I'm just wondering what people think about the default setup for the Windows version of Abiword, which now by default "captures" the file associations for .rtf and .doc documents.
When this first happened (with AbiWord 0.9.4 if I remember rightly) and I simply installed with the defaults I was dismayed to find that AbiWord had taken over file associations that I didn't want it to interfere with. I found that it was no simple matter to reverse the situation, because the file extensions .abw, .doc and .rtf had all been lumped together as a group in my registry and I couldn't think of an easy way to separate them out again (that is, to have .rtf and .doc associated with Wordpad, and .abw with AbiWord). I solved the problem by restoring my previous registry from a backup. I think this default behaviour is not desirable, because most people just accept the defaults when they install software. The average computer user simply doesn't understand the choices offered in "custom" installation menus and will allow the installation to proceed with its defaults. I think many people will be dismayed to find that the installation of AbiWord has "messed up" something they didn't really intend to change. I'm asking for opinions here rather than filing a bug report, because the installation default behaviour is not really a bug - it's a "feature" :-). Personally I would prefer that the default setting for installation of AbiWord were to have the file association "radio button" left unchecked, so that the user needs to make a deliberate decision to change the file associations for .rtf and .doc. I understand that a number of the hard working developers of AbiWord subscribe to this group, so they may be interested in some expressions of opinion. What do you think? Regards, John Selby. Napier, New Zealand. __________________ John Selby [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________ ----------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.
