Re: [Gramps-devel] Problem with RTFDoc

[Tim L. <guy...@gm...>]

On 26 Jan 2012, at 15:48, Benny Malengier wrote:

> 2012/1/26 Tim Lyons <guy...@gm...>:
>>
>> On 26 Jan 2012, at 08:10, Benny Malengier wrote:
>>
>> I would have thought rtf was pretty essential, for at least two  
>> reasons:
<snip>
>
> If it is not working as it should, and nobody wants to maintain it,
> then there are not many options.

Sorry, I did not make the situation clear. rtf works fine for the  
output that is currently produced by the current reports (as far as I  
can tell).

The problem is that it is not very robust, so if a report is changed  
in some way, then rtf output might not work. We could just adopt the  
philosophy of "fix on fail". When it didn't work for a particular new  
report I was doing, I fixed that particular problem. I was just hoping  
that someone who had written the original might understand why things  
were done, and be able to help more on making it more robust.

> About ODF, as libreoffice is free to install, and can save to .doc, I
> don't see the problem.
> Certainly, I will not suggest to a windows users to use the Gramps RTF
> output. If they have office, I would suggest the .odf to .doc path
> using libreoffice.

I suppose it is a matter of opinion as to whether you regard the  
inconvenience of needing to install something else in order to use the  
report output as significant or not. Personally, I think that needing  
to install libreoffice (or OpenOffice which I have installed on my mac  
for the same reasons) is inconvenient, and I would expect windows and  
Mac users to generally use rtf output (or perhaps pdf if they are not  
going to edit the report).

> If there are big problems with RTF and we need to decide to retain it
> or not, we should ask on user list if anybody actually uses the rtf
> output of the poeple subscribed to user list.

As I explain above, there are not big problems, just potential  
problems. Incidentally, it isn't the only format that might need  
fixing. For example, only html implements underline, and adding that  
to other formats might not be straightforward, especially in dealing  
with combinations of normal, bold, underline (and italic would be nice  
too)!