Should I consider the HTML editor to be end of
in [Open Office]
|
From: Mathias Bauer on 1 Dec 2006 03:42 Hi Kelvin, thanks for your response. Kelvin Eldridge wrote: > I have a background as an IT Consultant. I look for ways clients can do things > themselves. I started down the path to promote OpenOffice.org HTML Editor as a > tool for end users to create their own web pages and websites. > > End users don't know or want to know HTML. They just want to create pages. That's exactly the reason why the HTML editor still is a part of OOo: the "simple" (sorry) end user. Advanced users of Writer/Web often complained about the bad source code, the missing support for JavaScript etc. And we definitely won't add all this fancy stuff and we also won't try to rework the HTML export filter. We will also not improve the import filter a lot just to be able to import more web pages properly, our goal is not to have a universal web editor. For us Writer/Web is a tool to create your own HTML documents easily with as much layout control as possible. This seems to be your position also. As I wrote in my reply to Alexandro at least partially the resulting HTML code is so by intent - because it is easier to reimport it in a way that the document looks the same as before. As a compromise we consider to improve our XHTML transformation so that you can export your document in a way where the result looks more "professional". OTOH reimporting the document into Writer/Web might give less satisfactory results. You can see this transformation based filter as comparable to the PDF export: it's a publishing filter, not a "saving" filter. > Html Editor provides the user pretty much WYSIWYG editing with in-line spell > checking. For me any package that does not provide Australian English spell > checking is immediately ruled out. > > So right now I can't find a single other product which is free, runs on PCs, > and is good as HTML Editor. So this sounds as you see it the same as we do. Our problem is that we don't know how many people do the same. :-) > The next stage for me is to look for a low cost commercial package and that is > what I am doing right now because I am not certain of the future of HTML > Editor. > > I do however think OpenOffice.org has something of value in HTML Editor. But > of course that is just my point of view. We also see this value, otherwise it would have been discontinued already. ATM there are no concrete plans to remove Writer/Web, just continuous reflections about maintenance costs and user value in return. And you can be sure that we won't remove a module from OOo immediately and without prior notice. This is a delicate matter and we surely would try to collect user opinions before. > With regards to using Writer instead of HTML Editor to create and maintain web > pages, I feeling is it is not the right tool. It is was I would have used it > years ago. > > I had never thought to try using the Web Layout in Writer so thanks for that > suggestion. I learn something every day. > > To perform the first task you suggested I tried to open an "index.html" file > using OpenOffice.org it always opens with Writer/Web. I eventually settled for > Insert -> File. Not a particularly clean way to work. There are four(!) filters to load HTML documents in OOo, two are from Calc, one for Writer/Web and one for Writer. You can choose the filter "HTML(Writer)" in the file dialog to load the file directly into Writer. For obvious reasons the "HTML" filter that loads the file into Writer/Web is the default filter. > Right now to edit a html file I right click on the file and select Open using > OpenOffice.org. Very clean and quick. That would be the same even without Writer/Web as then the Writer filter would become the default filter for HTML documents. > The unfortunate position you are in is most of the feedback you will get from > users is they don't like HTML Editor because it screws up the source code. See above. That alone wouldn't be a reason to remove Writer/Web. These people just aren't the target audience. > PS. Yes you are correct, but may I add there are at least two happy users. I > would have had many more by now except for the uncertainty. Well, there is no absolute certainty in anything. :-) You can be sure that Writer/Web won't vanish before OOo3.0. And removing it for 3.0 is also not planned yet. That's the biggest certainty I can give here. Ciao, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer (mba) - Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS Please don't reply to "nospamformba(a)gmx.de". I use it for the OOo lists and only rarely read other mails sent to it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscribe(a)openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-help(a)openoffice.org
From: Mathias Bauer on 5 Dec 2006 04:32 Kelvin Eldridge wrote: >> As I wrote in my reply to Alexandro at least partially the resulting >> HTML code is so by intent - because it is easier to reimport it in a way >> that the document looks the same as before. >> >> As a compromise we consider to improve our XHTML transformation so that >> you can export your document in a way where the result looks more >> "professional". OTOH reimporting the document into Writer/Web might give >> less satisfactory results. You can see this transformation based filter >> as comparable to the PDF export: it's a publishing filter, not a >> "saving" filter. > > Hmmm. If I read this correctly, I think the Writer/Web module is better. No > need to import/export and users roughly get what they see. Well, there are two target audiences: one that ones to edit files and they don't care about the quality of the HTML code as long as the page looks good in the most important browsers. And there is another one that *does* care for the quality of the code, and for them the transformation is an additional tool. They can use the import/export filters in the time where they are still making changes to the file and finally (when they publish their document) they can export it to XHTML, very much in the same way as they work on an odt file that finally is exported to pdf. >> So this sounds as you see it the same as we do. Our problem is that we >> don't know how many people do the same. > > Excellent to hear you feel the same way. > > I can't help feeling this is one of those cases where a user like myself could > probably put up their hand to help the project and the potential users. > > 1. I could watch/review the mailing lists for people who use the package to > start getting a base of users as an identifiable group. > > Would this help? Honestly speaking I'm not sure and I don't want anybody to do work that is a potential waste of time. I'm currently thinking that we should try to get direct user feedback from all users downloading OOo. I think answering a few questions is bearable if they can help developing the future of the program they are using. > If you want to see an overview of the course go to www.JustLocal.com.au. Click > on the MyAds image towards the right. > > If you think anything else in this vein would help let me know. I will try do find some time. Sounds interesting. > Now I hadn't previously managed to find the "HTML (Writer)" option. That works > much better. > > If I didn't find this option in 3-4 years, I suspect it isn't going to be > obvious to others. :-) The current situation is a problem for users that have changed from other applications (not only Word) to Writer. If you load an HTML document into e.g. Word you can do all with the document you can do with Word documents also, e.g. embedding graphics and save them in the standard format of the application. Both of them is *not* possible in Writer/Web by intent (for roundtrip reasons) so people think something is wrong. If we opened HTML files in Writer by default it would be as they expecting it. The best idea I had so far is to make Writer/Web a special mode of Writer that can be switched on or off. Unfortunately that isn't possible ATM. > - The graphic issue when saving is no longer an issue. > - The prompt when saving is something I don't particularly like. > - I don't see any option to see the source code. (This in theory should not be > required, but in practice it is very important.) That confuses me a bit - I thought that the users of Writer/Web aren't interested in the source code. But yes, that would be something to change. > - The extra features of Writer concern me as I said before as the user will > select things that won't work. (In Writer/Web you guys have done a very good > job limiting the options to protect the user.) Yes, that's the main concern. >> Well, there is no absolute certainty in anything. >> You can be sure that Writer/Web won't vanish before OOo3.0. And removing >> it for 3.0 is also not planned yet. That's the biggest certainty I can >> give here. > > Understand, we live in changing times. > > I find with all software development that things get gradually phased out. > First from the menus in one release, and then dropped one or two releases > later. > > This may not happen so much with OpenOffice.org, but then again I didn't > expect HTML Editor to be dropped from the Windows XP menus, or as a promoted > module, so it already has happened. The menu was overcrowded. Math was also removed and nobody will ever think about removing Math from OOo. > If Writer/Web was to be dropped, what is the worst possible timing that would > occur in very rough terms. Would it be 6, 12, 18, 24 months? I'm sure it won't be dropped in 2007. And there are no concrete plans to do it even in the following time. Ciao, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer (mba) - Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS Please don't reply to "nospamformba(a)gmx.de". I use it for the OOo lists and only rarely read other mails sent to it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscribe(a)openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-help(a)openoffice.org
From: Bruce Byfield on 11 Dec 2006 20:27 On Mon, 2006-11-12 at 20:19 -0500, RBL wrote: > Slight thread drift (my apologies), but what would be nice to see would be > an OpenOffice equivalent to MSFT Office Publisher. IMHO that's the big > missing piece here. An OpenOffice Page could fill the gap on both fronts > by allowing WYSIWYG page layout and design, and then allow users to > generate PDF, HTML, GIF, PS, etc. -- just as Office Publisher does. The > upside would be that OpenOffice could generate clean HTML, instead of > polluting the code with proprietary tags (as MSFT does). The other upside > is an OOo Page could allow a code mode (which Office Publisher lacks), so > advanced users could get into the HTML and edit it directly. If you explore Writer, you'll find that it includes more than enough page layout tools to outshine MS Publisher. In fact, in my experience, it's the closest equivalent in free software to FrameMaker, and compares very well with it. I know several publishers who use it successfullyfor their titles. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7177 http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield Burnaby, BC, Canada --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscribe(a)openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-help(a)openoffice.org
|
Pages: 1 Prev: [discuss] Error in selecting currency Next: timeline for MS Office OpenXML (OOX) import/export |