On Mon, 2002-04-15 at 17:40, Martin Sevior wrote: > Ok I can see this argument but I can easily imagine an abiword compound > document consisting of XML encoded data items with mime-type labelling > each item. So for example an embedded gnumeric spreadhsheet is just a > another image type with a data item that labels it as a gnumeric object > and the actual description of the spreadsheet in ordinary gnumeric XML > being the cone=tents of the data item. > How do subfolders help us? Well, firstly, xml isn't a silver bullet. Secondly, you'd have to parse a complete file (almost as slow and continuous as a tar.gz). To have more that one type of document, it is a lot better to have a virtual filesystem where you can put everything inside in seperate compounds: images, embedd/spreadsheet, embedd/escher, etc... Then you could just load the document, present it painlessly, and have a progressive loading of the remaining alien stuff. zip files provide an easy way and fast way to have a virtual filesystem (and it is even compressed). the java guys did a right thing with .jar's, and it is not a bad idea. I was originally in favour of .tar.gz's, because of better compression but the advantages of using zip files over tar.gz's more than compensate files just a teensy bigger. Hugs, rui -- + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Ghandi + So let's do it...?
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