Subject: Re: A suggestion for the release notes?
From: Randy Kramer (rhkramer@fast.net)
Date: Thu Nov 30 2000 - 09:44:03 CST
<I meant to send this to the list, but accidentally did not. That gave
me a chance to reread and revise it slightly.>
I like this idea, but (sticking my nose where it doesn't belong) have a
few cautions you may want to consider.
I suggest:
1. Word the claim very modestly. My suggestion:
"We plan on being the second best Word importer in the business. We
think we are close. We're ready to see how close we are -- send us
(some, one? of) your toughest documents."
<Well, maybe the first sentence needs some modification (we might plan
on being the second best Word importer, but the best word processor),
and yes, just the words "second best" might imply some modesty, but it's
really not much modesty to say you're second best to the originator.>
2. <I haven't tried AbiWord recently, forgive me, my concern may be
misplaced.>
When I was young and naive, if someone told me they could import Word
documents, I would expect that they would not only be displayed
properly, but all the other features would be imported and work
properly. If I have created a Word document via a template with user
difined styles, does the AbiWord importer import those user defined
styles and am I then (ideally
using my user defined shortcuts) able to add additional text and apply
the user (pre) defined styles?
Aside: I think all of us who've grown up in the era of television
advertising are tired of hype or exxagerated claims (or even claims that
are exactly the truth to the letter of the word, but are easily
misinterpreted as something beyond the real capabilities of the product
(and the advertisers, I think, plan on this)).
Just wishing for the best AbiWord possible, and worldwide consensus that
indeed, it is!
Randy Kramer
Martin Sevior wrote:
>
> Hi Bob and Sam,
> Bob are you still on the write up the release notes for
> 0.7.12? If Sam and the list agrees I have suggestion. Now that our MSWord
> import is so good, should we ask users to submit *.doc files that Word
> loads and that crash abi?
>
> Can we set aside some space on Parsons to do this securely Sam?
>
> First off even asking for these significantly backs up our brag that we
> have the Second Best Word importer (after MS Word 2000) in the business.
>
> Of course it also gives as a valuable resource of hard documents to test
> Abi with. All the better to improve Abi. I'm sure Dom and Coalan can
> attest to the usefulness of a large number of hard documents to exercise
> wv with. Now that Abi's installed base is probabally in the 1 million
> users range, (from RedHat 7.0 and Helix-code), we should get a nice large
> number of difficult docs. It also gives our users a chance to help.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Martin
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