Re: [office] <style:default-style>, <style:default-page-layout>

[Oliver-Rainer Wittmann - Software Engineer - Sun Microsystems<Oliver-Rainer.Wittmann@Sun.COM>]

Hi,

I did not get the problems that a new implementer of ODF would have due 
to "interchange" its created documents with existing applications 
supporting ODF.
To assure that the other ODF supporting applications get the same 
default styles the new application should export its default values of 
the attributes in the default styles.

Best regards, Oliver.


P.S.: I also expect that the existing ODF supporting applications will 
change in the future and will also export all its default values of the 
attributes in the default styles. If not, then the missing default 
values should equal the ones we will define in the mentioned in-progress 
proposal.

Patrick Durusau wrote:
> Oliver,
> 
> Apologies but I have been mostly offline for the last day or two as this 
> thread has developed.
> 
> I think there is some mis-understanding that I was requesting 
> *normative* definition of default renderings for ODF.
> 
> As several people have pointed out, locales have a great deal of impact 
> on actual rendering and so a *normative* definition for a single locale 
> would not be terribly useful.
> 
> However, having said that, consider the puzzlement of a new implementer 
> of ODF. They want users to see their product as providing "interchange" 
> with Lotus Symphony or OpenOffice but unless they know the details of 
> the "default styles" being applied, that is going to be rather 
> difficult. I suppose one could say that they should incur the cost of 
> studying those programs to learn what is already known to others but 
> that seems contrary to the notion of an "open" standard.
> 
> I suppose not specifying the details of "default styles," 
> non-normatively, does make the standard shorter but it also makes it 
> less precise.
> 
> I am not suggesting that we define defaults for all possible locales but 
> we certainly should know enough of the top 2 or 3 locales to say what 
> those "defaults" would be, at least non-normatively.
> 
> A consequence of not doing so is to create a barrier to those who might 
> want to implement the standard but lack the resources to develop the 
> defaults for the locales where we do define non-normative defaults.
> 
> I am not suggesting that is why specifying defaults is being opposed but 
> do think we need to consider the consequences of not specifying those 
> defaults.
> 
> I will have to think about how "default" styles are mentioned in the 
> current text because I suspect that in several cases knowledge of those 
> "default" styles influences what is being said in the text.
> 
> My tentative position is that if we know some "default" style, 
> particularly if knowledge of that default style for any locale will make 
> it easier to implement the standard, then simply noting that locales 
> vary is a poor excuse for not saying what we know.
> 
> Yes, presentations will vary from locale to locale but that missing the 
> fact that most interchange occurs *intra*-locale. And there users expect 
> appearances to be relatively uniform (Or at least I do. Admittedly a 
> universe where n = 1 but I am sure there are other examples that can be 
> cited.).
> 
> Hope you are at the start of a great day!
> 
> Patrick
> 
> Oliver-Rainer Wittmann - Software Engineer - Sun Microsystems wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg wrote:
>>> On 04/14/09 23:41, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
>>>> If you define the attributes for a default style then you will need 
>>>> to make a specific statement about many locale dependent items such 
>>>> as text direction, decimal separators, even typeface.  Locales that 
>>>> use the defaults stated by the standard will then be able to have 
>>>> more concise markup, since they could assume the defaults.  And 
>>>> locales that differ from the defaults would require more verbose 
>>>> markup since they would need to override those defaults 100% of the 
>>>> time.
>>>
>>> I agree. And in fact, even in OpenOffice.org, there is no single 
>>> universal default style, but the default style is generated based on 
>>> locale information. Further, the user has the option to specify some 
>>> of these defaults manually.
>>>
>>> Which is to say that I'm in favor of keeping the default styles 
>>> implementation dependent.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I agree to Rob's and Michael's opinion.
>>
>> Best regards, Oliver.
>>
>>
>> P.S.: We have proposal "Add default values" - 
>> http://wiki.oasis-open.org/office/Add_default_values - in progress in 
>> order to define at least a part of default values for certain attributes
>>
> 


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