Re: BOB: GNOME Word Processor Efforts

[Michael Bruce <bruce infinet com>]

I'll preface this by saying that I've not contributed any code to
GNOME, yet.  I've also not participated in any discussion up to this
point.  I'll also say that my opinions are not those of an expert, or
even of someone who has implemented anything above a small software
project.  I do know quite a bit about XML/XSL, though.

On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Todd Graham Lewis wrote:

> Ok, I was out of the office for three weeks, thinking the entire time
> about how to approach the building of a word processor.

I actually think about this kind of stuff in my free time.

[WP description removed for brevity]

I have a few comments and questions, here.

Start off with a question: how exactly is the XML being proposed for
use, here?  Is the proposed WP going to store evil things like
<BOLD>foo</BOLD>?  If it is, I think that to be not a good start.
I've tried to follow the discussion on this, and I haven't seen this
particular point being addressed before.

For comments, I think I'll just describe my idea of what could be a
"killer app" of a WP.

My basic concept is remarkably similar to what Mr. Lewis outlined; the
document display/formatting/etc. module separate, and the actual "WP"
being a UI shell around it.  I do think some things could be done that
would make the whole thing much nicer on the whole:

- First and foremost, make the thing truly XML-based: structural
markup only.  XSL can be generated per user request to make the bits
of the document look however, but the whole thing really should be
based on structure.  The benefits of this are innumerable.  There are
always objections to this, though, usually based around novice users.
The common one is that structural markup is a lot of hassle for
writing a letter to Grandma, or that users don't want to mess with the
hassle of specifying structure.  This problem can be alleviated by
good design; I'm sure the minds already involved have either though of
a solution, or can think of one pretty easily.  I'll not list my own
ideas at the moment, for the sake of brevity.

- I think it would be a good idea to have the WP (referring in this
case to the bit that isn't the formatter) not have any hardcoded UI.
What do I mean?  Well, I think it possible for the WP simply to have a
library (of sorts) of lots of basic instructions.  Then, scripts,
external programs, or some other type of separate thing could use the
library to generate all the menus and buttons that make up the
interface.  The program would, of course, ship with a default "look".
The benefit of this is that users could make their own buttons, and
define their own button layout.  I know that something like this is
implemented in Word, but it isn't as fundamental.

- If the thing can be made to use any arbitrary XML DTD and
stylesheet, it could also be one of the first XML browsers out there.
And, with a good formatting engine under it, it could look really nice
(e.g. justified text on webpages).

I would also, before anyone mentions it, be glad to help work on the
project, as soon as I figure out how all the various APIs work
together.  Is there a central reference for this type of thing, or am
I going to have to look a bunch of different places?

-- 
Michael Bruce (mabruce@students.wisc.edu)
"I am already the undisputed KING of Usenet and all Government
agencies work for me.  I am a consultant for the FBI, the State
Police, the Bar Association and various school districts." -J. Grubor