From: Dom Lachowicz (domlachowicz@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Nov 06 2003 - 20:41:32 EST
I don't want to be a downer, but I think that this is
horribly counter-productive in general and
destabilizing for the Abi tree. In short, I don't
think that anything will come of it. But I'd love to
be proven wrong.
If I had time to work on such a presentation program,
I don't think that I'd base it on the Abi framework.
At least not as things currently stand. There's 5+
years of accumulated cruft, hacks and misdesign in
there that need to be addressed before Abi moves on to
2.2 - let alone the perils I see arising when we
create a sister project.
Getting a presentation presentation program off the
ground needs a handful of sharp and fresh minds. Minds
whose willingness and dedication are virtually
unparalleled. And while I think we have some
preliminary interest (even from sharp minds like
Martin), I don't think that we have the community of
sharp minds that I think will be necessary for *Show
to be a success, let alone get off the ground.
Regretfully,
Dom
--- Martin Sevior <msevior@seviorpc.ph.unimelb.edu.au>
wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> I've thought some more on Marc's AbiShow
> proposal and I now
> mostly agree with him.
>
> I think it unlikely that the Abi code base will be
> used for anything
> other text-based applications.
>
> Things like Word processors (!), Presentation
> Programs, (AbiShow), Print
> Master clones "AbiPrint ?" or maybe DTP software
> "AbiPage ?"
>
> The original developers of Abi has a much grander
> vision and though in
> terms of Spreadshets, database tools, graphics
> programs etc..
>
> Consequently the xap* part of our code base is
> rather sparse.
>
> If we instead go with the idea that we stick with
> the more limited set
> of programs, we might as well do as Marc suggested
> and do a move of a
> large fraction of wp into xap.
>
> Specifically these are:
>
> ap_Dialog_Background.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Break.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Columns.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Field.cpp
> ap_Dialog_FormatFootnotes.cpp
> ap_Dialog_FormatTable.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Goto.cpp
> ap_Dialog_HdrFtr.cpp
> ap_Dialog_InsertBookmark.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Insert_DateTime.cpp
> ap_Dialog_InsertHyperlink.cpp
> ap_Dialog_InsertTable.cpp
> ap_Dialog_ListRevisions.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Lists.cpp
> ap_Dialog_MailMerge.cpp
> ap_Dialog_MarkRevisions.cpp
> ap_Dialog_MergeCells.cpp
> ap_Dialog_New.cpp
> ap_Dialog_PageNumbers.cpp
> ap_Dialog_PageSetup.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Paragraph.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Replace.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Spell.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Styles.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Stylist.cpp
> ap_Dialog_Tab.cpp
> ap_Dialog_ToggleCase.cpp
> ap_Dialog_WordCount.cpp
> ap_Preview_Abi.cpp
> ap_Preview_Paragraph.cpp
> ap_Ruler.cpp
>
> In the interests of getting AbiShow up and running
> quickly, I also
> suggest we fork ap_Frame*, ap_App*, ap_EditMethods,
> ap_Menu*,
> ap_Toolbar* into
> show/ap
>
> We also need two extra modes for fv_View.
>
> 1. Editting show pages.
> 2. running abishow
>
> We need to make new fv_View::_draw methods for
> drawing when in these
> contexts.
>
> We also need extra mouse contexts for running
> abishow.
>
> However we could get a program that display's static
> Abiword pages on a
> full screen and which advances with clicks rather
> quickly.
>
> At that point we could put out a call for volenteers
> to work on AbiShow
> and we'd also have a sensible framework for the
> other types of text
> based programs I mentioned.
>
> OK those are my thoughts. Do others have views?
>
> Cheers
>
> Martin
>
>
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Nov 06 2003 - 20:39:29 EST