Subject: Re: AbiWord file association capture - opinions?
From: Alan Horkan (horkana@tcd.ie)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2002 - 19:23:58 CST
FLAME ON!
right ive had more than enough of this,
i try really hard to be helpful and polite but this sillyness must end.
On Sat, 19 Jan 2002, John Selby wrote:
> I'm just wondering what people think about the default setup for the Windows
> version of Abiword, which now by default "captures" the file associations
> for .rtf and .doc documents.
The code for abiword is available, as is the code for the installer
Free software (aka Open Source) is about freedom, you have the freedom to
change things, or try and get some one else to change it.
these articles might be informative
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
http://www106.pair.com/rhp/hacking.html
If you want things dont your way then submitting a patch to the code is
the best (but not the only) way to convince people
We know about this feature, and i will probably submit a patch to change
it for the sake of usability.
i dont think it is an unreasonable default setting, there are good reasons
to have it that way personally im quite happy about having this on by
default, i do want these file types associated with abiword.
If i want to open a document in another word processor then i will open up
the word processor and use the open command or drag and drop the file on it.
I continue to be amazed and appalled by the reaction of people who did not
bother to read the instructions and just installed blindly.
Frankly the whole file assocation system is a mess, and until this feature
was added nothing got associated with abiword. The current workaround
in the installer is okay but the overally problem of file extensions
in general is unlikely to be fixed until after v1.0 and even then it
requires a lot of very messy work that would be entirely specific to
Winblows.
> When this first happened (with AbiWord 0.9.4 if I remember rightly) and I
> simply installed with the defaults I was dismayed to find that AbiWord had
> taken over file associations that I didn't want it to interfere with.
>
> I found that it was no simple matter to reverse the situation, because the
> file extensions .abw, .doc and .rtf had all been lumped together as a group
> in my registry and I couldn't think of an easy way to separate them out
hmm ill have to look at that and try and unlump them
> again (that is, to have .rtf and .doc associated with Wordpad, and .abw with
> AbiWord). I solved the problem by restoring my previous registry from a backup.
>
> I think this default behaviour is not desirable, because most people just
> accept the defaults when they install software. The average computer user
> simply doesn't understand the choices offered in "custom" installation menus
> and will allow the installation to proceed with its defaults. I think many
> people will be dismayed to find that the installation of AbiWord has "messed
> up" something they didn't really intend to change.
>
> I'm asking for opinions here rather than filing a bug report, because the
> installation default behaviour is not really a bug - it's a "feature" :-).
Bugzilla is for bugs, features request, usability issues, speed,
footprint et cetera et cetera.
Submit a bug report to Bugzilla and cast your votes.
http://bugzilla.abisource.com
> Personally I would prefer that the default setting for installation of
> AbiWord were to have the file association "radio button" left unchecked, so
a check box can be left unchecked
a radio button is when you have to choose only one from several options
in windows they are drawn as circle with a dot in the middle.
> opinion. What do you think?
opinions have been made pretty clear already, talking only gets you so
far.
there are 2 people who are likely to change this in time for version 1.0
one of them is me, and i dont know if the other one reads the user list.
Sincerely
Alan
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