[ODFPlugtest] writing implementation specific defaults

[Wouter van Vugt]

It must be me, but shouldn't default values be part of the spec instead
of the application?

Say I have an office app which does both ODF and Open XML. And ODF says
a default page margin is 1 cm, Open XML says 2 cm. The application has
its own default at 3cm. Say that I load both an ODF doc, and an Open
XML doc, each without page margins defined. Shouldn't the first load
with a different 'default' than the second, 1cm versus 2cm?  
I think it is a bug to encode default values at the application level
when the file format being loaded defines a default too. Now I do
realize most applications use application-level defaults. Perhaps
primarily because they were initially envisioned to support one main
file format? It might also be the case that ODF just does not define a
default, so you only have the application default. In that second case
we can inform the TCs in order to improve ODF in that area (see, we can
be the driving force behind improving ODF :) 
The direct effect would be that the need to write default values into
the document is diminished (a solution I proposed at the Plugfest) and
we can all work on info in the spec like we should.

Would love to hear opinions on this.

Code Counsel
Sharing Knowledge with Passion
wouter at code-counsel.net


-----Original Message-----
From: plugtest-bounces at opendocsociety.org
[mailto:plugtest-bounces at opendocsociety.org] On Behalf Of Hanssens Bart
Sent: donderdag 18 juni 2009 10:15
To: plugtest at opendocsociety.org
Subject: [ODFPlugtest] writing implementation specific defaults

Hi,

we had a discussion on writing out implementation-specific default
values (like page margins), IIRC, MingFei Jia noted that someone
already created a list of values that should be written when saving
a document (MingFei: could you perhaps provide a pointer to that list)

Best regards,

Bart
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