RE: [office-collab] change tracking proposals

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

Andreas,

I share Robert's perspective on this.

In the current ODF 1.2, the change-tracking of cell-level table manipulations is independent of the way tracked changes work for the textual content of documents.  I suspect it is even farther from what the generic proposal addresses because of how gct starts at such a fine-level.  But no matter that.

I think the focus on the moment has to do with making sure that well-established change tracking and already-used change-tracking for text are not broken by failure to deal with that change-tracking at the proper level.  It is easier to address that with text because there are fewer (but not no) cases where external dependencies and interdependencies with other text tend to be less challenging than when one deletes, inserts, or moves rows and columns of a spreadsheet.  Because there is a proposal not based on the current provisions, it becomes a matter of urgency to figure out how we reconcile all of that.

It is also what more of us are accustomed to and/or familiar with.

There is considerable pent-up concern about text change-tracking in ODF 1.x, as the existence of the DeltaXML proposal being sponsored by external entities is evidence for.  In a way, you are right, this is next-up after OpenFormula, in some sense.  However, now that there is OpenFormula, its integration into ODF is certainly embraced by change-tracking concerns as well.

Have you had any luck with the change-tracking for spreadsheets already in ODF 1.2 and do you have any JIRA issues or other observations that you could bring your unique attention to?

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: robert_weir@us.ibm.com [mailto:robert_weir@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 09:08
To: Andreas J. Guelzow
Cc: office-collab@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [office-collab] change tracking proposals

Hi Andreas,

I don't think that there is any intent to ignore spreadsheets.  But it is possible that some think that spreadsheets are "just tables" and that if we handle tables in text documents, then tables in spreadsheets would present no additional difficulties.

I can see a few reasons why that is an insufficient view:

1) Tables in spreadsheets have formulas, whereas tables in text documents generally don't (although ODF does allow them)

2) Tables in spreadsheets have calculated values, some of which can change even if the underlying formulas or user-entered data does not change. 
These are the "volatile" calculations involving the current date or time, or calls to RAND().

3) There is an efficiency question that arises in spreadsheets that is not commonly seen in text documents.  It is rare to see a table in a text document that exceeds 1 or 2 pages in length.  But spreadsheets today allow one million rows.

Are there any other unique aspects of spreadsheets, from the change tracking perspective, that we should be aware of?

There is also the fact that today, change tracking is implemented and used far more often in word processors than in spreadsheets, but this does not say that things might change in the future.  So I'd encourage us to consider spreadsheet, as well as presentation use cases in our thinking.

Regards,

-Rob

"Andreas J. Guelzow" <andreas.guelzow@concordia.ab.ca> wrote on 04/22/2011
11:05:13 AM:

> 
> I am starting to question my participation in this SC. 
> 
> I realize that when ODF 1.0 and 1.1 were approved the interoperablity 
> needs for spreadsheets were ignored and only with the OpenFormula 
> specification in ODF 1.2 was ODF made useful for spreadsheets.
> 
> Based on comments made during the three calls, it appears to me that 
> the same is now going to happen for change tracking, ie this 
> discussion is solely focused on text documents an the underspecified 
> change tracking for spreadsheets just carried on.
> 
> Is it the majority opinion in this TC that the change tracking 
> proposals to be discussed are text-document only specific (and so 
> change tracking for spreadsheets are considered completely separate 
> from change tracking for text documents)?
> Thank you


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