Subject: Re: Commit: template support
From: Dom Lachowicz (doml@appligent.com)
Date: Tue Nov 06 2001 - 16:59:00 CST
Hi Paul,
> I'm thrilled, too -- if I'd realized the initial patch was *that* easy, I'd
> have done so long ago. :-)
Yeah, I was thinking that too. It built on top of other work that I did
a few months ago to import/export documents (Open/Save Copy) and just
dawned on me last night while on the walk to my GF's apartment :)
So, this is an invitation to get you "back in the loop" and coding again
:)
> >I'm going to make so that we *still* install the global template file,
> >but on Unix we also check for a ~/.AbiSuite/templates/normal.awt first.
> >I hope that this sounds reasonable to you and I hope to have this done
> >in a little bit. It's on my radar now.
>
> My thoughts exactly. In fact, why not make this an XP behavior, like we do
> with custom dictionaries? If we get the "overlay" semantics right -- for
> example, via a simple file-name match -- then users can "restore" to the
> default (read-only) templates by blowing away their custom template files.
I'll add a 'getUserHomeDir' or similar function to XAP_App that
subclasses should override tomorrow. That way we get win32 user-profiles
working too probably. Logic will go:
1. User's Home Dir/templates/normal.awt
2. AbiSuiteLibDir/templates/normal.awt
3. Builtin Defaults
[snip about the UI & user-interaction]
The File-New dialog on unix/gnome is very much similar (visually and
semantically) to MSWord's or KOffice's. The only logic that's missing
is:
1) How to generate a template list (basically a 'ls' of Global and
User-local template files)
2) How to write the GTK+ calls to draw the silly icons ;-)
Not exactly rocket science. The hard part for me and others is:
3) Finding time...
> PS: The more we do to mirror Word's handling of normal.dot and other
> templates, the more likely it is that we can *use* those templates. ;-)
Not quite sure what you mean here. Technically we can read MSFT's .dot
template files already. We can't redistribute them, however, or just do
an 'Open("file.dot") && Save("file.awt")' for legal reasons. We can use
them for basis/comparison, however, for creating our own set of
templates. I think this is what you meant.
Take it easy,
Dom
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