Re: ambitions of Abi-word

On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 19:25 +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:

> > - will Abi support scripting in the nearby future? Can Abi use the
> > things that will be developed by Gnumeric for this purpose? Do both
> > projects collaborate on this issue?
>
> I forget what the current state of scripting is in Abiword but as far as I
> can recally we haven't shared any infrastructure with Gnumeric in this
> area (not yet anyway) although there is collaboration in other areas.
>
> What do you need the scripting for? Abiword provides other ways to
> automate certian tasks so you may not even need scripting.

I seem to remember there being a plugin that works with gnomedb that
allows scripting between AbiWord and Gnumeric. I could be
mis-remembering (it was something I read online somewhere, never used
it).

It apparently only worked in Gnome, though - so that a certain plugin
could be built.

>
> > - will Abi change the default document format to ‘odt’ like OOo did?
>
> This question is more complicated than you realise (and there are various
> technical issues you really need to understand). Users can configure
> abiword to use any format they like as the default format (using a hidden
> option) but we wouldn't recommend it. Thanks to INdT who have been
> sponsored by Nokia to work on our ODT support it is getting better and
> better but it is not yet up to the same level as ABW or RTF.
>
> Sorry but this is a really horrible question and I'm not going to say any
> more about it.

OpenDocument support imho is the latest buzzword, fueled partly by OO.o
marketing and partly by the State of Mass (in US).

I think it is a worthwhile project, but I think a good portable document
format already exists - it's called PDF. If it needs to be editable by
the receiving party, then RTF is (imho) the best way to go. But even if
OpenDocument is what you are required to use, like rtf - it probably is
better to use the native document format for your word processor and
export at the end, rather than work in a non native format. That's just
my opinion though. I don't develop office apps, so it's an opinion that
probably is largely based upon assumption and ignorance - so add a grain
of salt.

-----------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to
abiword-user-request@abisource.com with the word
unsubscribe in the message body.
Received on Wed Nov 16 23:09:11 2005