Subject: Re: Topic: Templates and 1.0
From: Dom Lachowicz (cinamod@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat May 05 2001 - 22:19:58 CDT
Hi Paul,
>Is that UI where you also got the idea for standalone Import/Export menus?
No, a user specifically asked for them, and told me that maybe WP or
FrameMaker had them. I seemed to remember something like that, and it made
sense to me to have these entries, and I think that it still makes sense to
have at least the export menu item.
>It looks like the main differences here from Word's File/New UI are:
>
> - no previews
> - the normal.dot equivalent has its own radio button
> - another dialog to choose additional documents
> - no way to specify the document/template distinction
I'm not sure what version of word you're talking about here... Word1 maybe?
Word2000 and XP (and, AFAIK, Word97) have a dialog which:
- has previews and wizards in one frame.
- has no normal.dot equavalent (the do have a "Blank Document" Preview,
though)
- no other dialogs to choose additional documents
- a radio-button to specify the document/template distinction
I can include a screenshot of Word2000's dialog if you'd like.
>A. File/New ... brings up a template-oriented dialog, which defaults to
>creation of a normal new document, if you just hit OK. (Note that Ctrl-N
>and the toolbar button both skip showing the dialog at all -- you just get
>a
>normal new document.) It also allows you the following two options:
This is what our file->new does. Ctrl-N and the "New" toolbar icon still
create a new blank document.
>B. File/Open ... brings up a file selector dialog, where you can choose
>any
>file to open that we know how to import. IIRC, opening a template file
>here
>allows you to edit it.
Yup. We do that too. Templates are pretty much just normal documents, after
all.
>C. File/Save ... either just does it, warns you, and/or triggers the
>File/Save As dialog (whichever is appropriate).
Yup, we have this too. So far, we're looking sorta spiffy!
>D. File/Save As ... brings up a file selector dialog, where you can choose
>the file name and save it as any file type we know how to export. If you
>opened an existing file, this should default to the same file name and type
>as it started out as. If this is a new file, it should default to either
>an
>AbiWord document (.abw) or an AbiWord template (.awt), depending on which
>you chose in the File/New dialog.
Ok, we don't make a distinction with templates here.
>To implement all of this, we'd just need to add a trivial new file type,
>and
>an XP dialog for #A (which you've already started on, I assume, although I
>couldn't find anything in abi/shots).
That directory, much like the ui feature matrix or most of the help files,
hasn't been updated in eons.
> >>1. Personalization. By changing your own copy of normal.dot, you can
> >>change the default look of all new documents you create, thereby
>avoiding
> >>lots of UI complexities for changing the default font-size, paragraph
> >>spacing, etc.
Yup.
>Exactly. I'd *love* it if we could migrate all the hardwired stuff here.
>Two quibbles, though:
>
> - There shouldn't be *any* explicit props on that empty p.
> All default properties belong in the style definitions instead.
Right, I was just offering as an example.
> - What do we do if we can't locate any normal.dot file to bootstrap the
> process? I've been assuming that we'd still need a hardwired set, but
> we could just refuse to launch, I guess.
I guess that we could:
1) Fall back onto our defaults
2) "WTF? How did this happen? You actually overrode the read-only
permissions in the AbiSuite directory? MS Explorer told you not to view the
contents of this folder, and not to delete the read-only file. You're a
dumbass. AbiWord is broken and it's completely your fault. Learn to deal."
I'm clearnly in favor of #2, with this exact error message. Seriously.
>Otherwise, we're in total agreement on this. I think people would *love*
>the ability to customize the default look of their documents by just
>editing
>a template file in AbiWord. (That snazzy new Styles UI will come in mighty
>handy, no?)
Yup. I love it. And with the recent work on templates, it'd be a snap to do
so, too.
>What do you think of the suggested File/New UI above? I'd like to get by
>with less menu clutter here if we can.
File->Import maybe should go away with the new "New" dialog. File->export
definitely shouldn't, because File->Export just allows one to save the
contents of a document without changing the name of the document you're
editing or overwriting that name. Very useful, and has nothing to do with
templates.
>Of course we can choose *not* to do things this way, but I really like the
>idea of using AbiWord to take advantage of other products' templates. In
>effect, *our* template feature shouldn't care which file format the
>template
>was originally created in, because we'll eventually be able to read and
>write *anybody's* templates.
No, it shouldn't. And this isn't too hard to do, either. RTF or DOC
templates would be easy. Want a quick way for abiword to get 1000 templates
overnight? Import everything from MSFT word and ship it.
Dom
hoping that he's addressed the key points
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