
To: bert hubert <ahu@vvtp.tn.tudelft.nl>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Reply-To: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
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Offhandly, why not becuase,they use GTK+ only (no GNOME). GNOME
provides a lot of nice things that I don't feel like re-inventing.
becuase it's also a windows product (I don't like #ifdef __WIN32
either or people whining about getting the other platform up-to-code).
Becuase it's september and they "expect" a 1.0 product
by the end of the year and there sources are still dated august 26.
Because the following makes me feel used :)...
Under Linux, why are you using GTK+ instead of Qt?
Politics. Most of the truly nerdy open source people prefer
GTK+, since Qt is not quite free enough for the deepest dogma.
We want the enthusiasm of those super-geeks right from the beginning,
so we are making the choice that will make them
happy. Truth be told, we would like to support both. If you would
like to help with a Qt port, please let us know.
Other than that if they can get every thing on thier
roadmap (http://www.abisource.com/roadmap.phtml) done by the
end of the year, I think I would be very happy.
On Tue, 15 Sep 1998 22:40:03 bert hubert wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Rebecca Ore wrote:
>
>
> > The 500 pound gorilla is Word. Talking to Word is really critical
> > (as per my own situation). And the more the wp works with C^ zxcv
> > keybindings, the happier the standard office workers will be (if you
> > want to make them happy -- nobody in alt.sysadmin.recovery wants them
> > converted to Unix at all, it sounds like).
>
> We may want to look at the abi-source project. They seem serious enough.
> Even uses GTK+.
>
> Delft University of Technology, department of Physics
> Phone: +31-15-2133685 / Donkerstraat 9a, 2611 TE, Delft, The Netherlands
>
> Inspice et cautus eris - D11T'95
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe: mail gnome-list-request@gnome.org with
> "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
>
==========
Reklaw - I code therefore I need gin and sprite.
GNOME software projects - Pharmacy * gnome-standalone
http://home.earthlink.net/~nawalker/
From patrick@narkinsky.ml.org
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Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 21:09:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
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To: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
cc: bert hubert <ahu@vvtp.tn.tudelft.nl>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
In-Reply-To: <199809152032.QAA02216@localhost.localdomain>
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On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Reklaw wrote:
> Offhandly, why not becuase,they use GTK+ only (no GNOME).
Reality check: a GTK+ application doesn't have to reach far to be GNOME
app at this stage of the game. (Correct me if I'm out of date here,
but it seems like there are about 10 gnome library calls they would
need to make to be where most gnome apps currently are.)
> GNOME provides a lot of nice things that I don't feel like re-inventing.
> becuase it's also a windows product (I don't like #ifdef __WIN32
> either or people whining about getting the other platform up-to-code).
> Becuase it's september and they "expect" a 1.0 product
> by the end of the year and there sources are still dated august 26.
>
As someone who's on their mailing list: they are currently re-working the
guts of the thing to use a 'piece table' data structure. I think they ran
into Maxim #36 of Open Source: you have to have something that basically
works before open source can refine it. While they had done some exciting
stuff, it was 'commercial-wared' to pieces to meet a deadline and no one
could work on it.
While I tend to think the January 1 date is improbable, I think there is
an excellent possibility of ABI* being a very successful enterprise. In
the long term. They make a very good point: if a freeware office suite
can't run on Win* platforms, then it can't take over the enterprise.
Remember: to us, a WP is a WP (I have yet to see the one I can't figure
out in twenty minutes (except LyX :))). To the typical executive, there
is a big diff between Pathetic Writer of even WP for Linux and MS Word.
Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to
let nerds be nerds... Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 21:43:02 -0400
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On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, J. Patrick Narkinsky wrote:
>On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Reklaw wrote:
>
>> Offhandly, why not becuase,they use GTK+ only (no GNOME).
>
>Reality check: a GTK+ application doesn't have to reach far to be GNOME
>app at this stage of the game. (Correct me if I'm out of date here,
>but it seems like there are about 10 gnome library calls they would
>need to make to be where most gnome apps currently are.)
>
>> GNOME provides a lot of nice things that I don't feel like re-inventing.
>> becuase it's also a windows product (I don't like #ifdef __WIN32
>> either or people whining about getting the other platform up-to-code).
>> Becuase it's september and they "expect" a 1.0 product
>> by the end of the year and there sources are still dated august 26.
>>
>
>As someone who's on their mailing list: they are currently re-working the
>guts of the thing to use a 'piece table' data structure. I think they ran
>into Maxim #36 of Open Source: you have to have something that basically
>works before open source can refine it. While they had done some exciting
>stuff, it was 'commercial-wared' to pieces to meet a deadline and no one
>could work on it.
I have seen working code in two wp open source programs: Maxwell and
Pathetic Writer. I've also used LyX but I consider it a special breed of wp.
The bare minium keybindings are using C^ z,x,c,v for restore, cut, copy,
and paste. The basic cross platform, cross OS and program format seems to be
rtf. Everything else is negotiable.
>
>While I tend to think the January 1 date is improbable, I think there is
>an excellent possibility of ABI* being a very successful enterprise. In
>the long term. They make a very good point: if a freeware office suite
>can't run on Win* platforms, then it can't take over the enterprise.
>Remember: to us, a WP is a WP (I have yet to see the one I can't figure
>out in twenty minutes (except LyX :))). To the typical executive, there
>is a big diff between Pathetic Writer of even WP for Linux and MS Word.
The typical executive buys whatever Dell/Micron/discount office
supply center/the consultants/IP staff sell him. Been there, watched it all
happen. It's comes with Windows 95/98 and Word/Lotus wp, and she sends the
office staff out for training. The executive may not be able to exit a running
system at all but she's heard of Windows and Microsoft.
I write fiction for Avon, a Hearst company. They have one system allowed on
their machines -- Windows. One word processor -- Word. My disc that goes to
them will have to be Word compatible.
If the boxes come with satisfactory programs already installed, then open
source programs aren't as cheap as MS programs. Someone has to install them
which costs money, anything from getting an enthusiastic office worker who's
knowledgeable to do it for clerical wages to whatever the going rate is for
Linux consultants. While in Philadelphia, Linux people *are * cheaper than
NT or Novell consultants, it is an additional cost beyond the configured
computer. We've got to give them a reason to want to do this, or we've got to
get computers to them with a open source OS installed to begin with.
I know that Dell is offering computers with Linux systems installed.
Can we compete in any other way for average offices?
--
Rebecca Ore
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Rebecca Ore wrote:
> I write fiction for Avon, a Hearst company. They have one system allowed on
> their machines -- Windows. One word processor -- Word. My disc that goes to
> them will have to be Word compatible.
Now I remember why I recognized your name. :)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812539087/o/qid=905911875/sr=2-1/002-2425750-2442252
5 stars, even. :)
I am fortunate to work for a more technologically aggressive company
(plus I work in Corporate IT...), so I get to play with Linux at work. I
have an Apache proxy server I use instead of the nasty Netscape Proxy
the general population uses and I run Linux on my Compaq Armada 7800
laptop. I run the Microsoft Exchange email network so I enabled IMAP on
my server so I could use Netscape mail. :) But even still, to
meaningfully exchange data with the rest of the company I have to be
able to save out files in Word 95 format. <sigh>
Personally I don't understand the attraction in graphical word
processors. I wrote most of my papers for college in Emacs under OS/2.
When it was time to print them out was when I would finally begin the
painful process of launching the bloated monstrosity that is MS Word.
I've lost track; have we picked out a WP to use as a starting point or
are we better off starting from scratch? I will be willing to burn some
free time on this project, as it's one of the few things I want badly
enough to get into. :)
-Steve
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 22:39:47 -0400
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On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Steve Luzynski wrote:
>Rebecca Ore wrote:
>> I write fiction for Avon, a Hearst company. They have one system allowed on
>> their machines -- Windows. One word processor -- Word. My disc that goes to
>> them will have to be Word compatible.
>
>Now I remember why I recognized your name. :)
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812539087/o/qid=905911875/sr=2-1/002-2425750-2442252
>
>5 stars, even. :)
GAIA'S TOYS, I presume.
>
>I am fortunate to work for a more technologically aggressive company
>(plus I work in Corporate IT...), so I get to play with Linux at work. I
>have an Apache proxy server I use instead of the nasty Netscape Proxy
>the general population uses and I run Linux on my Compaq Armada 7800
>laptop. I run the Microsoft Exchange email network so I enabled IMAP on
>my server so I could use Netscape mail. :) But even still, to
>meaningfully exchange data with the rest of the company I have to be
>able to save out files in Word 95 format. <sigh>
My present support job is three overnight shifts per week plus whatever fill-in
for others is needed at an ISP. So I'm finding out just how much I don't know
and considering that Perl books are left on top of the Sun monitors before I
arrive, I think I've been given hints. The editor one must master to be
properly acculturated is vi (not vim, though that is available).
>
>Personally I don't understand the attraction in graphical word
>processors. I wrote most of my papers for college in Emacs under OS/2.
>When it was time to print them out was when I would finally begin the
>painful process of launching the bloated monstrosity that is MS Word.
I did some of the work on the present book in XEmacs . I suspect
Maxwell or PW will do a fine job of basically printing this one. The diskette
is the only thing that will have to be transmuted to Word, and maybe not even
that if they take an ascii file or rtf.
>
>I've lost track; have we picked out a WP to use as a starting point or
>are we better off starting from scratch? I will be willing to burn some
>free time on this project, as it's one of the few things I want badly
>enough to get into. :)
I think we should steal like crazy from any source code that's not
nailed down. My fantasy is one that changes the graphic appearance to match
the keybinding -- and to have both typical Emacs bindings and Word/WP etc
bindings.
As I don't know any programming languages, I can patch and test.
For me the ideal would be a lean and mean core, and loadable modules
for the fancier stuff. No chatty paperclips. Maybe a couple of very
basic templates: letter, double column newsletter, memo, report, book
manuscript. And it prints various sizes in landscape and portrait.
So far, I haven't seen one open source program that does all that I'd
want even a lean and mean wp to do. Maxwell makes a stab at
printing envelopes but isn't quite there yet; PW doesn't import formatting
quite as nicely in rtf, doesn't even attempt to do envelopes, doesn't have
zoom, and has idiotic keybindings (non-standard for either emacs or Word/WP
family). Maxwell is better with graphics as far as I can see .
Reklaw has made objections to Maxwell not working on the command -line
to open with a file and to the lack of plug-ins and macros.
--
Rebecca Ore
From nawalker@earthlink.net
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Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 23:20:12 +0000
From: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
To: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
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On Wed, 16 Sep 1998 02:39:47 Rebecca Ore wrote:
>
> As I don't know any programming languages, I can patch and test.
>
> For me the ideal would be a lean and mean core, and loadable modules
> for the fancier stuff. No chatty paperclips. Maybe a couple of very
> basic templates: letter, double column newsletter, memo, report, book
> manuscript. And it prints various sizes in landscape and portrait.
>
> So far, I haven't seen one open source program that does all that I'd
> want even a lean and mean wp to do. Maxwell makes a stab at
> printing envelopes but isn't quite there yet; PW doesn't import formatting
> quite as nicely in rtf, doesn't even attempt to do envelopes, doesn't have
> zoom, and has idiotic keybindings (non-standard for either emacs or Word/WP
> family). Maxwell is better with graphics as far as I can see .
>
> Reklaw has made objections to Maxwell not working on the command -line
> to open with a file and to the lack of plug-ins and macros.
>
> --
> Rebecca Ore
>
I am going to have to make time to read your books :).
I think we can (or rather should) agree on the following...
The "Solution" should be able to read and write RTF like it was
born to do it. Word 6/95/97/2000 should be a high on list but I'm
think we may chase our tails in closed formats on that one.
A windows version should be low on the list (or not on it at all).
WordPerfect couldn't compete and a brand-new open source up-start would
not have a chance. MS Office is just about standard whereever you find
people wearing slacks.And there not going to change to sake of open source.
We need to share data files (documents) with Windows/Word
operating on that platform would prob just start a large FUD campain
from MS.
Plugins and Macros make sense from a development standpoint. Easier
for programmers to extend the WP if they don't have to learn the internals
of the app. Read up on the logic of plugins on the Saig site.
<personal bais>
PW has a quirky interface. By Gnomeifiation, I would hope that the
programmers would strive to make it standardized and customizeable.
PW has support for plugins (that can save inside the file) and a few
macro langs. PW has an open file format.Don't get me wrong, it needs
more features (I really want labels -- I hacked a postscript file the
last time I needed to print some).Header and footer were also missing
last I looked.
GWP could be extended in much the same way. It supports plugins. Macros
could be added.
</personal bais>
Whatever is choosen it needs a spell checker (in balsa too) <grin>.
I think the best course of action for anyone wanting to work
on an open source WP is to add RTF import/export to your fav.
Get the core functionality going and worry about UI later.
==========
Reklaw - I code therefore I need gin and sprite.
GNOME software projects - Pharmacy * gnome-standalone
http://home.earthlink.net/~nawalker/
From tritchey@mindspring.com
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> born to do it. Word 6/95/97/2000 should be a high on list but I'm
> think we may chase our tails in closed formats on that one.
One thing someone might look into is what office 2000 is going to
support. I heard a rumor that Word 2000 (or whatever FUBAR versioning
scheme they choose to use) was going to use XML as a document format.
They have already moved their help files to HTML, and may be moving in
the same direction for Word.
Well, I spoke too soon - I did a quick search, and found the following
document on microsoft's site. In this case, I would recommend creating a
WP that does XML/HTML this makes things MUCH easier since there are a
wide number of parsers, layout engines, etc. Think of all the work going
into the new mozilla layout engine that could be pluged into such a WP.
anyway, here is the document from MS web site. I had to go through a
painful regestration process to get it, so I thought I would just paste
it here.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>from MS >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It's Not Just a .doc and .xls World Anymore
IMHO
December 18, 1997
John Swenson
MSDN Online
With all the announcements Microsoft makes these days, it's easy for
important news to slip by without notice. It
would have been easy, for example, to miss the relatively quiet December
15 announcement that the next version of
Office will feature HTML as a companion file format to Microsoft's
proprietary Office file formats.
When I read the December 15, 1997 Microsoft press release, "Microsoft
Office Breaks Ground by Adopting HTML
Standard as File Format,"
(http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/press/1997/Dec97/htmlpr.htm) on this,
I did a double
take. You mean after all these years of working with Word documents,
Excel spreadsheets, and other Office file
formats, Microsoft is suddenly going to let millions of Office users
start working with a single, standard .htm
Web file format? Wow.
Reading further, I saw that the next version of Office will continue to
let users open, save, and create .doc
files, .xls files, .ppt files, and other native Office file formats. But
Office users who want to switch to a
native Web format will be able to work with all their Office documents
as .htm files, or convert any native Office
file to HTML.
But can't you already make this HTML conversion in Office 97, I
wondered, simply by choosing Save as HTML . . . in
the File menu of each Office application? The press release was short on
details, so I called Andrew Dixon, a
product manager on the Office team.
Separate but equal
"The best way to describe this is that we're elevating HTML to the same
level as our own proprietary Office file
formats," Dixon explained.
This improved HTML support in Office will enable seamless
"round-tripping" between HTML file formats and native
Office file formats. In other words, users will be able to switch their
Office documents back and forth between
HTML and native Office file formats at any time, without losing any
formatting.
Office users will be able to save a Word document in HTML, for example,
and open it back up in Word (or a browser)
while preserving all important data such as PivotTable dynamic views and
complex charts and tables. Even long
documents filled with editing marks and Word Art will look exactly the
same whether they're saved as Word
documents or HTML files.
The same goes for documents created in any Office application, including
Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook.
Excel users will be able to switch their Excel spreadsheets to HTML, for
example, and still preserve their Excel
pivot tables.
Today when users save Office documents in HTML, they look very similar
to the way they appear in the Office file
formats, but not identical. In the future, such documents will look
identical. This means anyone using a Web
browser on any platform will be able to open Office documents and see
them exactly as they should look, even if
they don't have Office installed on their PC.
How'd they do that?
This seamless back-and-forth switching between file formats is possible
because some clever developers on the
Office team figured out how to save Office documents in HTML without
losing any of the rich document formatting
possible with Excel, Word, or the other Office applications.
Microsoft couldn't accomplish this file-format conversion trick by using
straight HTML though. The next version of
Office will also rely on XML (Extensible Markup Language) to preserve
richly formatted Office documents in the
.htm format.
In case you're unfamiliar with XML, this is the new Web technology that
made a big splash at the December Internet
World 1997 trade show in New York City. See the "XML: One Hot
Abbreviation, but What Does It Mean?" article I
wrote on the topic for more information.
XML complements, not replaces, HTML. It provides a standard format to
describe different types of data, so that
the information can be decoded, manipulated, and displayed consistently
and correctly. Like HTML, XML is an
industry standard, or at least in the process of becoming one.
(Microsoft is working closely with the W3C to
develop the XML 1.0 specification, which is now in the "proposed
recommendation" stage.)
Rather than get bogged down in a technical explanation of how Office
will use XML, I'll stick to the topic of the
file-format change.
The decision to make HTML a companion file format to the native Office
file formats was "an incredibly important
design decision for the next version of Office," Dixon says.
The chief reason for making this big file-format switch is-you guessed
it-the rising importance of the Web.
Letting Office users save their documents as HTML will make it a snap
for companies and other organizations to
post documents on their intranet and Internet Web sites. If Office users
save their original documents as HTML
files, there won't even be any conversion process. Documents will be
able to go straight onto the Web.
Making HTML a standard Office file format also promises to eliminate the
file-exchange headache for organizations
trying to share their documents with the outside world. Users will be
able to send Office documents via e-mail and
know the person at the other end of the line can open the documents with
all their formatting intact.
The developer opportunity
So what is this file-format change likely to mean for developers? A lot.
Since HTML and XML are industry-standard
file formats, the next version of Office should open the door to all
sorts of new third-party and custom
applications, Dixon says. Any application that supports HTML will be
able to open Office documents and edit them,
allowing developers to create new applications linked to Office. "That
opens all kinds of doors," Dixon says.
It's still too early to discuss what the new opportunities might be for
third-party developers, he says.
(Microsoft isn't talking release dates yet for the next version of
Office, in case you were wondering.) But
forward-thinking developers can use their imaginations and start
thinking now about how their applications might
be able to take advantage of an Office that uses HTML as a standard file
format.
With the rapid rise of the Web, it's inevitable the Office team would
tie the suite even more tightly to HTML. But
until now, who would have predicted they'd find a way to create Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, and Access documents in
HTML-without sacrificing any formatting?
Comments? Send us e-mail.
© 1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
To: Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 23:42:20 -0400
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On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Reklaw wrote:
>
>I think we can (or rather should) agree on the following...
>The "Solution" should be able to read and write RTF like it was
>born to do it. Word 6/95/97/2000 should be a high on list but I'm
>think we may chase our tails in closed formats on that one.
Rft is good. All other formats lie about what they do and don't import/export
to other formats (except for .txt).
XEmacs has an rtf but it's not the authentic one.
>
>A windows version should be low on the list (or not on it at all).
Yes.
>
>Plugins and Macros make sense from a development standpoint. Easier
>for programmers to extend the WP if they don't have to learn the internals of the app.
> Read up on the logic of plugins on the Saig site.
>
><personal bais>
>PW has a quirky interface. By Gnomeifiation, I would hope that the
>programmers would strive to make it standardized and customizeable.
>PW has support for plugins (that can save inside the file) and a few
>macro langs. PW has an open file format.Don't get me wrong, it needs
>more features (I really want labels -- I hacked a postscript file the
>last time I needed to print some).Header and footer were also missing
>last I looked.
>
>GWP could be extended in much the same way. It supports plugins. Macros
>could be added.
></personal bais>
>
>Whatever is choosen it needs a spell checker (in balsa too) <grin>.
>
>
>I think the best course of action for anyone wanting to work
>on an open source WP is to add RTF import/export to your fav.
>
>Get the core functionality going and worry about UI later.
Standard key bindings, either emac or WP/Word, please. Preferably an
easy way to switch to either out of the box.
My personal preference is to have at least two ways
to do common repetitive tasks other than straight keyboarding and space bar
(for that you've got two thumbs).
One of the terrors for technical typists is having programmers come up
with custom keybindings. Fun for the programmer and carpel tunnel/boredom
nightmare for the technical typists. ("No, we want to learn standard Emacs
key-bindings; no, we don't to have that easy a way to do things 4,000 times an
hour, sorry."). We actually had that discussion with a programmer when I was
doing technical editing (search and replace) for a hypertext company.
Let's do think about the UI early on, please.
--
Rebecca Ore
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: rebecca.ore@op.net
CC: gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <98091523014800.12582@ogoense.net> (message from Rebecca Ore on
Tue, 15 Sep 1998 22:39:47 -0400)
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Lost: In case of doubt, make it sound convincing
> Reklaw has made objections to Maxwell not working on the command -line
> to open with a file and to the lack of plug-ins and macros.
I am sure those two items can be fixed quite easily.
So, is anyone working on the maxwell port to gnome?
Miguel.
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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CC: nawalker@earthlink.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <35FF4197.1DECF86E@vne.com> (message from Timothy Ritchey on Wed,
16 Sep 1998 04:41:59 +0000)
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Unix: is friendly, it is just selective about who its friends are.
> Well, I spoke too soon - I did a quick search, and found the following
> document on microsoft's site. In this case, I would recommend creating a
> WP that does XML/HTML this makes things MUCH easier since there are a
> wide number of parsers, layout engines, etc.
Daniel Villard has written the gnome-xml library that provides the
gnome project with XML file manipulation. The code is currently used
to load and save the Gnumeric Spreadsheet contents.
Can we get more information on the Office 2000 xml format?
Miguel.
From Daniel.Veillard@w3.org
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 01:51:50 -0400
From: Daniel Veillard <Daniel.Veillard@w3.org>
To: tritchey@vne.com, Reklaw <nawalker@earthlink.net>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Reply-To: Daniel.Veillard@w3.org
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Organization: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C http://www.w3.org/)
Quoting Timothy Ritchey (tritchey@vne.com):
> > born to do it. Word 6/95/97/2000 should be a high on list but I'm
> > think we may chase our tails in closed formats on that one.
>
> One thing someone might look into is what office 2000 is going to
> support. I heard a rumor that Word 2000 (or whatever FUBAR versioning
> scheme they choose to use) was going to use XML as a document format.
> They have already moved their help files to HTML, and may be moving in
> the same direction for Word.
>
> Well, I spoke too soon - I did a quick search, and found the following
> document on microsoft's site. In this case, I would recommend creating a
> WP that does XML/HTML this makes things MUCH easier since there are a
> wide number of parsers, layout engines, etc. Think of all the work going
> into the new mozilla layout engine that could be pluged into such a WP.
> anyway, here is the document from MS web site. I had to go through a
> painful regestration process to get it, so I thought I would just paste
> it here.
My understanding is that Office 2000 applications will be able to export
tho an HTML + XML format. Basically an HTML framework for the document and
"islands" of XML for embedded structured objects (like piece of spreadsheet,
vector graphics, etc ...).
Unfortunately HTML parser are hard to design, you will definitely find
some code (Mozilla, Amaya, etc ...) but the rendering is a difficult problem
and the actual HTML found on the Web is amazingly bad ! The XML parts on
the other hand are probably the easiest part to decode/display since it's
strongly structured and it shouldn't be too difficult to parse/conver/render.
Daniel
--
Daniel.Veillard@w3.org | W3C MIT/LCS NE43-344 | Today's Bookmarks :
Tel: +1 617 253 5884 | 545 Technology Square | Linux, WWW, rpm2html,
Fax: +1 617 258 5999 | Cambridge, MA 02139 USA | badminton, Kaffe,
http://www.w3.org/People/W3Cpeople.html#Veillard | HTTP-NG and Amaya.
From tlewis@mindspring.net
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:02:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
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To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
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If I can weigh in here, I have some suggestions about The Great Word
Processor Project:
1) All mjor parts should be componentized with baboon so that all
applications can reuse your work. This includes spellchecking, thesaurus,
page layout, print preview, printer selection.
2) Perhaps most importantly, the document format engines should be
abstracted out as much as possible. It would be nice if you could save
spreadsheets and gimp illustrations in PDF, etc. formats, and if they
did not have to re-implement to engines to do so.
3) I wish that the actual editing component be replaceable. Think shades
of emacs-as-an-X-widget here. Define the editing component as richly
as you think necessary via CORBA; go ahead and load it up with as much
functionality as you need to do real-time spell checking, etc. But make
sure that it is abstracted out via CORBA, so that someone can take one
of the free VI's and make it into an editing component. Same for emacs
and anything else that people want to use. This component could also
be used in our notepad replacement.
4) It would also be nice if the API for interacting with the document
in progress were standardized. That way, you could program your spell
checker, grammar checker, etc., all the same way, and it would be easy
to add a new module of this kind.
5A) On the template front, this is really not a programmatic concern,
except in so far as you have to make templates possible. I would think
that you could make template writing very easy by allowing people to
write their dialogues in scheme, perhaps with some helper functions to
make dialogues very easy to write.
5B) The crucial thing in making templates useful to users is editorial
control. You should pick someone as the template baron who exercises
dictatorial control over what does and does not go into the standard
template library which ships. Without this, you are just going to have
a big pile of unorganized, duplicative templates which will confuse
the user. I nominate Rebecca as the template baron; since she can't
program, but she's a writer, I think she'd be perfect for this. (Let's
hear it for the nonprogrammers in the crowd! 8^)
5C) There should be a standard, easy API for adding and removing templates
from the library. This will make it easier for people to accept that
not every template will make it into the actual WP itself.
Do these sound reasonable?
--
Todd Graham Lewis 32°49'N,83°36'W (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux****** MindSpring Enterprises tlewis@mindspring.net
From dusk@smsi-roman.com
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To: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
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Subject: Re: Word Processors
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Miguel de Icaza wrote:
>
> Daniel Villard has written the gnome-xml library that provides the
> gnome project with XML file manipulation. The code is currently used
> to load and save the Gnumeric Spreadsheet contents.
What's the current state of the gnome-xml library? Is it far
enough along to start using it in applications? How stable?
Full or partial implementation?
John
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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To: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980916114316.28013B-100000@reflections.eng.mindspring.net>
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X-Mailer: VM 6.53 under 21.0 "Irish Goat" XEmacs Lucid
Todd Graham Lewis writes:
> If I can weigh in here, I have some suggestions about The Great Word
> Processor Project:
>
> 1) All mjor parts should be componentized with baboon so that all
> applications can reuse your work. This includes spellchecking, thesaurus,
> page layout, print preview, printer selection.
I'm thinking of setting up a web page so we can have a central
repository of idea, screenshots of interesting stuff, and a separate
archive of this discussion. Thanks to Pathetic Writer, I can htmlize
my text without code.
>
> 2) Perhaps most importantly, the document format engines should be
> abstracted out as much as possible. It would be nice if you could save
> spreadsheets and gimp illustrations in PDF, etc. formats, and if they
> did not have to re-implement to engines to do so.
Remember always that the user base for a word processor extends from
people who are *forced* to use it in order to make $2 an hour over
minimum wage to people who are doing hypertext media presentations and
desktop publishing. I don't think it's impossible to suit the whole
spectrum, but we might want to consider that the absolutely lowest end
users are less likely to use a Gnome program than the more
sophisticated.
On the other hand, the design challenge means really thinking about
how intuitive is it really, how easy is it to learn from base 0.
>
> 3) I wish that the actual editing component be replaceable. Think shades
> of emacs-as-an-X-widget here. Define the editing component as richly
> as you think necessary via CORBA; go ahead and load it up with as much
> functionality as you need to do real-time spell checking, etc. But make
> sure that it is abstracted out via CORBA, so that someone can take one
> of the free VI's and make it into an editing component. Same for emacs
> and anything else that people want to use. This component could also
> be used in our notepad replacement.
Yeah, right, and my totally naive user better not hit something by
accident that causes wetware kernel panic.
>
> 4) It would also be nice if the API for interacting with the document
> in progress were standardized. That way, you could program your spell
> checker, grammar checker, etc., all the same way, and it would be easy
> to add a new module of this kind.
But default has to be useable out of the box. See above. Or let's
define the range (I'm not about to program my spell checker, thank you
very much). And adding new modules has to be way under the hood, or
in a very explanatory GUI.
>
> 5A) On the template front, this is really not a programmatic concern,
> except in so far as you have to make templates possible. I would think
> that you could make template writing very easy by allowing people to
> write their dialogues in scheme, perhaps with some helper functions to
> make dialogues very easy to write.
I think we're better served with simplier templates that cover most
of the bases, especially if we're going to have ways to add templates
simply. One way is to write a sample document and declare that the
template, say, highlighting various headers, making them a different
weight and point size, and then naming that Super Bold Header One,
then saving document as template Foo with style mark-ups.
Doesn't require scripting per se at all. If I remember correctly,
that's about the way Word templates can function.
>
> 5B) The crucial thing in making templates useful to users is editorial
> control. You should pick someone as the template baron who exercises
> dictatorial control over what does and does not go into the standard
> template library which ships. Without this, you are just going to have
> a big pile of unorganized, duplicative templates which will confuse
> the user. I nominate Rebecca as the template baron; since she can't
> program, but she's a writer, I think she'd be perfect for this. (Let's
> hear it for the nonprogrammers in the crowd! 8^)
Gee, thanks, and I've got an October 15th book deadline.
From tlewis@mindspring.net
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:59:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
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To: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
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On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Rebecca Ore wrote:
> I'm thinking of setting up a web page so we can have a central
> repository of idea, screenshots of interesting stuff, and a separate
> archive of this discussion. Thanks to Pathetic Writer, I can htmlize
> my text without code.
LyX lets you htmlize and do lots more to your docs, fwiw.
> > 2) Perhaps most importantly, the document format engines should be
> > abstracted out as much as possible. It would be nice if you could save
> > spreadsheets and gimp illustrations in PDF, etc. formats, and if they
> > did not have to re-implement to engines to do so.
>
> Remember always that the user base for a word processor extends from
> people who are *forced* to use it in order to make $2 an hour over
> minimum wage to people who are doing hypertext media presentations and
> desktop publishing. I don't think it's impossible to suit the whole
> spectrum, but we might want to consider that the absolutely lowest end
> users are less likely to use a Gnome program than the more
> sophisticated.
I don't really see how the ability to save a doc in PDF makes the program
more difficult to use for the $2/hr crowd...
> > 3) I wish that the actual editing component be replaceable. Think shades
> > of emacs-as-an-X-widget here. Define the editing component as richly
> > as you think necessary via CORBA; go ahead and load it up with as much
> > functionality as you need to do real-time spell checking, etc. But make
> > sure that it is abstracted out via CORBA, so that someone can take one
> > of the free VI's and make it into an editing component. Same for emacs
> > and anything else that people want to use. This component could also
> > be used in our notepad replacement.
>
> Yeah, right, and my totally naive user better not hit something by
> accident that causes wetware kernel panic.
Eh? You would hide this functionality behind the big "experts-only"
button, but it would still be useful. It'd even be useful for non-
experts. Think about making the WP accessible to blind or visually-
impaired people, e.g.
> > 4) It would also be nice if the API for interacting with the document
> > in progress were standardized. That way, you could program your spell
> > checker, grammar checker, etc., all the same way, and it would be easy
> > to add a new module of this kind.
>
> But default has to be useable out of the box. See above. Or let's
> define the range (I'm not about to program my spell checker, thank you
> very much). And adding new modules has to be way under the hood, or
> in a very explanatory GUI.
Again, none of this is user-visible. I'm talking about how to
organize the guts of the WP, behind the scenes. I think that you are
misinterpreting what i am suggesting here.
> > 5A) On the template front, this is really not a programmatic concern,
> > except in so far as you have to make templates possible. I would think
> > that you could make template writing very easy by allowing people to
> > write their dialogues in scheme, perhaps with some helper functions to
> > make dialogues very easy to write.
>
> I think we're better served with simplier templates that cover most
> of the bases, especially if we're going to have ways to add templates
> simply. One way is to write a sample document and declare that the
> template, say, highlighting various headers, making them a different
> weight and point size, and then naming that Super Bold Header One,
> then saving document as template Foo with style mark-ups.
>
> Doesn't require scripting per se at all. If I remember correctly,
> that's about the way Word templates can function.
It doesn't require scripting, but scripting in no way interferes with one's
ability to do this sort of template. Simple templates are still easy, but
more complex, or rather, more user-interactive templates are also possible.
I was thinking of stuff like:
Please enter the name of the recipient of your letter:
(radio button for Mr., Ms., etc.)
People should be able to do dialogues like this in their templates easily
if they are so inclined. This is what I was recommending.
> > 5B) The crucial thing in making templates useful to users is editorial
> > control. You should pick someone as the template baron who exercises
> > dictatorial control over what does and does not go into the standard
> > template library which ships. Without this, you are just going to have
> > a big pile of unorganized, duplicative templates which will confuse
> > the user. I nominate Rebecca as the template baron; since she can't
> > program, but she's a writer, I think she'd be perfect for this. (Let's
> > hear it for the nonprogrammers in the crowd! 8^)
>
> Gee, thanks, and I've got an October 15th book deadline.
I think that most of us have real jobs in addition to our GNOME work,
except for those slackers at RHAD. 8^)
--
Todd Graham Lewis 32°49'N,83°36'W (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux****** MindSpring Enterprises tlewis@mindspring.net
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
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To: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
Cc: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980916125329.28013I-100000@reflections.eng.mindspring.net>
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<Pine.LNX.3.96.980916125329.28013I-100000@reflections.eng.mindspring.net>
X-Mailer: VM 6.53 under 21.0 "Irish Goat" XEmacs Lucid
Todd Graham Lewis writes:
> On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Rebecca Ore wrote:
>
> > I'm thinking of setting up a web page so we can have a central
> > repository of idea, screenshots of interesting stuff, and a separate
> > archive of this discussion. Thanks to Pathetic Writer, I can htmlize
> > my text without code.
>
> LyX lets you htmlize and do lots more to your docs, fwiw.
And it doesn't double-space between words without editing something,
so I whacked it. I think it's mature and wonderful and all that,
but I'll probably download the rest of Commnicator and before I'll use
Lyx for web pages. I've got a whole lot of XEmacs functionality I
haven't used yet, either.
> I don't really see how the ability to save a doc in PDF makes the program
> more difficult to use for the $2/hr crowd...
We couldn't get our users to remember to save in a commonly readable
format in a Word/WP/Lotus shop, but as I said, we're probably not
going to have to worry about those users any time soon.
>
> Eh? You would hide this functionality behind the big "experts-only"
> button, but it would still be useful. It'd even be useful for non-
> experts. Think about making the WP accessible to blind or visually-
> impaired people, e.g.
This is a free software project. What is the most common problem with
freesoftware projects according to a Debian maintainer of my
acquaintence? Well, he didn't say project sprawl exactly. He said
that people drift off.
>
> It doesn't require scripting, but scripting in no way interferes with one's
> ability to do this sort of template. Simple templates are still easy, but
> more complex, or rather, more user-interactive templates are also possible.
>
> I was thinking of stuff like:
>
> Please enter the name of the recipient of your letter:
> (radio button for Mr., Ms., etc.)
The **worst** feature of Word 97, after talking paperclips. Also, why
I don't like Lyx (second reason). Trust that people know how to lay
out the letters as they want to. Templates for letterhead and date
are different. Mail merge is different (there you do want fields, but
I suspect that we might want to take a bye on that feature for now).
What I found useful in terms of templates was something like Memo
headers, letterhead (so you didn't have to fish the letterhead out of
the cabinet and load a single sheet into the printer. Manuscripts are
double spaced with headers in the upper right hand corner; letters are
single spaced with letterhead on the first page and headers on
subsequent pages. Tabs are five space from the margin.
What most typists have been trained in is proper business forms. They
need to be spoonfed computer-related stuff, not that, though of
course, if the talking paperclip wps are used to teach touch typing
and used in buisness courses, that may become a thing of the past.
And if that's the case, they're probably going to buy a cut and paste
CD of proper letter forms anyhow. We can do something similar, too.
> >
> > Gee, thanks, and I've got an October 15th book deadline.
>
> I think that most of us have real jobs in addition to our GNOME work,
> except for those slackers at RHAD. 8^)
And I'm working for an ISP that wants me to learn Perl before they'll
move me off the midnight to 9 a.m. shift weekends (I also pick up
during the evenings when needed). (I assume the Camel and Llama books
are left on top of the Sun monitors for a reason).
(How does one get a job at RHAD?)
--
Rebecca Ore
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 15:11:23 -0400 (EDT)
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: The collected WP discussion
X-Mailer: VM 6.53 under 21.0 "Irish Goat" XEmacs Lucid
If someone has the discussion to date in one convenient mail format,
could we start archiving at least that somewhere convenient? I'll try
to reconstruct the various links and sites I used when I was checking
out word processors, but I don't have all the discussion in one
mailing program.
We can make the web site pretty later, but we've hashed out a reasonable
range of possibilities.
For anyone who doesn't already know about it, www.freshmeat.net has an
application search function which searches recent releases by type. I
recommend the site highly, and for those who want to know what else is
out there, the office applications section (under X applications, I
think) has most current wps that are under development.
--
Rebecca Ore
From Daniel.Veillard@w3.org
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 15:05:18 -0400
From: Daniel Veillard <Daniel.Veillard@w3.org>
To: dusk@smsi-roman.com, Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
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Organization: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C http://www.w3.org/)
Quoting John R Sheets (dusk@smsi-roman.com):
> Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> >
> > Daniel Villard has written the gnome-xml library that provides the
> > gnome project with XML file manipulation. The code is currently used
> > to load and save the Gnumeric Spreadsheet contents.
>
> What's the current state of the gnome-xml library? Is it far
> enough along to start using it in applications? How stable?
> Full or partial implementation?
Nearly complete implementation of the XML 1.0 specification [1].
Support new and old namespace [2] proposals. Is in use for the RPM metadata
project [3] for a couple of months without problems (handle about 150 MBytes
of XML/RDF files everyday).
Things to improve are:
- XML entity support
- Language encoding
- APIs, there is currently a tree interface, and a basic
SAX [4] like interface to be completed
- Add DOM interfaces [5]
- etc ...
Stability of the code should be Ok. Stability of the interfaces is not
guarantee however (but more adding than changes/removals).
Work in progress, but usable and in use already,
Daniel
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xml-names
[3] http://rufus.w3.org/linux/rpm2html/mirroring.html
[4] http://www.microstar.com/XML/SAX/
[5] http://www.w3.org/DOM/
--
Daniel.Veillard@w3.org | W3C MIT/LCS NE43-344 | Today's Bookmarks :
Tel: +1 617 253 5884 | 545 Technology Square | Linux, WWW, rpm2html,
Fax: +1 617 258 5999 | Cambridge, MA 02139 USA | badminton, Kaffe,
http://www.w3.org/People/W3Cpeople.html#Veillard | HTTP-NG and Amaya.
From dusk@smsi-roman.com
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CC: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
References: <199809160407.XAA21604@athena.nuclecu.unam.mx> <35FFE827.10F1767D@smsi-roman.com> <19980916150518.C3614@w3.org>
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Thanks, Daniel. That completely answers my question (and with
hyperlink references, not too shabby!). (c: I'll let you know
how it goes if I do decide to use gnome-xml.
John
Daniel Veillard wrote:
>
> Nearly complete implementation of the XML 1.0 specification [1].
> Support new and old namespace [2] proposals. Is in use for the RPM metadata
> project [3] for a couple of months without problems (handle about 150 MBytes
> of XML/RDF files everyday).
> Things to improve are:
> - XML entity support
> - Language encoding
> - APIs, there is currently a tree interface, and a basic
> SAX [4] like interface to be completed
> - Add DOM interfaces [5]
> - etc ...
>
> Stability of the code should be Ok. Stability of the interfaces is not
> guarantee however (but more adding than changes/removals).
> Work in progress, but usable and in use already,
>
> Daniel
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xml-names
> [3] http://rufus.w3.org/linux/rpm2html/mirroring.html
> [4] http://www.microstar.com/XML/SAX/
> [5] http://www.w3.org/DOM/
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:53:42 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: dusk@smsi-roman.com
CC: gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <35FFE827.10F1767D@smsi-roman.com> (message from John R Sheets on
Wed, 16 Sep 1998 11:32:39 -0500)
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Windows: Power tools for power fools.
> What's the current state of the gnome-xml library? Is it far
> enough along to start using it in applications? How stable?
> Full or partial implementation?
It is being used for Gnumeric succesfully. The more people that use
it, the more debugged it will be.
Miguel.
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:59:38 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: rebecca.ore@op.net
CC: tlewis@mindspring.net, rebecca.ore@op.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <13823.63825.377373.929094@ogoense.net> (message from Rebecca Ore
on Wed, 16 Sep 1998 13:45:53 -0400 (EDT))
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Windows: No hardware is safe.
> The **worst** feature of Word 97, after talking paperclips.
Wierd. I think the paperclip is a great idea.
I have even been thinking about how to make a framework for guessing
what the user is doing in GNOME.
Miguel
From sluzynsk@mercury.sound.net
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From: Steve Luzynski <sluzynsk@sound.net>
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Miguel de Icaza wrote:
>
> > The **worst** feature of Word 97, after talking paperclips.
>
> Wierd. I think the paperclip is a great idea.
>
> I have even been thinking about how to make a framework for guessing
> what the user is doing in GNOME.
I believe that the major objection most folks have is that they feel
like Microsoft thinks that grown adults need cute cartoons to be able to
operate software. If the same functionality had been implemented as a
simple popup somewhere it would probably have been hailed as a great
advance in UI.
I too think that the program attempting to help you if it notices you
doing something inefficiently or just plain wrong is great. But it needs
to be presented in a less threatening fashion. (Maybe it could be
selectable for those who actually like the little moonwalking gnome in
the corner of the screen. :)
From tmoore@localhost.localdomain
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From: Tim Moore <tmoore@tembel.org>
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Miguel de Icaza wrote:
>
> > The **worst** feature of Word 97, after talking paperclips.
>
> Wierd. I think the paperclip is a great idea.
>
> I have even been thinking about how to make a framework for guessing
> what the user is doing in GNOME.
I think the general attitude is that new users love it, techies despise
it. So it's good that it's there, as long as you can easily turn it off
(I don't really know, I've never used Office 97).
OTOH, even experienced users could make use of automatic passive
assistance from time to time. It's just a matter of implementing it in a
non-annoying way.
Tim
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
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To: Tim Moore <tmoore@tembel.org>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
In-Reply-To: <3600754F.75D52CB7@tembel.org>
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X-Mailer: VM 6.53 under 21.0 "Irish Goat" XEmacs Lucid
Tim Moore writes:
> Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> >
> > > The **worst** feature of Word 97, after talking paperclips.
> >
> > Wierd. I think the paperclip is a great idea.
> >
> > I have even been thinking about how to make a framework for guessing
> > what the user is doing in GNOME.
>
> I think the general attitude is that new users love it, techies despise
> it. So it's good that it's there, as long as you can easily turn it off
> (I don't really know, I've never used Office 97).
>
> OTOH, even experienced users could make use of automatic passive
> assistance from time to time. It's just a matter of implementing it in a
> non-annoying way.
I've seen Office 97 working once. The guy was screaming and
flailing, trying to turn the dumb sh** off. "Hi, is this a letter and
should the next word be Mom and Dad? You've typed M...." And he was a
programmer.
No.
Balloon help? Asking for help?
I rather like balloon help.
A. How likely is it that we're going to be on enterprise
desktops outside computer-related fields any time before Y2K? It
might be well to not worry about the new users.
B. Are we talking about creeping featuritus? I know people
who believe that WP's peaked with WordPerfect 5.1.
C. The design should be helpful, first. And maybe something
like XEmac's splash screen.
If I'm understanding correctly, we could have a file library
of draggable/droppable modules and plug-ins also available as
command-line options.
Maybe pull-down menus that are drag and drop or command line
options. You don't load them; they're not there. You want these
additional pull down choices, you load this modules.
--
Rebecca
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 02:10:06 -0500
Message-Id: <199809170710.CAA04661@athena.nuclecu.unam.mx>
From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: rebecca.ore@op.net
CC: rebecca.ore@op.net, tlewis@mindspring.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <13824.24577.273420.963656@ogoense.net> (message from Rebecca Ore
on Wed, 16 Sep 1998 21:04:01 -0400 (EDT))
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Home: is where the cat is
> Word processors are notorious for bloat because everyone wants
> to idiot proof the work against the workers. There *is* some reason to
> do this, but I'd rather have a simplier program that they could
> understand and add modules to as they needed them.
Oh definetly.
Now, the big thing we are trying to push in Gnome is the use of our
recently finished ORBit CORBA implementation to decompose traditional
applications in various modules: The idea is that the various
components will be actually different pieces of software (either as
shared libraries or as external processes), thus avoiding bloat on
components.
> Don't think this is too far off what we've been looking at, but
> if we include keystrokes per hour monitoring as a standard feature, I
> will be kinda annoyed and might kill you in my next novel.
Now, we can always conditionally ignore the stuff like the paperclip
(ie, click on "I know what I am doing" or "I dont want help from
you"). And in the worst case, well we ship source code, so it can be
removed in the worst case.
But the interesting part of the paper clip is not the animation: its
the logic to figure out what the user is trying to do and come up with
some help to the user. IN previous versions of Microsoft Office the
paper clip was not an animated thing, but just a toolbar that from
time to time came up with an idea to help you.
Migul.
From rebecca.ore@op.net
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From: Rebecca Ore <rebecca.ore@op.net>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processors
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 03:22:02 -0400
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On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
>> Word processors are notorious for bloat because everyone wants
>> to idiot proof the work against the workers. There *is* some reason to
>> do this, but I'd rather have a simplier program that they could
>> understand and add modules to as they needed them.
>
>Oh definetly.
>
>Now, the big thing we are trying to push in Gnome is the use of our
>recently finished ORBit CORBA implementation to decompose traditional
>applications in various modules: The idea is that the various
>components will be actually different pieces of software (either as
>shared libraries or as external processes), thus avoiding bloat on
>components.
>
>> Don't think this is too far off what we've been looking at, but
>> if we include keystrokes per hour monitoring as a standard feature, I
>> will be kinda annoyed and might kill you in my next novel.
>
>Now, we can always conditionally ignore the stuff like the paperclip
>(ie, click on "I know what I am doing" or "I dont want help from
>you"). And in the worst case, well we ship source code, so it can be
>removed in the worst case.
>
>But the interesting part of the paper clip is not the animation: its
>the logic to figure out what the user is trying to do and come up with
>some help to the user. IN previous versions of Microsoft Office the
>paper clip was not an animated thing, but just a toolbar that from
>time to time came up with an idea to help you.
>
Tip of the day, very much like the tips in Gimp that I turned off (smiles
slightly).
The guesses that my coworker got in 97 drove him through the ceiling until
someone got it shut off.
Think more like Reklaw's use of emac's reminders. Or context sensitive help,
which I guess gets back to what you're suggesting.
By the way, isn't this fairly bloaty?
A friend emailed when I told him what I was getting involved with now. I'm
quoting
On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Rebecca Ore wrote:
> Word Processors are probably the trickiest programs to do right.
> The user base is ferociously wide from people who hate having to work
> on computers at all to people who are designing web pages and doing
> desk top publishing. I kinda wish the DTP end would to over *there*
> and be what it is, but it looks like html and similar markup languages
> are going to be core for more than just Gnome's text handling.
Ah, so it's a DECwrite clone =) Remarkably simple to use (also remarkably
expensive) but it could do anything from simple WP to full-blown DTP if
you bothered to learn the more advanced features. Yes, it's exceedingly
dificult to write a good UI that won't intimidate the uninitiated but
still offers everything wanted by old hands.
I don't even know if the DEC program's still being sold, but it was able
to convert to all sorts of file formats pretty easily, since its native
format was SGML. HTML conversions turned out to be a cinch, because that
also happens to be a flavor of SGML. Like so many DEC products, it was
way ahead of its time, and didn't sell too well because people weren't
prepared to grasp what a cool toy they were being offered.
-- end quote
Anyone have any experience with this?
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 02:25:12 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: sluzynsk@sound.net
CC: gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <36006C32.941569B2@sound.net> (message from Steve Luzynski on
Thu, 17 Sep 1998 01:56:02 +0000)
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Windows: It could happen to you.
> I too think that the program attempting to help you if it notices you
> doing something inefficiently or just plain wrong is great. But it needs
> to be presented in a less threatening fashion. (Maybe it could be
> selectable for those who actually like the little moonwalking gnome in
> the corner of the screen. :)
Yeah. I agree. The way the help i presented to the user is a
different matter of how to write an engine that detects what you are
doing wrong and what you could do more efficiently.
And I came up with a great idea on how to do it. I still cant believe
I had such a great idea. But I wont be implementing it anytime soon
:-)
Miguel.
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: rebecca.ore@op.net
CC: tmoore@tembel.org, gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <13824.32528.991499.557377@ogoense.net> (message from Rebecca Ore
on Wed, 16 Sep 1998 23:16:32 -0400 (EDT))
Subject: Re: Word Processors
X-Mexico: Este es un pais de orates, un pais amateur.
> I've seen Office 97 working once. The guy was screaming and
> flailing, trying to turn the dumb sh** off. "Hi, is this a letter and
> should the next word be Mom and Dad? You've typed M...." And he was a
> programmer.
How strange. I just clicked on the close button and it went away. I
really cant see why people complained about it.
Miguel.
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From: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
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Subject: word processor document format: what parts?
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What parts should there be to the GNOME word processor's native document
format? By this, I mean parts other than normal text. Also, markup
with bold, italic, font settings, justification, I do not consider here.
Here's an initial list
foot/end/margin notes
embedded illustrations (as opposed to linked docs)
page breaks
linked docs (e.g., (File="/tmp/spread.gnm", type="application/gnumeric")
references (i.e., "See section 4.3, page 48" itn he final document)
hyperlinks
index marks
header/footer
header and footer bring up another point, which is macros for
- page number
- total page numbers
- section
- chapter
- current date
For the purposes of easier discussion, I have begun referring to the as-yet
hypothetical GNOME word processor as Bob. So the question is, what elements
should exist in Bob documents?
--
Todd Graham Lewis 32°49'N,83°36'W (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux****** MindSpring Enterprises tlewis@mindspring.net
From patrick@narkinsky.ml.org
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From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
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Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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Todd,
Let me qualify everything in this letter by saying that I've only be
reading up on XML/XSL etc. for a few days (I started looking at it
following the great wp discussions of last weekend -- with an eye towards
using it to build a WP). So, much of whats in here may not be the whole
story. Those of you who are more experienced please feel free to correct
me.
First off, I think the basic editing structure of Bob should be xml. This
is hardly radical. However, based on my four day study of XML, I think
that to really 'be xml' implies some very crucial things about design.
Second, I think that Bob should support XSL as much as possible. (I'll
also go along with CSS or DSSL -- any of them would serve my purposes I
suspect). While this is going to be an uphill battle, a difficult task,
once it is complete you have a complete word processor that can do just
about any formating you require.
I think the reason why many freeware word processors have failed in the
past is that the rapidly reached a point of diminishing returns trying to
implement features piecemeal. Using the XSL + XML approach, you can
implement elements in a consistent, logical framework and then add
elements without creating a hodge-podge of flaky features ala MS Word.
Take a look at the web pages of various word document converters sometime:
apparently the file format is really bizaare.
I think the trick to making this work right will be implementing XML/XSL
in your main editing component. That is, don't try to interpret XML/XSL
and display it to a component that is XML/XSL ignorant.
This is sounding complicated and its not. Basically, the idea is this:
when a user inserts text on the screen, the screen location where he is
inserting it should be within SOME kind of XML tag. To demo:
<header 1>
<title>Of mice and men</title>
The quick brown fox jumped over the purple mushroom.
</header 1>
If I insert text after mice, then I have a context of 'header 1/title'.
On the other hand, if I insert after 'brown', my context is simply 'header
1'. The point is that my component needs to know the context, and display
the appropriate font without having to go back to some external XML
converter. Then, at save time, it can just dump the xml elements by
traversing the tree (more on this in a second).
Where this gets cool is when you combine it with XSL. Basically, using
XSL style sheets, you could force the above to render (in HTML, for
convenience) to:
<H1>
<I>Of Mice and Men</I>
The quick ...
</H1>
Or, with a minor change to the XSL template, you could do:
<B>
<HR>
<I>Of Mice and Men</I>
The quick ...
<HR>
</B>
THIS is flexibility.
Which brings me to how I answer your question regarding tags: don't. I
would recommend against defining a limited set of _xml_ tags that you
support. Instead, I would concentrate on which xsl
tags/attributes/whatever you support, then, when the time comes, implement
a fairly comprehensive DTD of XML that would use the xsl to the maximum
and a few decent default style sheets. The cool part is that, when you're
done, someone else can come behind you, implement another DTD, another XSL
style sheet, etc with very little hassle.
For the record, there is absolutely no reason you couldn't have BOTH
context based markup and font manipulation with this kind of scheme. You
would just define a "Bold" tag in your XML DTD to go along with the
'header 1' tags.
Thirdly, I think you should look real hard at exporting a DOM API from
your edit control via CORBA. This lets you do a couple of neat things
right off the bat.
You can load an XML document just by pointing the gnome-xml libs
towards the DOM implementation you're using (once gnome-xml supports DOM:
this is planned functionality). You can also easily populate this from
out of process using DOM via CORBA. Hence, converters and such get
easier to write.
When it comes time to save, you just traverse your own DOM tree,
writing tags as you go. This is very easy coding.
Also, DOM gives you almost a pre-made memory structure for your document
-- just implement DOM in your edit control, then mirror it in memory.
This is pretty close to my understanding of the 'piece table' used by most
modern word processors.
In any case, I really think that some kind of standardized style sheet
language is the solution.
My $0.02.
Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to
let nerds be nerds... Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>
To: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
Cc: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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[Patrick's discussion of using xml as a basis for *all* word processor
work, with xsl to do the rendering.]
I think Patrick is completely right, and a really cool processor must
work that way.
If you do that, you end up with a good part of a replacement for
FrameMaker+SGML which is a cool SGML authoring tool. The missing part
is the "structure view": a tree view of the structure of your document
which makes it really great to work with highly structured SGML DTDs
like DocBook.
The ideal word processor for me would be one that:
* Stores docs internally as SGML or XML (with a particular DTD).
* Applies stylesheets to the marked up text on the fly, and displays
it WYSIWYG.
* Has an easy-to-use DSL or DSSSL editor which can be used "on the
fly" to set how given elements are rendered.
* Has a FrameMaker+SGML-style "structure view".
* Allows "overrides" so that certain paragraphs can be rendered a
little differently from how the stylesheet would render them.
* Has full emacs-like extensibility :-)
From tlewis@mindspring.net
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Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 18:32:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
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To: Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>
cc: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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On Sat, 19 Sep 1998, Mark Galassi wrote:
> I think Patrick is completely right, and a really cool processor must
> work that way.
>
> If you do that, you end up with a good part of a replacement for
> FrameMaker+SGML which is a cool SGML authoring tool.
1) I use LyX and wish that there were a cool GNOME SGML editing tool,
as this is what I would probably use for writing my own documents.
2) Bob is a word clone. It is a wordprocessor. If you want to make each
letter a different font, then it will let you. If you want to design
an SGML editor, then start writing the design doc. I want to work with
you to make sure that as many parts as possible are interoperable between
our two. The goal here is not to have one editor which embodies someone's
preferences, but to make a Word/WordPerfect clone and a Framemaker clone
both possible; the goal which I would like to reach is to come to some
common design decisions which make components maximumly reusable amongst
all document-editing programs.
I wish that we would spend less time talking about what the front end
will or won't do functionally and more time discussing what the underlying
object model should look like. See my earlier mail of whether document-
implementation objects should export document formats, or whether they
should plug into other document-format implementations.
--
Todd Graham Lewis 32°49'N,83°36'W (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux****** MindSpring Enterprises tlewis@mindspring.net
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From: Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>
To: Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis@mindspring.net>
Cc: Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>,
"J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>,
gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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Todd> 2) Bob is a word clone. It is a wordprocessor. If you want
Todd> to make each letter a different font, then it will let you.
I understand your goal, and respect it somewhat. As Miguel did with
gnumeric, you want to get that piece of office s/w out there rather
than being cool and innovative (as some people are with spreadsheets
like siag).
I agree that a Word clone is an important step in the "give your mom
and dad a linux box" battle.
From patrick@narkinsky.ml.org
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From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
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Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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On Sat, 19 Sep 1998, Todd Graham Lewis wrote:
> 1) I use LyX and wish that there were a cool GNOME SGML editing tool,
> as this is what I would probably use for writing my own documents.
>
> 2) Bob is a word clone. It is a wordprocessor.
> <MUCHO SNIPO>
Todd,
I agree with you as far as it goes. However, I tend to think that the
distinction between an SGML editor and a WP is a false dichotomy. To me,
the functionality of Word, WP, and similar programs can be modeled as a
subset of of full SGML editing functionality (I.e. a WP document is just
an SGML document with a very limited DTD).
My proposal would be to implement it that way: structure for full SGML
editing -- and then allow for a limited mode that only understands typical
WP stuff. If done right, it should be possible to make this limited mode
just a seperate DTD rather than something with a lot of code behind it.
Also, realize that semantically weighty tags (e.g. header1 as opposed to
bold+Fontsize12) are not necessarily incompatible with typographic ones,
even in the same document.
Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to
let nerds be nerds... Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
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In-reply-to: <13828.12765.407114.585952@localhost.lanl.gov> (message from Mark
Galassi on Sat, 19 Sep 1998 16:38:14 -0600 (MDT))
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
X-Windows: No hardware is safe.
> I understand your goal, and respect it somewhat. As Miguel did with
> gnumeric, you want to get that piece of office s/w out there rather
> than being cool and innovative (as some people are with spreadsheets
> like siag).
I think you got this wrong.
I want Gnumeric to be an Excel replacement, but that hardly makes it a
non-innovative ground. The problem with every other free spreadsheet
out there is that the code is definetly not good enough to be the
foundation for an Excel-like application.
They might be perfect for modelling new ideas with a horrible GUI, but
they are definetly not the foundation for the future and the code is
definetly far from being nice/maintainable as Gnumeric is.
So, now that we have an Excel-like clone, we can work on modelling
new, exciting and innovative features on top of a solid, nice and
extensible framework ;-).
Miguel.
From jb@ix.netcom.com
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From: Jean-Baptiste <jbnivoit@ix.netcom.com>
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Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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Timothy Ritchey wrote:
>
> > > 2) Bob is a word clone. It is a wordprocessor.
> > > <MUCHO SNIPO>
> > However, I tend to think that the
> > distinction between an SGML editor and a WP is a false dichotomy.
> > My proposal would be to implement it that way: structure for full SGML
> > editing -- and then allow for a limited mode that only understands
> > typical WP stuff.
>
> To say something is a "WORD" replacement is only commenting on the
> interface. If someone doesn't know (or care!) if the underlying
> structure is SGML, then that should work too. Fankly, I would LOVE a WP
> that I could pound out a quick letter, WYSIWYG fasion, print it out, and
> forget about - all in SGML. I don't see why we have to have one and not
> the other. My goal would be to create SGML for the masses as it where.
I don't think this is really realistic, because most documents created
with word processors barely have a structure: people only care about the
look, and most of the time, they don't think of applying a structure to
their
document and *then* change the style of the various elements of the
structure. Now if everyone could use this, it would be wonderful.
> I think that those of us pushing XML/XSL tangents have a specific "world
> view" on how documents should be.
SGML is probably too complex to implement, whereas XML allows less
flexibility
in tagging (minimization rules in SGML are too complex), but that is of
no
importance to the users since that would be an internal format that they
would never have to edit by hand.
And with XML, if the editing program (the word processor) proposes
several
simple templates (that would be no more than XML DTD and their
associated XSL
stylesheet definitions!), that could already be close to word
processing, if not
more advanced than what WORD does...
So XML is the right thing to do, now who's going to write the DTD and
stylesheets
for the templates? ;-)
jb.
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From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
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To: Jean-Baptiste <jbnivoit@ix.netcom.com>
cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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On Sat, 19 Sep 1998, Jean-Baptiste wrote:
> So XML is the right thing to do, now who's going to write the DTD and
> stylesheets
> for the templates? ;-)
I'm more worried about who's going to write the editing componenet :) I
started trying to design something that would be XML aware, XSL aware,
export DOM, etc -- my head is still spinning.
Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to
let nerds be nerds... Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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From: Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>
To: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
Cc: Jean-Baptiste <jbnivoit@ix.netcom.com>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980920090241.2621J-100000@hindenburg>
References: <36036F50.39E11C38@ix.netcom.com>
<Pine.LNX.3.96.980920090241.2621J-100000@hindenburg>
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> On Sat, 19 Sep 1998, Jean-Baptiste wrote:
>> So XML is the right thing to do, now who's going to write the
>> DTD and stylesheets for the templates? ;-)
I don't think that's a problem. A lot of DTDs exist: the most complex
DTD you'll probably need is DocBook which has already been
re-expressed as an XML DTD. For Word-like functionality you can
probably do with the HTML DTD :-)
DSSSL stylesheets already exist for these; I haven't studied XSL,
though, so I don't know what the relationship is. I do think, though,
that jade supports XSL now (whatever that means).
Patrick> I'm more worried about who's going to write the editing
Patrick> componenet :) I started trying to design something that
Patrick> would be XML aware, XSL aware, export DOM, etc -- my head
Patrick> is still spinning.
Patrick, I would love it if you could share your design ideas.
From patrick@narkinsky.ml.org
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Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 14:29:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
X-Sender: patrick@hindenburg
To: Mark Galassi <rosalia@cygnus.com>
cc: Jean-Baptiste <jbnivoit@ix.netcom.com>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
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On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, Mark Galassi wrote:
> Patrick, I would love it if you could share your design ideas.
>
Okay, but I haven't gotten very far on it. (My head's still spinning).
The thing that is getting very clear to me is that all the action, all the
problems, all the difficulties of this program lie in one area: the edit
component. Once the edit component is done, the rest of the programming
is (relatively) trivial: I don't think anyone is worried about how we're
going to write a spell checker.
I'm convinced that the Right Way To Do This (TM) is by creating an edit
component that is intrinsically aware of XML tags and XSL styles and
exports a DOM API. It seems to me that data needs to be stored in the
component not in a long string, which is what most free software WP's seem
to do), but in some kind of tree structure, probably mirroring the DOM
API.
The tree structure serves us in a couple of ways. First, we can easily
and consistently insert tags within tags ad infinitum. Secondly, when
inserting additional data or a new sub-element into an element, we can
easily determine which XSL rule applies to us. Consider the following xml
document:
<bogusdoc>
<bold>
This is bolded text
</bold>
<italic>
This is italic text
<bold>
This is bold/italic text
</bold>
</italic>
</bogusdoc>
Obviously, the above is a trivial example. However, the point remains:
depending on the context within which the bold tag is given, we need to do
two different things (i.e. bold vs. bold/italic). With a tree structured
memory layout, we just go up the tree to get our full xml context. With a
long buffer based approach, this is much more difficult.
The trick (and the part that got my head spinning) is going to be
structuring the tree such that:
a) context can quickly be determined (this is easier)
b) Tree traversals can happen quickly and efficiently.
B is what will make or break us. Simply put: every time you insert
something in a document, you're going to have to traverse whatever part of
the tree lies on screen -- you might be able to optimize this down to the
line in some contexts.
To make matters worse, we will also need to have some kind of tree
containing the XSL layout. I'm thinking this could be cached by using an
in-memory attribute of the XML elements (in-memory = would not be written
to disk), but we're still looking at a significant amount of work to
determine what to do each time an element is inserted.
The point of the DOM API goes thusly: with a (possibly extended) DOM API,
it should be easy to control this edit component externally from a script,
or another program, or whatever. I'm thinking that this component could
also be of great use, for example, to balsa. With the API properly
exported, this would be trivial. The advantage of using DOM is that a lot
of people already know it (it's used in web page stuff a fair amount
already).
It should be noted that this could really meet the concerns of the 'Word'
vs. 'FrameMaker' folks: once the edit component is designed, it could
easily be used to create either and or both. (I maintain that the Word
program could just be a mode of the Frame program).
Another design thought: it should be possible to carry the idea of GUI
components with the DTD we're using. So, for example, it makes no sense
to have toolbars pointing towards tables when the DTD doesn't support
tables. Possibly some kind of 'gui hints' structure that the DTD could
carry around...
So many more issues... For example, there are all the mechanics involved
in building tables and such.
Okay -- with any luck, I now have everyone elses heads spinning. Like I
said, this is all very much at the idea stage. I certainly don't have
anything resembling a proper design.
Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to
let nerds be nerds... Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From ccurtis@ee.fit.edu
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Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 15:02:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Curtis <ccurtis@ee.fit.edu>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980920140146.2621L-100000@hindenburg>
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On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, J. Patrick Narkinsky wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, Mark Galassi wrote:
> > Patrick, I would love it if you could share your design ideas.
>
> I'm convinced that the Right Way To Do This (TM) is by creating an edit
> component that is intrinsically aware of XML tags and XSL styles and
> exports a DOM API. It seems to me that data needs to be stored in the
> component not in a long string, which is what most free software WP's seem
> to do), but in some kind of tree structure, probably mirroring the DOM
> API.
I've given this only a little thought, and my idea is quite different from
yours. I'll post it only to offer another viewpoint.
> easily determine which XSL rule applies to us. Consider the following xml
> document:
> <bogusdoc>
> <bold>
> This is bolded text
> </bold>
> <italic>
> This is italic text
> <bold>
> This is bold/italic text
> </bold>
> </italic>
> </bogusdoc>
I think that this is not the Right Way(tm). Consider instead:
<bogusdoc>
<style bold>
<font face=arial points=12 weight=bold>
</style>
<style italic>
<font face=arial points=12 weight=oblique>
</style>
<style bold-italic>
<font face=arial points=12 weight=bold,oblique>
</style>
<bold>
This is bold text.
</bold>
<italic>
This is italic text.
</italic>
<bold-italic>
This is bold-italic text.
</bold-italic>
</bogusdoc>
This way we don't really have to concern ourselves with contexts, and the
entire document can be structured as such:
typedef struct style_t
{ char *style_string; // or whatever: font metric, ...
struct style_t *next;
} style; // let the software deal w/inheritance
typedef struct passage_t
{ char *text;
style *style;
struct passage_t *next;
struct passage_t *prev;
} passage;
With a data flow such as:
0x0001
+----------------------------+
| text = "This is bold text" |
| style = *(bold) |
| next = 0x0002 |
| prev = NULL |
+----------------------------+
0x0002
+------------------------------+
| text = "This is italic text" |
| style = *(italic) |
| next = 0x0003 |
| prev = 0x0002 |
+------------------------------+
etc. Applying a different style to a selection simply involves changing
the 'style' pointer. Other things that might be useful in this data
struct including rendered width. If you want to include such things as
kerning, you may have to break each selection up into individual lines (of
text on a sheet) as well. It also means that if you change a style, you
only have to rerender the selection, not the entire document.
> The trick (and the part that got my head spinning) is going to be
> structuring the tree such that:
> a) context can quickly be determined (this is easier)
> b) Tree traversals can happen quickly and efficiently.
> B is what will make or break us. Simply put: every time you insert
> something in a document, you're going to have to traverse whatever part of
> the tree lies on screen -- you might be able to optimize this down to the
> line in some contexts.
I think this solves the problem of 'B', becuase you only have to rerender
the current selection. Even with a large number of styles this should be
quick. I think a bigger problem will simply be trying to find the current
context, but if you know the style of the current context, this could make
lookups easier and faster as well. The biggest problem with this approach
is that text is very linear. It may be good to have some sort of lookup
array, perhaps based on pages, to find where you are more quickly in large
documents.
> The point of the DOM API goes thusly: with a (possibly extended) DOM API,
This I don't know and won't comment on...
> So many more issues... For example, there are all the mechanics involved
> in building tables and such.
Tables, cross-references (this is a style, no?), TOC, TOF, figures, index,
footnotes, master pages, anchored graphics, flows, text wrapping around
graphics, non-contiguous text (flows), ... ;-)
Christopher
From patrick@narkinsky.ml.org
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From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
X-Sender: patrick@hindenburg
To: Christopher Curtis <ccurtis@ee.fit.edu>
cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980920143800.29792D-100000@yacht.ee.fit.edu>
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On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, Christopher Curtis wrote:
> I think that this is not the Right Way(tm). Consider instead:
>
> <bogusdoc>
> <style bold>
> <font face=arial points=12 weight=bold>
> </style>
> <style italic>
> <font face=arial points=12 weight=oblique>
> </style>
> <style bold-italic>
> <font face=arial points=12 weight=bold,oblique>
> </style>
>
I have to disagree. While such an approach could work for a simple case
such as bold-italic, how would it deal with (for example):
Nesting Tables Within Tables
Having a table as part of a list
Having a graphic inside a table
The list goes on. There are many operations in word processing that are
fundamentally nested, recursive operations.
If we took the '<bold-italic></bold-italic>' approach for all the possible
combinations of say, 50 tags, we would be looking at like 50^50
combinations. (Anyone who really groks probability and such feel free to
correct me). And that only covers the two tag combinations -- not the
three, four, and five layer deep nesting. To cover a maximum of 5 layers
of recursion avoiding a recursive approach using a mechanism as outlined
above, we'd be looking at something like ((((50!)!)!)!)!). My scientific
calculator chokes on this after the 2nd factorial.
One word: ouch. (Okay, so nesting of some tags doesn't make sense. But
the point remains).
Furthermore, my impression is that a nested, tree based approach is the
'XML way'. An edit component which cannot deal with it effectively is not
going to be able to support much of the syntax that XML (and similar
gidgits such as SGML) has to offer.
Secondly, the above approach might still conceivably work if we were
desiging a single application of XML. For a lot of reasons (which I have
discussed earlier), I don't think this is what we want to do. All the
style sheet languages have a requirement to support this kind of tag
within a tag concept.
Patrick
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If we're to have any luck stanching the vain drain, we just have to
let nerds be nerds... Owen Edwards, Forbes Magazine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From kwright@tiac.net
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Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 02:09:53 -0400
Message-Id: <199809210609.CAA00374@kwright.tiac.net>
From: Keith Wright <kwright@tiac.net>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980920150053.2621M-100000@hindenburg>
(patrick@narkinsky.ml.org)
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980920150053.2621M-100000@hindenburg>
> From: "J. Patrick Narkinsky" <patrick@narkinsky.ml.org>
> If we took the '<bold-italic></bold-italic>' approach for all the possible
> combinations of say, 50 tags, we would be looking at like 50^50
> combinations. (Anyone who really groks probability and such feel free to
> correct me).
50^2
> And that only covers the two tag combinations -- not the
> three, four, and five layer deep nesting. To cover a maximum of 5 layers
> of recursion avoiding a recursive approach using a mechanism as outlined
> above, we'd be looking at something like ((((50!)!)!)!)!).
50^5
> My scientific calculator chokes on this after the 2nd factorial.
Indeed. But if I typed at a billion Giga Hz for the rest of the lifetime
of the universe I would not be close to saying how wrong you are.
The correct answer is 312,500,000.
Though your math sucks, I agree with your conclusion. Three hundred
thousand is still too many special cases to code. (And five far too
shallow a nesting limit.)
I don't think I believe the alleged difficulty of handling the recursive
nesting. You don't have to traverse to the root of the tree after each
keystroke. You just keep a stack of unclosed context tags, and the
current typesetting parameters (font, margins, etc). When you
hit a new tag you push it on the stack and update the parameters.
When you hit an end tag you pop and restore. (Much hard work has
been glossed over, but there is no showstopper at square one.)
Final thought: Hasn't LyX been down this road before? What does
it take to substitute XML for LaTeX? The TeX language suffers from
a macro system that mixes the content with the style sheet and with
rude hacking. LaTeX fixes that somewhat. Despite such room for
improvement in the input language, the end result is _excellent_,
and I don't think you can come close to that quality without another
Knuth ready to put another twenty years into it. I'd hate to throw
it away and start over.
--
--Keith
This mail message sent by GNU emacs and Linux.
Food, Shelter, Source code.
From larsbj@ifi.uio.no
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To: Keith Wright <kwright@tiac.net>
Cc: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980920150053.2621M-100000@hindenburg> <199809210609.CAA00374@kwright.tiac.net>
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From: larsbj@ifi.uio.no (Lars Gullik Bjønnes)
Date: 22 Sep 1998 23:57:38 +0200
In-Reply-To: Keith Wright's message of Mon, 21 Sep 1998 02:09:53 -0400
Message-ID: <xp0lnnblsj1.fsf@gram.ifi.uio.no>
Lines: 22
X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2
>> Keith Wright writes:
[...]
KW> Final thought: Hasn't LyX been down this road before? What does
KW> it take to substitute XML for LaTeX? The TeX language suffers
KW> from a macro system that mixes the content with the style sheet
KW> and with rude hacking. LaTeX fixes that somewhat. Despite such
KW> room for improvement in the input language, the end result is
KW> _excellent_, and I don't think you can come close to that
KW> quality without another Knuth ready to put another twenty years
KW> into it. I'd hate to throw it away and start over.
We (the LyX Team) has not put much thought into XML, but we certainly
want LyX to be able to write docbook.
We are also looking for gtk/Gnome programmers that could help on
making a port to gtk/Gnome.
So far we have only had people saying that a gtk port would be nice
but none offering to do any programming on it.
Lgb
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 18:38:24 -0500
Message-Id: <199809222338.SAA01379@athena.nuclecu.unam.mx>
From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: larsbj@ifi.uio.no
CC: kwright@tiac.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <xp0lnnblsj1.fsf@gram.ifi.uio.no> (larsbj@ifi.uio.no)
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
X-Info: When in doubt, blame the network
Hello Lars,
> We are also looking for gtk/Gnome programmers that could help on
> making a port to gtk/Gnome.
>
> So far we have only had people saying that a gtk port would be nice
> but none offering to do any programming on it.
Last thing I heard the LyX team was designing a toolkit-independent
layer so that porting LyX would be easier. Is that the case?
Could you fill us in with the details on what the status of LyX is
right now? Do you still want to aim at toolkit independence?
I am sure once these issues have been explained, we can start working
on it.
Best wishes,
Miguel.
From larsbj@ifi.uio.no
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To: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
Cc: kwright@tiac.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
References: <199809222338.SAA01379@athena.nuclecu.unam.mx>
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From: larsbj@ifi.uio.no (Lars Gullik Bjønnes)
Date: 23 Sep 1998 11:00:15 +0200
In-Reply-To: Miguel de Icaza's message of Tue, 22 Sep 1998 18:38:24 -0500
Message-ID: <xp0sohjw6e8.fsf@gram.ifi.uio.no>
Lines: 35
X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2
>> Miguel de Icaza writes:
MdI> Hello Lars,
>> We are also looking for gtk/Gnome programmers that could help on
>> making a port to gtk/Gnome.
>>
>> So far we have only had people saying that a gtk port would be
>> nice but none offering to do any programming on it.
MdI> Last thing I heard the LyX team was designing a
MdI> toolkit-independent layer so that porting LyX would be easier.
MdI> Is that the case?
Yes, we are working on that one. But since we only have close
knowledge about the XForms library we are not always able to see what
needs other GULs needs. So we would really like some input on the
toolkit-indepentent layer too.
MdI> Could you fill us in with the details on what the status of LyX
MdI> is right now? Do you still want to aim at toolkit independence?
The 0.12.x is fairly stable and we have begun the 0.13.x development
cycle, currently we are in the middle of a rewrite of the backend,
especially untieing lyx from the Xforms dependencies. The core data
structures are also beeing rewritten so that it will be easier to
maintain and to extend with new features.
MdI> I am sure once these issues have been explained, we can start
MdI> working on it.
Hope so.
Lgb
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 13:13:04 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: larsbj@ifi.uio.no
CC: kwright@tiac.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <xp0sohjw6e8.fsf@gram.ifi.uio.no> (larsbj@ifi.uio.no)
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
X-Info: When in doubt, blame the network
> Yes, we are working on that one. But since we only have close
> knowledge about the XForms library we are not always able to see what
> needs other GULs needs. So we would really like some input on the
> toolkit-indepentent layer too.
Where can we find information on the toolkit independence effort?
What is your current API? Can we get our hands on a code base that
has started moving in that direction?
Miguel.
From larsbj@ifi.uio.no
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To: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
Cc: kwright@tiac.net, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: word processor document format: what parts?
References: <199809231813.NAA16019@athena.nuclecu.unam.mx>
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From: larsbj@ifi.uio.no (Lars Gullik Bjønnes)
Date: 24 Sep 1998 10:07:01 +0200
In-Reply-To: Miguel de Icaza's message of Wed, 23 Sep 1998 13:13:04 -0500
Message-ID: <xp0ww6u2au2.fsf@gram.ifi.uio.no>
Lines: 18
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>> Miguel de Icaza writes:
>> Yes, we are working on that one. But since we only have close
>> knowledge about the XForms library we are not always able to see
>> what needs other GULs needs. So we would really like some input
>> on the toolkit-indepentent layer too.
MdI> Where can we find information on the toolkit independence
MdI> effort? What is your current API? Can we get our hands on a
MdI> code base that has started moving in that direction?
Information about this is in the mailinglist archives and in the source.
For the sources you have to get that from cvs:
http://www.devel.lyx.org/
Lgb
From dill2@netscape.net
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From: Dill <dill2@netscape.net>
To: gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Word Processor
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Will Gnome use GWP or will someone redesign a new WP? If Gnome uses GWP w=
ill
it use XML for saving? In other words: When will a Gnumeric equivalent wo=
rd
processor be made?
____________________________________________________________________
More than just email--Get your FREE Netscape WebMail account today at htt=
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From Daniel.Veillard@w3.org
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Message-ID: <19981013235700.D22856@w3.org>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 23:57:00 -0400
From: Daniel Veillard <Daniel.Veillard@w3.org>
To: Dill <dill2@netscape.net>, gnome-list@gnome.org
Subject: Re: Word Processor
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Resent_From: Daniel.Veillard@w3.org
Organization: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C http://www.w3.org/)
> Will Gnome use GWP or will someone redesign a new WP? If Gnome uses GWP will
> it use XML for saving? In other words: When will a Gnumeric equivalent word
> processor be made?
Design the front-end and the core editing toolkit, I promize to provide
XML I/O functions,
Daniel:-)
--
Daniel.Veillard@w3.org | W3C MIT/LCS NE43-344 | Today's Bookmarks :
Tel: +1 617 253 5884 | 545 Technology Square | Linux, WWW, rpm2html,
Fax: +1 617 258 5999 | Cambridge, MA 02139 USA | badminton, Kaffe,
http://www.w3.org/People/W3Cpeople.html#Veillard | HTTP-NG and Amaya.
From miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx
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Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 12:30:35 -0500
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
To: dill2@netscape.net
CC: gnome-list@gnome.org
In-reply-to: <19981014035010.6139.qmail@www0l.netaddress.usa.net> (message
from Dill on 13 Oct 98 21:50:10 MDT)
Subject: Re: Word Processor
X-Windows: Flawed beyond belief.
References: <19981014035010.6139.qmail@www0l.netaddress.usa.net>
> Will Gnome use GWP or will someone redesign a new WP? If Gnome uses GWP will
> it use XML for saving? In other words: When will a Gnumeric equivalent word
> processor be made?
GWP is advancing nicely these days. Last time I looked at it printing
was functional. It still has various GUI glitches here and there,
but those are really trivial to fix (they really need voluteers for
this) but the engine seems to be pretty robust nowadays.
MIguel.