RE: [oiic-formation-discuss] My perspective. display perferct?

["Hurley, Garry \(L&I - OIT\)" <ghurley@state.pa.us>]

Dave, and all

Sorry it took me so long to read this message and get back to it.  Busy, busy, damn, more work? Anyhow.

I think too many people are confusing the word 'correctly' with the word 'consistently' when talking about displaying data on the screen.  Displaying things 'consistently' would imply that all applications display a bold tag, for example, in exactly the same way - three pixels of color wide on every single character, darker coloring, etc.  Displaying things 'correctly' would imply only that the application know what the tag is and not display it like another tag.  For example, a bold tag should never display text in italics unless an italics tag is also found either nested within it or containing it.  Since this is a visual test, it is not automatable, and it is therefore one that must be performed manually and subjectively.

As to Thomas' other points, the maintaining of data is absolutely essential, so point 'b' is dead on.  I have an issue with having the GUI alter an ODF feature to supported values, though.  I would like that option to be with the person creating the document.  For instance, there might be a reason that a person wants 137-point Wingdings2 font characters in his or her document.  Applications changing things to "acceptable" values is not acceptable to most design purists.  (As an artist I understand this philosophy and get ticked off when Internet Explorer displays things improperly.)  If the value is an unrealistic value (like a 137-point font) it should be up to the application's user to change this to a manageable and maintainable setting.  The application can make suggestions if it finds such situations, but it should never change things without the user's consent.

This is why I suggested we might want to concentrate on how the data is represented ON DISK as opposed to ON SCREEN.

I am going to try to catch up on my reading now, so if I have brought up a point that has already been answered, please forgive me.

Garry L. Hurley Jr.
Application Developer 2
Office of Information Technology - Bureau of Application Development
PA Department of Labor & Industry
651 Boas Street, Harrisburg, PA 17121 
Phone: 717.506.9373 (UCMS) or 717.346.9799 (Harrisburg)  Fax: 717.506.0798  Mobile: 717.649.0597
www.dli.state.pa.us <http://www.dli.state.pa.us>


My comments do not reflect those of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, its various agencies and departments, or its citizens.  They are my own, and may or may not be shared by those in positions of authority over me.


-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Pawson [mailto:dave.pawson@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 3:15 AM
To: oiic-formation-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] My perspective. display perferct?


2008/6/29 Thomas Zander <zander@kde.org>:

> Now, what specifies a passing test should be separated into several points,
> since applications typically can pass one and fail another.  I suggest these
> points to be something along the lines of
>  a) Loading the test data and displaying it on screen (correctly ;)
>  b) Saving the loaded document out again and not loosing information.
>  c) Having GUI to alter the ODF feature to all the supported values.
>

'displaying it on screen correctly'?

Did you read the threads on pixel perfect/display perfect?

I've yet to see a definition of 'correctly' as used above that falls within
ODF specification. We couldn't come up with it. If you're taking the same
position can you define it Thomas?

regards






-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk

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