Subject: Re: Commit: date field
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Feb 16 2001 - 22:11:51 CST
On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Paul Rohr wrote:
> At 09:02 PM 2/16/01 -0500, Dom Lachowicz wrote:
> >I actually have MSWord fields importing just fine right now. I don't know
> >much about RTF fields, however.
>
> The current approach is thinkable for importing small, unformatted fields.
> However, it's not likely to scale well. You start hitting rough spots when
> exporting, especially when trying to round-trip unrecognized field types.
>
> By the time you start dealing with the fact that both RTF and Word also use
> the fields concept for regenerating large hunks of formatted content in the
> document, you realize that a totally different approach is needed.
>
> At first, I wasted a lot of time trying to find a logical cleavage point
> between the two models: ie, some simple fields use the current model, and
> others use a more complex one. Yet the more I delved into it the clearer
> the answer got -- use the same model for both.
I'n not sure we want to very complex layouts as fields anyway. I think it
would be better to use scripts and macros. In which case what we've got
already may well be good enough.
>
> >>Thus, I should ask -- if I invest the time needed to revive all my design
> >>notes on what those more extensive changes would entail, would there be
> >>anyone able to do anything with them?
> >
> >Please do.
>
> Gulp. I'll try to have a talk with my spouse this weekend to see if this is
> feasible. She'd have my head if I did the design work now and it didn't get
> used, though.
My own feelings on this are clear. I think it is much more important for
the success of the Abiword project to have 1.0 quickly (sooner after gnome
1.4). Lots of things will come into play that will give us a window of
opportunity to quickly gain significantly more developers I think.
If you decide to go down this path and if you haven't finished by the time
I've got everything else done I want to do, then I'll help.
In particular bug 119, import/export of rtf lists, scroll speed ups,
style dialog, section breaks, List UI fixes...
Then I'll help out on this. Of course others may think different to me and
of course they can spend their time as they wish.
>
> >Both ideas make me cringe. The options really are:
> >1) Redesign fields after 1.0 and introduce incompatible changes to the file
> >format (but that's partially why we change major version numbers, isn't
> >it?).
>
I'm in favour of this. It's not even clear we need a major redesign to me.
Cheers
Martin
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