Re: Bonobo - storage formats ...

[Martin Sevior <msevior mccubbin ph unimelb edu au>]

On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Martin Sevior wrote:

> 
> 
> On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Sam TH wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 07:26:22PM -0500, Michael Meeks wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi Daniel,
> > > 
> > > On Fri, 17 Nov 2000, Daniel Veillard wrote:
> > > >   Sounds really good. Assuming that API wise ABI get bonoboized, the next
> > > > step is to try to reach compatibility at the serialization level.
> > > >   Did you had a look at the suggested OpenOffice XML/Zip bazed format ?
> > >     
> > >         This really should not be an issue addressed at the AbiWord
> > > level; this is something to be addressed by the OpenOffice / Bonob guys   
> > > who write bonobo storage / stream backends. This can be done totaly
> > > transparently.
> > >   
> > >         All AbiWord should do is implement Bonobo/PersistStream, and tell 
> > > the world that it supports an XML content type ( and probably an
> > > application/x-word ). Then everything can be done by a Bonobo plug-in
> > > storage module to turn it into a flat xml document ( or whatever ), zip   
> > > it etc.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, this would mean that the GNOME version of AbiWord would
> > be able import those documents.  So while we would be very happy for 
> > the added functionality, we would still want Abi native implementations
> > of those importers/exporters.  AbiWord plans to maintain its commitment
> > to cross-platform functionality.  
> > 
> 
> I think that unless someone comes up with an xp way of doing component
> integration Real Soon Now, embedding of compoenents in Abi will be
> Gnome-only thing. This makes sense since no other platform is going to
> have anything like Gnome's array of components.
> 

Doh!! I'm stupid. We should definately look at how we can support
components in an XP way. If we're clever we can make the Abiword on
Windows/Beos/QNX/Mac be a bonobo container for Bonobo-ized applications
served from Unix servers. That would be very cool and quite likely very
useful.

If we're even cleverer we could make Abiword a plugin for Mozzilla and
even Internet Explorer. Ah so many possibilities in a networked
world with a GPL'd XP Word Processor.

Cheers

Martin