Subject: Re: Rolling out AbiWord - a non developer's perspective
From: Dom Lachowicz (dominicl@seas.upenn.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 12 2001 - 08:44:02 CDT
Quoting David Lechnyr <david@hr.uoregon.edu>:
> 1. To introduce AbiWord into an existing work environment, the ability
> to
> indicate a "default save-as" file-type is critical (at least, to me).
> For
> example, most of our documents are in WordPerfect and Word format; to
> have
> one of our non-computer savvy staff attempt to use AbiWord to open a
> file
> with the default *.ABW filter makes this a hard sell. If AbiWord were
> used
> for new files, no problem; but no one (at least, not myself) is going to
> convert all our old documents into AbiWord format in one night -- there
> needs to be a seemless way to introduce AbiWord into a non-tech
> environment
> over the course of several months.
This has already been done by myself, but I didn't add anything in the UI for
it. If you open our AbiSuite.Profile preferences file, you'll see:
DefaultSaveFormat=".abw"
You can change that to ".rtf" or any other supported suffix of abi.
> 2. This one is perhaps a longer ways down the road, but I'll mention it
> here
> for perspective's sake anyhow. Support for tables and mail-merges; even
> if
> very bare-bones, it would allow for at least an easier conversion of
> non-AbiWord document formats into AbiWord (the tables), and basic enough
> to
> automate some office functions (mail merge).
I'm actually working on mail-merge in my head right now. Tables are definitely
a future consideration.
> Again, the AbiSource team is doing a great job and should definately
> follow
> their own timetable and schedule of features (as opposed to following
> someone else's). Hopefully, these suggestions are useful to your goals
> for
> AbiWord.
Thanks,
Dom
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 08:44:07 CDT