<style:default-style>, <style:default-page-layout>

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Greetings!

Oliver replied to my editorial notes on these items saying that any ODF 
application would define its own default styles.

See: http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200903/msg00019.html

While I can understand why any ODF application should be allowed to 
define its own default styles, I don't think that answers the question 
of whether ODF 1.2 should define a set of default styles.

Although we as technical types probably take a more abstract view of the 
notion of "interchange," I suspect that users are more clued into the 
visual presentation of a document as representing successful, or not, 
interchange.

That is to say that if a page is by default formatted noticeably 
different from one ODF application to another, users are going to have 
the impression that interchange, at least as they understand the term, 
isn't a feature of ODF.

Granted I don't have a magic ruler than says how much presentational 
fidelity is necessary to meet the expectations of users but suspect 
there is enough experience among some of the software vendors who are 
supporters of ODF to make an attempt at documenting a default set of 
styles for ODF applications. Which they are free to depart from if they 
so choose but that will offer some minimal fidelity between ODF 
applications.

Options:

1) Default styles are defined in ODF 1.2.

2) Default styles are defined in ODF-Next.

3) Default styles are never defined, always application dependent.

I think my preference is pretty clear but this really needs to be a TC 
decision one way or the other.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)