Re: Great ida!

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Re: Great ida!
by Nicolas Goutte on Wednesday 27/Aug/2003, @15:08

I have some problems to follow.

If we have decided to change our file formats, it is because we do not want to keep the old ones.

So I find that it is better to take a good foundation like the OO format and to build on it, instead of creating again private file formats. Sure private extensions (not necessarily from KOffice) will surely exist, they exist too in RTF. But even in such a document, you can read most of it (instead of nothing.)

As you have written, using XML does not give the solution by itself. Yes, Abiword's file format is not KWord's is not OOWriter's. That is exactly our problem. That is why we try to find a solution.

KOffice just cannot remain an isolated solution, not even (or barely) available on Windows.

Document the file formats? Writing filters. especially for other applications? Nice, but where do you get the manpower? Someone in AbiWord's bugzilla (#1144) asked if a KOffice developer could help with their KWord filters. What can we answer for now? Only: "no, sorry, no people!" (I have not even dared to give this answer yet.)

By the way: if people want to volunteer, please contact: koffice@kde.org

Have a nice day!

Related Links

·   Articles on KDE Office Suite
·   Also by Nicolas Goutte
·   Contact author

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Re: Great ida!
by Magnus Johansson on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @01:39

"So I find that it is better to take a good foundation like the OO format and to build on it, instead of creating again private file formats. Sure private extensions (not necessarily from KOffice) will surely exist, they exist too in RTF. But even in such a document, you can read most of it (instead of nothing.)"

From the article I got the impression that you wanted to use the OO format as it is, not as a base. If you are not happy with the current format and want to switch anyway, and don't mind adding to the OO format, I agree that you should change.

"By the way: if people want to volunteer, please contact: koffice@kde.org"

I probably will at some point, but it will (likely) not be file format related work I volunteer (I've done enough to know that I don't like it :-). Until I find the time needed to actually contribute, I lurk on the mailinglists and share my thoughts on things I've some experience with and hope that it will be useful to someone.

Regards,
Magnus

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Re: Great ida!
by Nicolas Goutte on Thursday 28/Aug/2003, @04:55

In fact we plan to switch to the OASIS format, which is based on OO. As long as David Faure is part of OASIS, it is better to try to make any extension part of OASIS. That is why I suppose that nobody is talking about private extensions.

Thank you to have thought about contributing! If you know so much about file formats, perhaps you could help use with the filter pages ( http://www.koffice.org/filters .) You would need to know about XHTML 1.0, PHP 4 and perhaps XSLT 1.0. So perhaps you could use your knowledge.

Have a nice day!

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