Subject: Re: Features V stability
From: Virgil Arrington Jr. (virgilarrington@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu May 03 2001 - 15:37:35 CDT
I agree with Neil. Having changed programs at my office about eight times
in the past ten years, I have found it more important to have a fairly
transportable file format. I now use RTF exclusively and use it with
several different programs.
I also agree that stability is more important than raw features, although
this can be frustrating for developers. Obviously, the features I use are
essential - the features you use are not. But, as an example, I too have
used StarOffice and, while I was impressed with its feature set, it crashes
with such regularity that I now use it only when I need a specific feature
missing in my regular programs.
Not to tout the competition, but right now, the best combination of
features, size, and stability I have found is in Atlantis Nova, a free
program from www.rssol.com. I'm hoping that AbiWord will surpass Atlantis
as I believe it has much more potential.
Virgil
>From: Neil Timms <neilt@netvigator.com>
>Reply-To: Neil Timms <neilt@netvigator.com>
>To: abiword-user@abisource.com
>Subject: Features V stability
>Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 14:03:47 -0700
>
>Some thoughts from a users point of view (mine).
>
>I'd rather have stability than more features but I think that the real
>issue
>is not features but compatibilty with existing data. The abilty to be able
>to
>load existing word and rtf documents into Abi word and then save them again
>as word or rtf is more important than features in abiword.
>
>The hold of propriety software is in my opinion more effective through
>control of the file formats for data rather than the feature set of the
>programs themselves. Most users never use most of the functionality of Word
>but they do get locked in to using Word because of the need to exchange
>data
>with others who are also locked in to Word. Present users with a reliable
>path to exchange data and the features will be less important provided the
>basics are catered for.
>
>I used 0.7.13 for a 20+ pages legal style document and found that is was
>easer to use than other wp for numbered paras (well done those who worked
>on
>that bit) - the problem came when saving to rtf so that I could exchange my
>data with others still using Word - no numbers on the para (I think now
>fixed
>for 0.7.14?). The issue in the end was was not so much in the use of the
>program but in the format of the data.
>
>I guess I'm saying that more effort on the data exchange issues would be
>better than more effort on features.
>
>Only my opinion.
>
>Cheers
>
>Neil
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat May 26 2001 - 03:51:25 CDT