Re: File Extension Madness

On Sat, 2004-08-14 at 01:41 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> it is rare that a user would deliberately type in a file extension .doc if
> they did not want a Microsoft Word document.

That's the scenario though; the user wants a Word document or to name a
file .doc for some reason.

> it is rare that a user would specificlaly choose a filetype and
> deliberately specify a differnt file extension.

There are many unobservant people in this world. Having witnessed this
type of thing first hand, I can honestly say that there are many people
who would inadvertantly do this by not realising that 'file type'
relates to 'file extension'. It seems so obvious, but unless you are
familiar with the jargon, it's completely unobvious. And it is jargon.

> I think it is reasonable that if a user types .doc it would be useful to
> automatically give them a word document.

Now we're back on track!

This is not the current AbiWord behaviour. And people like Dom do not
want this forced on them as you suggest.

> I am saying that it should be difficult for a user to create a file.doc
> that actually contains abiword XML.

But it's not difficult. It's really easy. That's the problem!

> you have me totally wrong and frankly I'm insulted

I apologise. It was utterly not my intention.

-- 
- Charlie
Charles Goodwin <charlie@vexi.org>
Online @ www.charlietech.com