From: ericzen (ericzen@ez-net.com)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 17:41:09 EDT
On 2003.04.13 16:00 M. Fioretti wrote:
>
> The fact that the end user can say once and for all his favourite
> default saving format, and that the OASIS one is selectable, is great.
Keep in mind, OASIS is probably still in import, as in read, stage.
It will be time before both import and export, read and write, are both
available.
OASIS is very complex and large. The specifications for it cover 200+ pages!
> About the native abiword XML format: I assume from your words that the
> "only" (but of course very valid) reasons to keep it as default would
> be faster saving and less disk space. Am I wrong? Are there other
> reasons?
Those are VERY decent reasons, but they're not the only ones.
Everything has been worked out from piecetable to rendering engine to work most
supremely with Abiword's native format.
As Dom put it best:
> Only one of them will/can ever be perfect at
> serializing/deserializing the AbiWord Piece Table, and
> that is the ABW filter. And perfection is something
> that should be strived for. Dataloss is simply
> unacceptable.
As everything has been built up, it is easier to build off of the Abiword
piecetable and expand its functionality than to suddenly switch to something
that we haven't even tweaked the filter for decently.
To answer a question you asked Dom, when we try bringing in another format, we
risk dataloss.
In this case, we simply mean that the information doesn't get transferred over.
Smart quotes may appears as strange marks, or like %4887;. Information on how
to place a border may specify a point and shape, but due to the units
information of the different native application (MSWord's RTF versus Dom's RTF
-wv-) it may come out slightly fatter and a somewhat different tint, despite
best attempt at recreating the format.
In the end, it's all about how the application is structured that affects what
it can do.
Sorry for the information cascade; didn't really know how to organize my
thoughts on this one.
> I never meant that either, sorry for the misunderstanding.
I just said censorship just in case that might be on your mind. When you use a
term from FreeSoftware, those are the kind of concepts that first come to
mind. Like the Chinese filter at Google....
Have a wing-dingy day,
<insert my name here>
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