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AbiWord User Feature Roadmap

The feature list below is our best guess at which features will be available for which version. Our goal is to release early and often, and that will impact the feature set of any particular release.

Version 0.1 refers to the Aug 21st version at the Open Source Developer Day, and we are currently planning for Version 1.0 at the end of the year.

Coming Soon: Descriptions for each feature, and a more web-friendly interface for viewing.



Navigation

Note: existence of a navigation feature does imply there is a GUI expression of that feature for the particular release. See the Key Bindings and GUI sections for user actions available for each release.

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Move cursor Left, Right, XY, Beginning/End of Line Previous/Next Line.
  • Scroll Page Up/Down
  • Scroll Line Up/Down
  • Goto page
  • Goto Line number
  • Move cursor to Beginning/End of Word/Sentence/Paragraph, beginning of prev/next line
  • Scroll to Top/Bottom of Document
  • Scroll Page Left/Right


Selection/Clipboard

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Select from current position to XY, to Left/Right by a single char, to Beginning/End of Line/Word/Document, to Prev/Next Line, to Page Up/Down
  • Extend Selection to XY, to Left/Right by a single char, to Beginning/End of Line/Word/Document, to Prev/Next Line, to Page Up/Down
  • Select All, select current Word/Line/Sentence/Paragraph at XY
  • Select from current position to Beginning/End of Sentence/Paragraph
  • Extend Selection to Beginning/End of Sentence/Paragraph
  • Selection Dragging (move text & copy text)
  • Cut/Copy current selection
  • Paste at current point, over current selection, above current line, below current line.
  • AutoScroll
  • Multiple internal clipboards (ala Vi)


Editing

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Delete Left/Right
  • Insert chars
  • Insert Paragraph break
  • Apply Formatting controls
  • Delete to Beginning/End of Word/Sentence/Paragraph/Line/Document
  • Insert Tabs
  • Insert line break, column break, page break
  • Unlimited Undo
  • Redo
  • Find/replace, direction of search, whole word, match case
  • Overwrite mode
  • Multiple Cursor Types (showing insert mode vs overwrite mode)
  • Regex in Find/Replace


Positioning

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Justification: left, right, center
  • Simple auto line breaking algorithm
  • Document Margins
  • Rectangular Columns
  • Circular columns
  • Multiple columns
  • Justification: full
  • Tabs
  • Keeps: line, paragraph
  • Line spacing control
  • Paragraph Margins
  • Units: points, inches, centimeters, picas, em
  • First line of paragraph indented or outdented
  • Numbered/bulleted lists
  • Tables
  • Widow and Orphan control
  • Column Balancing
  • borders, padding, background colors on Paragraphs
  • margins, borders, padding, background colors on spans
  • Glyph capture of a drop cap
  • XSL feature - Formatting constraints which are dependent on the line break positions
  • Tex and other line breaking algorithms
  • Polygon Columns
  • Bezier Columns


Characters and Styles

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Font face
  • Font size
  • Font weight, slant, underline, overline, strike
  • Font Color
  • Background Color
  • style sheets. Char styles, paragraph styles. "Based On"
  • Superscript and subscript
  • UpperCase and small caps format
  • Curly quotes & simple quotes
  • 3 types of hypen chars
  • Curly quotes & simple quotes
  • Drop Caps
  • Kerning
  • Ligatures
  • Soft Hyphenation
  • Automatic Hyphenation
  • Invisible Text


Embedded Objects

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Inline images
  • Horizontal Rule
  • Captions on embedded images and figures.
  • Inline objects of many types
  • Floats (Left Aligned Images)
  • Linked Objects
  • Edit of linked objects


Calculated Fields

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Page Number
  • Number of Pages
  • Current Date/Time
  • Doc Creation
  • Date/Time
  • Doc Save Date/Time
  • Document Meta Info
  • Figure numbers
  • Reference numbers
  • Revision Number


Page Display

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Page View
  • "Normal" View
  • Headers and footers
  • View XML Document source
  • Show Markers
  • Show Invisibles
  • Show Line Numbers
  • Landscape and Portrait Page Setup
  • Predefined page types (specific letter,envelope and sticky label sizes)
  • Multiple headers and footers
  • Footnotes
  • Outline View
  • Zoomed View
  • Left vs. Right pages


Import/Export

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Import AbiWord Format
  • Export AbiWord Format
  • Import/Export Office 97
  • Import/Export WordPerfect
  • Import/Export RTF
  • Import/Export .txt
  • Import MS-DOS .txt
  • Import/Export AbiWord Styles
  • Import .wri
  • Import/Export HTML
  • Import/Export HTML (.wps)


Key Bindings and GUI Mockups

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Throw-away GUI
  • AbiWord
  • Word
  • WordPerfect
  • Emacs
  • Vi


Platform Support

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Linux/GTK
  • Win32
  • Use Netscape portability layer
  • Qt
  • Motif/LessTif
  • Mac
  • Solaris
  • BeOS?


Printing

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • PostScript
  • Win32
  • To a text file
  • Page Setup
  • Print Page Ranges
  • Print Preview
  • Print Selection


Misc Features

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Options
  • Spell Checker
  • Plugin Architecture
  • Automatic backup
  • Word/Line/Character Count
  • Background reformat and printing
  • Command Line options
  • JavaScript Macro Language
  • Conditional Text
  • Table of Contents
  • Index Generation
  • User Column layout editor
  • Grammer Checker
  • Mail Merge
  • Document Meta Information
  • Assistant Parody
  • Revisioning


Language Support

Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Unicode Support
  • English Localization
  • Non English Localizations
  • Line breaks for non english languages
  • Right-to-Left text
  • Bidi text


GUI

Note: The "features" below are really just components of a specific GUI that still needs to be defined. There will be a default AbiWord GUI, and custom GUIs that mimic popular word processors such as Word, WordPerfect, etc.
Version 0.1.0 Version 1.0 Post Version 1.0
  • Menus
  • Ruler
  • Customizable GUI Layer
  • Tool Bar
  • Format Bar
  • Status Bar
  • Balloon Help (Win32 only?)
  • Context Senstive mouse menus
  • Multiple Windows, tile, cascade
  • Cycle windows, forward/backward
  • Close, minimize, maximize window
  • Splitter Window

Copyright 1998-2001 SourceGear Corporation, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt and others. All rights reserved. Send comments to webmaster@abisource.com.
AbiSource, AbiSuite, AbiWord, and the AbiSource logo are trademarks of SourceGear Corporation. All other product names, company names, or logos cited herein are the property of their respective owners.