Subject: Re: On the Road to version 1.0
From: Dom Lachowicz (doml@appligent.com)
Date: Wed Dec 19 2001 - 12:59:56 CST
> > > Change menu "show paragrahps" to read "show markers". "show paragraphs" does not
> > > communicate that it will also show bookmarks.
> >
> > The phrase is used by many other WPs to describe this functionality,
> > including "that" other WP. I'm loathe to change it.
>
> Microsoft Word does not define correctness. Strive for better.
I'm not sure that "Show Markers" fits the bill either, though. Maybe
"Show Formatting Marks" might be a better choice (so long as people
don't confuse it with "show codes" from WordPerfect). MSWord does not
define correctness, but it is where a lot of our user-base is coming
from, what they have been trained on, and what they are familiar with.
I'd like to keep the transition as smooth as possible, and this may or
may not fall into that category. This doesn't mean that we can't do
things differently or better - it just means that if we're going to do
something differently, I'd like a fairly strong substantiated basis for
why we should make the change.
> > > Add .eps import.
> >
> > Done vi ImageMagick plugin. EPS really isn't that common anyway...
> > Consider done.
>
> .eps is the only vector image format Abi will support, that makes it special. Bitmap images
> don't look professional on paper.
Actually, ImageMagick supports the SVG, PDF, EPDF, EPI, EPS, EPS2, EPSF,
EPT, MVG, PS, PS2, PS3, and WMF vector formats. I'm probably leaving out
a few too. See http://www.imagemagick.org/www/formats.html for more
information. Since these formats all get flattened and converted into a
PNG bitmap by Abi's importer structure (PNG supports 2.85 trillion RGB
colors, but not CMYK) printing on paper will always be sub-optimal since
RGB values tend to look sub-optimal (less-than-professional) on paper.
Couple this with the fact that our printer drivers don't handle CMYK or
ICC color spaces yet.
But then again, what looks good on paper isn't just about vector vs.
raster formats, it's mostly about colorspaces (CMYK vs. ICC vs. RGBA vs.
...). Vector vs. Raster is mostly an issue of "what looks good when
resized/scaled" and "how do we store the image data internally". For
instance, SVG is RGBA only and will look just as piss-poor on paper as a
PNG will. TIFF and PSD are raster formats and can use CMYK values. These
print out rather nicely on paper. For the record, EPS can use CMYK color
values.
In practice, SVG, WMF, and PSD tend to be much more popular than EPS in
the "real world" (read "most of our existing and potential user base")
and EPS is quite popular with LaTeX and other Unixey people, who we
don't want to exclude either. But then again, I haven't gotten any
MSWord documents with EPSes in them lately, but lots with WMFs...
Dom
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Wed Dec 19 2001 - 12:58:59 CST