Mathias Bauer <nospamforMBA <at> gmx.de> writes: > > 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 ??? end user with simple requirements. 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.
And IMHO it does a very good job when used in this way, with a small amount of knowledge to get around the quirks. Please excuse my change in the paragraph above. My target audience is micro/small business and many of these have simple requirements, but are very skilled and possibly experts in their area of expertise. I know you meant no offence and even wrote "(sorry)" to emphasise. I have found textual correspondence can be easily take the wrong way. I'm sure I have offended in the past and I apologise in advance to those I will offend in the future;-) > > 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. > > > 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. 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? 2. I have an online course on how to build a website which uses Writer/Web to create a website. Part of the course is how to make a very simple web page advertisement. Writer/Web is the tool used in the example. In fact it was also the tool used to write the course. Just like some people make a chapter of their book available, would it help if I made this section of the online course available? If you feel any of this could help let me know. The main thing is I don't want to go down a track which you may feel may not help anyone. Let me know your thoughts. I would be happy to give you access to the online course so you could see if it could help. 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. 3. Maybe a competition Just had a thought that perhaps a competition on the best website developed using Writer/Web might raise its profile. Businesses and developers can always do with a bit of free publicity and that would also help the project. Voting could also be done by OpenOffice.org users by raising each website as an issue in Issuezilla. I would even be happy to put up $100US as a prize. (The value in free publicity for anyone with a website would well outweigh any prize offered.) > > > 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. Just completed my review of yet another WYSIWYG editor. Good product. Costs $49US. It can use an Australian English dictionary I created. But no in-line spell check, or at least it didn't appear to work. Writer/Web still has the advantage in this area. It is also one of features of Firefox 2 spell checking that wins an enormous number of votes and suggestions for other browsers, so in-line spelling is important to others. See the following article on the Opera forum. http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=163169 > > > > 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. 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 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.) - 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.) > > > 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. > Understand. > > 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. 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. This is not meant to be a criticism, just an observation. The focus needs to be on where the project is going, not so much on what is getting shed. I don't even mind training people if the Writer/Web module gets dropped in a year or more. At least they get started. They can also keep their old version of OpenOffice.org for some time to come. 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 should also let you know that for me at least there are only a few issues which would make Writer/Web a better product without too much work (I bet you have heard that one before). 1. Pages created with Writer/Web will have a blank page if the users doesn't work work around this problem. 2. A link to index.html (such as for a home page link) on the home page does not work. Don't know if this has been fixed. But it means a user can't click on a link back to the page they are viewing. The problem here is the menus have to be changed for every page. The same menus for all pages makes create the web site faster. (I will check this out again when I get time.) 3. Just a little certainty on the future would be good. (Although I do appreciate resources are required and the project may feel they are better used elsewhere. If this decision even subconsciously has already been made then perhaps it is best to do nothing and more on.) 4. Not having to save the web page when first created when changing to HTML source view. 5. From Version 1.x to 2.x the HTML Editor shows a single paragraph in a table with a blank line under it. It didn't do this in 1.x. This blank line does not show in the browser which is good. It is just internal to HTML Editor. Of course if these were done I would probably ask for more<grin>. Yes HTML Editor is quirky, but it works. > > Ciao, > Mathias > I'm here to help. Let me know if there is anything you want me to do. Thanks once again for your time. Regards, Kelvin Eldridge --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
