Thanks for helping to refine and clarify the idea. I think you are onto something when suggesting two options, or two steps in the process of developing the plugin. Must be the logical mathematician in you!
As for motivating people, the only thing I can think of is presenting the idea to a broad array of forums, and hoping it catches people's attention somehow. As such, I'm writing a quick article which I'll attempt to publish online and get linked from various sources. First I'll submit it to OSViews.com, then a few others (maybe try for a Slashdot link too). I'll post the text to this list first, and ask for comments and suggestions.
Ben
On Apr 3, 2005, at 6:06 PM, Daniel Carrera wrote:
Benjamin Horst wrote:
[Firefox] reads documents in standard formats and displays them on the screen, and some of these formats (xhtml) are probably similar in many ways to the XML-based OpenDocument formats. The fit is perfect. The work to create an OOo file viewer by this route is probably less than any other current option!
Using FireFox for this is a fantastic idea. I can't overstate how great the idea is. In addition to what you just said, I would add that OpenDocument is the natural evolution beyond XHTML. OpenDocument can do anything HTML can, as well as much that XHTML cannot.
Now, there are roughtly two ways to do this:
1) Use an XSLT transformation to turn OpenDocument files to XHTML and have
FF render the XHTML.
2) Write a complete plugin from scratch.
Option (1) is much easier, provided that:
* Firefox knows what to do with an XSLT. * It's ok to lose formatting.
Writing an XSLT isn't the biggest problem. OOo already comes with one for
XHTML export. So it comes down to whether FF know what to do with it. The
second item might be more problematic. HTML simply cannot represent
OpenDocument files with accuracy.
Option (2) has the advantage of better formatting accuracy. It would look
similar to the PDF plugin.
One idea would be to do this as a "quick and dirty" plugin, and plan on a
better plugin later on.
Maybe as marketers, we can ignite the motivation in fine programmers already out there looking for a great new project. What does everybody think?
This made me smile. I don't know how to motivate someone to do this. It sounds difficult.
Cheers, -- Daniel Carrera
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