Re: Docs To Go and Abiword

Hub wrote:
>RTF syntax is relax
enough to allow different way to write files to
conform to the syntax.

I'm just guessing, since I don't know RTF, but I can
imagine a scenario that would explain the problem.
Suppose MS always writes their own RTF in a certain
style, but they are "kind enough" (as someone put it)
not only to publish the spec but also to make the
syntax (and perhaps the vocabulary, too, i.e.
synonyms) relaxed and flexible with options enough to
make it familiar and easy for people coming from some
other popular word processor(s). So MS RTF complies
with the official spec in the sense that everything
they do is legal under the spec (and thus Abi can
handle their output), but it does not fully
exploit/exercise/span the spec. Their importer
implements the full spec, so they can read Abi's RTF.
But someone who is writing an app to run on tiny
hardware might reasonably decide not to implement the
full spec, only the part that MS actually uses, since
that's what they're really concerned about. They
might, indeed, have little choice; hardware does
constrain. (So "it's not a bug, it's a feature.")
Only their advertising is wrong, if they claim to do
"RTF" when in fact they only do some
usually-sufficient subset of it. So it's their
"fault," but the easy fix might be to Abi, by changing
(or offering users an option that changes) one style
of synonyms or syntax to another in your output. I
would think this might be automated, thus not all that
much effort for the developers. Of course, if DTG is
obscure enough, Abi may have as little interest in
compatibility with them as they seem to have in
compatibility with you. But the point is that if
maximal compatibility is the goal, the ball isn't
necessarily in the bad guys' court.

                
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Received on Mon Nov 15 03:08:47 2004