AbiWord 2.6 Plans / new functions

By reading "http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/AbiWord26Plans" I got the impression, that the plans for the next stable release are
still being worked on. So, I would like to suggest a new functionality for
AbiWord. Ok, I know the correct place is Bugzilla and I already have
posted it there some time ago (# 9530). Since I did't receive any feedback
so far, let me give it another try.

I have tried out Abiword with eXist open source xml-db (www.exist-db.org,
xmldb-compliant, runs on a variety of OS). AbiWord .abw files can be
imported into the xml-db without problem. Since eXist can act as a webdav
server, it is possible to open .abw files directly on the server in
read-only mode via the internet explorer. They cannot be stored directly
to the server, though, because AbiWord lacks webdav client functionality.

How about implementing a webdav client into AbiWord? This would give
AbiWord really unique features. I could imagine the following
functionalities:

- open/save dialog
- xquery dialog with the resultset directly in AbiWord (maybe even
updateable?)
- dialog for the creation of additional non-printing markup as
meta-information. Already now it is possible to add inline-elements to
.abw files using a text editor. For example, I placed a <docinfo/>
inline-element into a <p/> element like this:

<p>...some text ...<docinfo type="note" keyword="collective editing">
...some text ... </docinfo>...some text ...</p>

Abiword opens the file without any problems. The inline-markup doesn't
have any obvious effect.

This would add some unique functions to AbiWord which other word-processor
do not have so far i.e. the ability of collective file editing
(webdav-functionality) and enhanced ability of information retrieval via
xpath / xquery.

Unfortunetally, I only have very basic experience as a C++ programmer. But
I could do some work on specification and documentation.

Marco
Received on Fri Dec 2 23:17:28 2005