From: tomasfrydrych@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Mon Jun 30 2003 - 02:34:33 EDT
Hi guys,
first of all to respond to Alan: I am not suggesting 'demoting' the rtf
format, and I do understand why it was chosen for the clipboard. The
problem is with the way MS handles bidi-rectional text, and how it is
stored in the RTF format. In order to be able to reproduce the same
layout of text in an RTF document as the user gets in Word, we have
to insert explicit direction overrides over certain characters (common
stuff, like punctuation), and there is a corresponding problem in the
reversed direction. The consequence is that if you create an AW bidi
document save it into RTF and reload it, you have a slightly different
document, with explicit direction overrides at places, which you did not
key in. These can be a nuisance, but that is the price we pay for getting
Word rtf docs layout in an idenctical way as in Word and it cannot be
helped. Unfortunately, you get the same problem doing copy/paste
_within_ AW, which is unacceptable. Now, if we had AW formatted text
on the clipboard alongside rtf, we would not need to rely on the RTF for
internal copy/paste.
Martin wrote:
> I should have pointed this out earlier. You can extend RTF to
> make lossless cut and paste by making {\*\abikeyword ....}
> extensions.
I thought about this for a while, but then having AW clipboard seemed
as a much cleaner solution that would resolve any similar issues in the
future. But I will have another look at this, as it would also make it
possible to avoid the same problem if someone insists in using rtf with
AW.
> It is certainly easier
> than debugging native abw cut and paste on all the various
> platforms we support plus the inevitable bugs that will show up
> in xp cut and paste. It has the added advantage of forcing us to
> make perfect RTF export/import filters.
As far as debugging, this is purely XP issue, it is simply a matter of
making the XML and AW importers capable of reading from clipboard
instead of a file and working in editing rather than loading mode. It is is
mostly a matter of calling insert methods instead of append methods.
There was a clear intention to have a framework for this is in the base
importer class, but unfortunately the copy/paste in RTF importer
makes no use of this xp code, which means the framework was never
developed and debugged to a usable level.
Tomas
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