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

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

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Bob Jolliffe <bobj@dst.gov.za> wrote:
> Warren I think you might be a little bit confused.  The point is not for the presentation to "play itself" in the automated manner you suggest.
>
>  When you present a presentation you open the file and by default you are in an edit mode - as is the case with the file you provide.  From here you would normally have to press the button, or select the menu item or press the shortcut key (all of these being application dependent) to actually "play" or "present" the presentation.  The only thing automatic which is being suggested is to arrive at this point (automatically) on opening the file.

I was trying to communicate this in my prior messages. Here's a
potential workflow when opening a file in OO.o or another office
suite. The "presentation-auto-play" mode would basically start into
presentation mode when opening the file (something like opening the
file and choosing "Slide Show" -> "Slide Show" in OO.o). Of course
you'd be able to press <ESC> and go back to edit mode.

The point of my immediately prior message was to clarify what Ming was
looking for. I am confused at this point as to (1) whether he is
looking for something like the presentation file I sent in the last
message or (2) whether he is looking for a way to start the
presentation mode upon opening the file.

(1) is already addressed in the ODF 1.2 draft 7 (and probably earlier
revisions of the standard).

(2) is what I thought we were discussing. I still think that
"presentation-auto-start" is better than "play". It indicates that the
mode only applies to presentations and that it will start the
presentation automatically.

Here's my suggested text for the description of preferred-view-mode attribute:

The manifest:preferred-view-mode attribute (should this be "tag") is
meant to provide a preference on how the author of the document would
like the document to be presented. There is no default. View modes are
not necessarily generally applicable to all MIME types. The way in
which an application responds when no "preferred-view-mode" attribute
is specified is undefined.

The following modes are defined by this standard: "edit", "readonly",
and "presentation-auto-start". The "edit" and "readonly" values can be
applied to any MIME type. The "presentation-auto-start" value can be
applied only to presentations.

Applications are also free to create their own custom views. Custom
views MUST start with "x-". It is RECOMMENDED that views that don't
applied to all MIME types identify the type of document they can be
applied to in their name (e.g. "presentation-auto-play").


TODO: We will also need to add text define the intents of the standard
defined views.

Also, here is a summary of the situation, as I understand it.

Issues with consensus:
1) the tag should be called "preferred-view-mode"
2) "edit" is a possible value for the tag
3) "readonly" is a possible value of the tag
4) the "preferred-view-mode" will have no default
5) apps should be able to define custom values of
"preferred-view-mode" (changed text from my prior message

Unresolved issues:
1) other standard defined values of the "preferred-view-mode" tag
2) how applications represent custom values for "preferred-view-mode"

Suggested schema:
<define name="file-entry-attlist" combine="interleave">
	<optional>
		<attribute name="manifest:preferred-view-mode">
				<choice>
					<value>edit</value>
					<value>play</value>
					<value>presentation-auto-start</value>
					<text/>
<!-- is there anything we can do to limit the previous line to
"x-"<text/> so that extensions can only have "x-*" names? Also, is the
previous line valid in RelaxNG? -->
				</choice>
		</attribute>
	</optional>
</define>

>  I don't think anyone is suggesting that the presentation should actually "play" itself.  Just that it should be possible to open it in a mode where it is ready to be "played" or presented rather than ready to be edited.

I thought this was the case. I may have misread some of Ming's
messages, but I got the idea that he was saying that he wasn't looking
for automatically starting the presentation upon opening the file,
which is what I originally thought we were discussing.

wt