RE: [office] "document template"

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

There are indeed office-productivity document systems where changes in a template can be applied to an existing document.  And some suites will allow changes in a document to be reflected back in a template.  

Of course, templates can be complete documents with lots of text in them, such as the templates for ODF specifications.  Most of my templates have text in them, instructions for authors, all manner of content.  I don't know how clever the update-from-template is in that case. There is no such functionality in any native ODF consumer that I am aware of, apart from what the Template Organizer allows in OpenOffice.org.

I agree that the simple case is that the template document's peculiar function is that when a document is created with it, that document is a new document and not an editing of the template itself (unless it is opened as a template rather than used to start a new document).  There are a variety of ways that works.   Double-clicking on the template does it for Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, and LibreOffice.  A new document is populated with the template but it is an unnamed document.  If I touch it (add text, etc.), then it becomes an unsaved new document and I'll be asked if I want to save it if I attempt to close it.  If I want to save it, I have to name it, perhaps choose a location, etc.

So the question remains, what is special about having a defined meta.xml element that names the template, if any, a document was created with?

A bigger question is, what is so special about an OpenDocument Text document that has the Text Template Document MIME type, an OpenDocument Spreadsheet document that has the Spreadsheet Template Document MIME type, etc.  How can we have any interoperable interchange of templates if we lack any interoperable definition of what a template is good for?


-----Original Message-----
From: homembit@gmail.com [mailto:homembit@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Jomar Silva
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 14:45
To: Patrick Durusau
Cc: office@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [office] "document template"

On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net> wrote:
> Jomar,
>
> On 7/14/2011 4:09 PM, Jomar Silva wrote:
>>
>> Hi Dennis
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton
>> <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>  wrote:
>>>
>>> A case that interests me is what happens if the template is changed after
>>> a document that depended on it is produced?  What if a template of the same
>>> name exists at the consumer who opens a document that was produced from a
>>> template of the same name (the famous normal.dot comes to mind)?
>>
>> As far as I remember, a template is only used to format the document
>> during it's initial creation, and to provide for users a special set
>> of pre-defined styles that they can use on the document. I never heard
>> (or saw) an office document use case as you present here.
>>
> The problem is that we define "pointing" at a template from inside an ODF
> document.
>
> Question: What is the "thing" being pointed at?
>
> Is it an ODF document?
>
> If so, we have an ODF document pointing at an ODF document.
>
> Recalling that we define the contents of templates, which seems to me to
> point towards a template being an ODF document.
>
> I don't think there is an answer in the current text, hence the reason I
> started this line of questions before formulating a proposal.

OK... I understand the issue now, but I don't see how Dennis use case
affects that (shame on me).

>> The way you're explaining here looks like the .css usage on HTML
>> files, but I don't think that we have something similar to that in the
>> real world of office documents.
>>
>>> None of these behaviors or anything else is addressed in the
>>> specification, and I'm not sure that it can be.
>>
>> I have serious doubts if this is something that we may address in the
>> specification:
>>
>> 1. Do we need really to explain to people how-to use templates ?
>>
>> 2. If we do so, how big is the risk of halting innovation on this area ?
>>
>
> Well, if we aren't going to define templates and at least how they are
> invoked by ODF documents, why mention them at all?
>
> You can have all the "innovation" you want by simply saying nothing.
>
> That does create interoperability problems.
>
> Just off the top of my head, I was thinking of proposing that that a
> template be defined as styles, content, forms, etc., prior to the entry of
> user created content. Once a document has user created content, unless saved
> as a template, it is simply an ODF document, etc. OK, would have to define
> ODF document to exclude templates.

+1 on that... BTW this is how I understand document templates, and
this is something that we should define on the standard seeing that
this understanding may not be the same everywhere.

This raised another question: Does anyone there knows if (and how)
applications uses the template-related elements ? (I did some quick
tests with OpenOffice saving document templates and I didn't saw any
template element used there).

> From my perspective, templates involved assumptions about application
> behavior that are not defined in the standard. What I want to do is put
> everyone on an explicit and even footing with regard to those assumptions.
> That involves making them explicit.
>
> We could abandon templates entirely to the realm of application behavior,
> although I think that would be a bad solution. But it would be an explicit
> solution.
>
> Hope you are having a great day!
>
> Patrick
Best,

Jomar

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