From: r coyne (duckingsnofair@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Feb 01 2003 - 18:46:17 EST
Jeremiah,
Thanks for anything you care to do, and since I don't
really use abiword that much maybe I don't count for
much, but I do have some advice, a caution. The way
you are proposing to do your how-tos, you are
following MS in a couple of blunders they make in
Windows that really annoy and discomfit me.
First, your "documentation" essentially consists
entirely of menu trees, i.e., where to find the
command. But the whole point of menus and windowing
shells generally is supposed to be to eliminate or
greatly reduce the need for that sort of thing. The
tree structure is supposed to be intuitive enough that
the user needn't remember or look up a whole bunch of
these routes/commands. If it's not, then we are back
to the command-line-era problem of having to memorize
a slew of commands, except that now each one is
numerous stages, a whole menu path instead of a single
word and maybe a bit of optional syntax. Your how-to
collection will amount to a Command Reference Manual,
only four times as long and more scattered. If this
is indeed a great need, then the greater need, the
best remedy, is for the developers to make it less so.
This indeed is, I believe, *the* great problem with
Windows nowadays, the main reason people are
bewildered and upset by computers. But since the
problem does very much exist and is hard to correct,
especially in a program like abiword that has a niche
as a Word clone, I don't mean to discourage you from
writing the how-tos and including this stuff; my
suggestion is that you need to include *other*
information as well.
Which brings us to MS's (and abiword's) second
blunder: The SaveAs dialog is unclear and rather
frightening because it confuses and conflates two
totally separate ideas/issues, namely file *type*,
i.e., format, and filename *extension*. What I want
to know is, What will this thing *do* if I click it.
With "save as Word doc" I can sort of guess, because I
know that Word and abi each have a whole bunch of
internal formatting codes that are not the same, and
presumably what I get is a file that uses the Word
codes to correspond to and thus produce in Word a
document that looks more or less the same as the abi
one. But what does it *mean* to "save as HTML"? An
HTML document/file simply *is* text. So will Save As
HTML simply strip out all the abw complexities to
produce straight, old-fashioned text and then tack
".html" on the end of my specified filename? Or will
it try to translate the abi formatting codes into HTML
formatting tags so as to make it look alike in a
browser, as for the Word case? But that's only
layout; what about links? Will anything that looks
like an Internet address be duplicated (and expanded
into a full URL) in a HTML tag to make it function as
an active link in the HTML document? That's the sort
of thing Yahoo news does, and it's often stupidly
inappropriate and annoying; does abi do it better?
And if there are images and frames and the like in the
abi document, the sorts of things that HTML does by
referring to separate files, will such files be
generated? Where will they be put and what will they
be called?
Obviously a how-to intended largely for beginners will
not give all the details; that's what the full
documentation is for. Since you're writing it, you'll
have to use your judgment, and I won't complain. But
you should tell us *something*, enough to give me a
basic, sketchy understanding of what's about to
happen, so that I can figure out whether it's what I
want and whether it's safe and what I'll need to do
later. Without that much, I am left feeling I don't
dare click anything, because who knows what it might
do to me? And -- especially since you do offer this
in hypertext format -- you should include a full set
of references/links to the complete documentation, for
those who want more info. HTML isn't about fancy
looks, it's about hypertext links, so use it for what
it's good for.
--- Jeremiah Foster <jeremiannika@attbi.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I love AbiWord. I would like to contribute by
> producing "How tos" for
> the community at large. I think there is a growing
> linux desktop
> userbase who is less familiar with computers and
> editors. I feel to
> strengthen adoption of one of the best editors
> anywhere, AbiWord ought
> to provide basic, clearly written How tos. I have
> included a sample of
> the How to that I think may prove useful. I welcome
> comment and
> suggestions and hope that it may be considered
> useful.
>
> The document is presented unformatted inline and as
> html in an
> attachment.
>
> Jeremiah
>
>
> How to save AbiWord documents in
>
> HTML or Word.
>
>
> Purpose: This document aims to explain how to save
> documents in AbiWord
> as html or Microsoft's Word format.
>
>
> Summary: Go to "File -> Save As -> Save file as
> type -> html (.html,
> .htm)"
>
> Go to "File -> Save As -> Save file as type ->
> Word (.doc)"
>
>
> Contents: If you can open or create a document in
> AbiWord, you can save
> it as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or a Word
> document. This is
> useful if you are going to share this document on a
> web site or with
> someone who uses Microsoft's Word software to view
> and edit documents.
>
>
> To do this go to the "File" menu in the upper left
> corner of the AbiWord
> top tool-bar and click on "Save As ..." (This will
> be referredas "File
> -> Save As" throughout this document.) There is
> also an icon provided
> for this action; AbiWord Image write.disk.png
>
>
> A dialog box pops up, prompting you to pick a
> format for the document.
> There is a left-hand box that says; "Save as type:"
> You can pull down
> the dialog box just to the right of this and chose a
> format.
>
>
> * For HTML - HTML 4.0 (.html .htm) should
> be selected.
> * For Word - Microsoft Word (.doc) should
> be selected.
>
> You can see that the format is named and the
> ensuing document suffix is
> displayed. If you were to save a document and call
> it MyPage, when you
> save it as HTML it will be called MyPage.html.
> Similarly, it would be
> called MyPage.doc if you saved it in Word format.
>
>
>
> Additional Notes: Microsoft Word is a proprietary
> format. This means
> that it is copyrighted by Microsoft and can be
> changed by them without
> public comment. Documents can also be displayed in
> XHTML 1.0 (.xhtml)
> format as well. This is perhaps preferred since it
> is the transitional
> markup language which allows for both XML syntax and
> backwards
> compatibility.
>
>
>
---------------------------------
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How to save AbiWord documents in
HTML or Word.
Purpose: This document aims to explain how to save
documents in AbiWord as html or Microsoft's Word
format.
Summary: Go to "File -> Save As -> Save file as type
-> html (.html, .htm)"
Go to "File -> Save As -> Save file as type -> Word
(.doc)"
Contents: If you can open or create a document in
AbiWord, you can save it as Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) or a Word document. This is useful if you are
going to share this document on a web site or with
someone who uses Microsoft's Word software to view and
edit documents.
To do this go to the "File" menu in the upper left
corner of the AbiWord top tool-bar and click on "Save
As ..." (This will be referredas "File -> Save As"
throughout this document.) There is also an icon
provided for this action;
A dialog box pops up, prompting you to pick a format
for the document. There is a left-hand box that says;
"Save as type:" You can pull down the dialog box just
to the right of this and chose a format.
For HTML - HTML 4.0 (.html .htm) should be
selected.
For Word - Microsoft Word (.doc) should be
selected.
You can see that the format is named and the ensuing
document suffix is displayed. If you were to save a
document and call it MyPage, when you save it as HTML
it will be called MyPage.html. Similarly, it would be
called MyPage.doc if you saved it in Word format.
Additional Notes: Microsoft Word is a proprietary
format. This means that it is copyrighted by Microsoft
and can be changed by them without public comment.
Documents can also be displayed in XHTML 1.0 (.xhtml)
format as well. This is perhaps preferred since it is
the transitional markup language which allows for both
XML syntax and backwards compatibility.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Feb 01 2003 - 18:49:18 EST