Re: [office] auto-play presentation file format like PPS

["Warren Turkal" <turkal@google.com>]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Jomar Silva
<jomar.silva@br.odfalliance.org> wrote:
> I'm new here, but there is something that I want to understand (I maybe loss
> a part of the conversations).
>
>  Why implement this functionality on manifest file, and why let it be linked
> to any MIME type content ?

Because the author should be able to indicate a preferred view. Think
of the following use case. If I wanted to develop a presentation as a
kind of digital brochure for my company, I would probably want the
presentation to immediately start upon opening the file. The preferred
view would allow me to specify this type of behavior by allowing me
(as the author) to put in a preferred-view-mode with a value of
"presentation-auto-start".

In another instance, I may be writing an ebook. I could have a
preferred-view-mode of readonly so that the ebook isnt editable by
default.

This is a generic method to allow the author to specify what the view
for the whole document is. It doesn't only apply to part of a
document.

>  I'm worried because the implementation on that item, really reminds me the
> OnOpen() handler that was used on MsOffice to run malicious code (or to run
> or call arbitrary content when the document is open - i.e. Melissa virus
> used that functionality).

This attribute is meant to only take certain values. I don't see any
security implication in this schema considering that it doesn't allow
execution of arbitrary code.

>  Can we limit this proposed "manifest:preferred-view-mode" only to
> presentation files, or manage a way to insert this tag inside the header of
> presentation files ?

I don't think that would make sense as there are uses for the
preferred view mode in each of the different document types.

wt