From: Sanity in Anarchy (sanity@dog.com)
Date: Sat Mar 02 2002 - 18:36:11 GMT
>be involved in. (Does anyone know of any other such facilities in the
>world?) Our infant site is http://www.ranui.org.nz.
Not quite, but there's a place in my town called "The Beatbox", started by
some local person, that now has governmnet grants, a skatepart, computers,
computer classes, etc.
>Anyhow, I digress. My off the cuff feedback on Abiword is, well to be
>frank, hey guys don't go overimproving it huh! So far it is a very legible
>simple user experience, loads quickly, downloads quickly etc.
Loading and downloading quickly don't necessarily have anything to do with
features implemented. An important concept, if too many features are to be
added, would be to have most of them added as plugins, and to have any and all
features only loaded when they're used.
>I like very much that the interface is MS Word compatible, almost
>uncanily so. (Im a little surprised MS doesn't have patents on some of
>that stuff, eg red squiggle spelling. )
How do you patent stuff like that? I'm not sure if it's possible. I know you
can copyright the code, but look at the striking similarity between the first
Windows and a Macintosh from the same era! I've even heard the code was
stolen, though I can't back that up.
>Ok table support would be good, and i understand is coming, but text
>boxes? OLE spreadsheet insert??, no, forget it. KISS.
I would appreciate such things, but I would MUCH rather have similar features
within AbiWord. Perhaps importing Gnumeric spreadsheets? That would definately
help, though it would be tough for Windows users. But give AbiWord enough
independence to create its own tables and spreadsheets, so that Gnumeric isn't
required. And make it possible to import Excel spreadsheets, and we're good.
It would be nice to be able to open a Word document with no problems, but some
features in Word just aren't neccesary. And though I'd like those implemented
as well, I'd rather that they be in their own way, so that it's not just
EXACTLY the same thing for Word compatability, it's something that can be
translated into something similar in Word. Note that it's similar, not
identical. Remember that AbiWord uses PNG format for its pictures, and Word
can't read PNG format. So it's translated to something else when saving as
Word, and translated back when opening a Word doc to save as AbiWord.
Things like vbs, though, I wouldn't want in a Word document anyway. That
should definately be a depreciated plugin, and if we must have scripting, make
it something like Java.
Enough said.
>The one thing I *would* like is drag and drop editing. That to me is a
>basic hallmark of text editing now. And MS have this worked out quite
>good, managing the spaces before and after words etc.
Mostly, things like managing those spaces are more trouble than it's worth.
I'd appreciate it if word processors got dumber! It's supposed to be a
typewriter, not an editor! Example: In MS Word, by default, typing "Dear
____," and hitting enter brings up an animated "Office Asistant" to help you
with writing a letter! We know how to write letters!
Also, though it's nice sometimes to be lazy and let Word capitalize the first
letter of every sentence, I rarely seriously miss that, because what if I
don't want it capitalized? I have to exploit some unintelligent programming on
their part or I have to have ugly text.
So drag-and-drop would be nice, but no AI with it please! Or at least have it
a feature that we can turn off!
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