[ODFPlugtest] MSO does not read LO files

[robert_weir at us.ibm.com]

> From: Hanssens Bart <Bart.Hanssens at fedict.be>
> To: ODF Plugfest mailinglist <plugtest at opendocsociety.org>
> Date: 06/27/2011 02:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [ODFPlugtest] MSO does not read LO files
> Sent by: plugtest-bounces at opendocsociety.org
> 
> 
> >LO fixed the validation error, but either never tested it with Office 
2010
> >or decided that the error was acceptable.
> >
> 
> Fixing the error is exactly what a company / project should do, 
otherwise
> we're back at mimicking bugs like in the pre-bubble HTML -days ...
> 

This is different than "quirks mode" in browsers.  That was the problem 
when a CSS property would work one way in one browser and another way in 
another browser.  So it was impossible to make a web page that would work 
everywhere because of varying behavior associated with the use of a 
property.

The manifest version is not really an example of that.  The ODF 1.2 draft 
doesn't specify any behavior related to this attribute.

I appreciate that the property is mandatory according to the schema.  So 
live has give us two sucky alternatives:

1) Write out the attribute and have Office 2010 scare the bejeebers out of 
users with a statement that their file is corrupt.

or

2) Leave the attribute out and face the wrath of Alex Brown's blog when he 
validates the documents and finds they are missing an attribute.  But the 
file loads in Office 2010 without error.


> SO IMHO what MS-Office perhaps should do is give a little warning about
> it reading an ODF 1.2 while only supporting 1.1 instead of the current
> error message. And OOo should also set this attribute correctly
> 

That would be an ideal solution.  But until that change is made in Office 
2010, I don't think that having users be told that their ODF document is 
corrupt is particularly good marketing for LO or ODF.  No user is going to 
blame Office.  They are going to blame the person who sent them the 
document.

> >How would you explain this to a user?
> 
> "we correctly implemented that part of the specification" ? :-)
> 

I'm not sure that really works.  Remember, in the situation where the 
document was created in LO and read in Office 2010, the person reading the 
document probably received the ODF document via email.  They read it and 
get a scary dialog talking about corruption.  They call the person who 
sent them the document. That person, an average LO user, has no idea what 
went wrong.  They know nothing about the ODF spec.  They know nothing 
about XML.  They are just embarrassed and say, "Sorry, I'll send you a DOC 
file in the future".

-Rob