Re: frt - r27479 - abiword/trunk/plugins/openxml/imp/xp

Hi Dominic,

There are two useful cases I can think of for warning messages. First,
if a user imports a broken file and if things don't look as the user
expected, then the user will blame Abiword without knowing that the
file is invalid. I think warning messages help us in this case.
Second, warning messages will also help the community. If a user sees
a warning message, he will have a chance to file a bug against the
producer application. The producer might be us, might be OOo or some
other application.

However, I think you are right in that I should focus on step 4 first
since it is very important, then we can worry about steps 1-3 if we
want to implement them.

Firat

On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Dominic Lachowicz<domlachowicz@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Firat,
>
> What good will warning users do? There's nothing they can do to correct it.
>
> IMO, we should just import invalid documents, export valid ones, and
> the users should be none the wiser.
>
> #4 is worthwhile. I question the usefulness of #s 1-3.
>
> Best,
> Dom
>
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Firat Kiyak<firatkiyak@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Kamran,
>>
>> I agree on that we should still try to import the broken file and let
>> the user know that the file is broken. I think this is the default
>> behavior on Word 2007 as well. I still think that having a fully
>> implemented validity checker will be useful for importer and later for
>> exporter as well, so here is what I will do:
>>
>> 1. Implement validity checker in full, but relax it so that we still
>> accept the broken documents
>> 2. Instead of rejecting broken files, I will generate warning messages for users
>> 3. We should link the OpenXML importer to the UI so that warning
>> messages propagate to users.
>> 4. I need to improve the defense in the OpenXML importer and make sure
>> we don't have any assumptions about the input file leading to crashes
>> or bad things.
>>
>> By implementing a strict validity checker, I was planning to avoid
>> step 4, but I think we will need it. Thanks,
>>
>> Firat
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 12:49 AM, sum1abi@gmail.com <sum1abi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 2:54 AM, <cvs@abisource.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Author: frt
>>> > Date: 2009-08-02 08:54:03 +0200 (Sun, 02 Aug 2009)
>>> > New Revision: 27479
>>> >
>>> > Modified:
>>> >   abiword/trunk/plugins/openxml/imp/xp/OXMLi_ListenerState_Valid.cpp
>>> >   abiword/trunk/plugins/openxml/imp/xp/OXMLi_ListenerState_Valid.h
>>> >   abiword/trunk/plugins/openxml/imp/xp/OXMLi_StreamListener.cpp
>>> >   abiword/trunk/plugins/openxml/imp/xp/OXMLi_Types.h
>>> > Log:
>>> > OpenXML importer added checks for some valid keywords (main document story, paragraphs)
>>> >
>>>
>>> Hi Firat,
>>>
>>> I'm not sure this sort of validation is a good idea for (at least) two reasons:
>>>
>>> - AbiWord has been producing invalid files for a while (Bug 12180).
>>> If you only accept invalid input, you're going to break compatibility
>>> with old files.
>>>
>>> - Office programs should handle a wide variety of input.  It doesn't
>>> serve the needs of users to reject technically invalid documents that
>>> could be imported otherwise.  In fact, a lot of work has been done
>>> during 2.7.x to make AbiWord accept broken files.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think the importer should _require_ strict validity.  Instead,
>>> the code would probably be most helpful as a means of warning users of
>>> broken files (and accepting them regardless), and also as a way to
>>> help developers validate files that AbiWord produces.  Beyond that, I
>>> see it causing more problems than it solves.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization." --  Oliver Wendell Holmes
>
Received on Sun Aug 2 23:12:05 2009