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

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Oliver,

Oliver-Rainer Wittmann - Software Engineer - Sun Microsystems wrote:
> 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.
>
Oliver,

Perhaps we are simply missing each other.

By "default stylesheet" do you mean that the application applies styles 
that use only the style values defined by ODF?

But the only question is which "value" from the set of possible values, 
is being applied in the document?

If so, that wasn't my understanding from the term "default stylesheet."

And, wouldn't those styles by default be included in a document instance?

If that is the case, then there isn't an issue with "default 
stylesheet," or at least not the one that I was seeing. (Sorry 'bout that.)

What the standard should say is that documents contain their styling and 
that takes care of the "issue."

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick
> 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.
>
Yes.
> 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
>>>
>>
>
>

-- 
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)