Re: [dq-rules] Edi's Work and File Formats

[Rodger Thorm <dqn@earthlink.net>]

I'm also a firm supporter of using spaces and fixed-width fonts and text files as a last-common denominator way of making information as readily available to all as possible.  

I've tried (with varying degrees of success) to do the same when putting tabular information into the DQ Newsletter.  (I often ran into problems going from the text file editor to the email program, which is why so many Newsletters are still munged up in appearance, but I agree with John that spaces rather than tabs is ultimately the way to go.)

That said, it does take an enormous amount of time to do that kind of layout in text files.  

I don't think it's necessary to have perfect formatting in a text file when the topic is still just a draft under discussion.  Reasonable adjustments can be made by those who don't natively support any of the formats you have used.  As it is, I think that putting the work out there in four different formats is going to heroic lengths to accommodate others, and I applaud your attempts to be universally accessible.  

It would be a good thing to have a clean text file that anyone could use in whatever way they like, but that may have to wait until we have a final version complete.  But I think most everyone will be able to use a .PDF version (John K being the one exception in this group's active contingent that I am aware of).

I have been a supporter of using text files and .PDFs as a way of making information as widely available to others as possible.  Those are the two formats that I think the undertakings of this group should be made available. (Drafts can circulate in other formats, but realize that you may be cutting some people out by doing so).

  --Rodger

-----Original Message-----
From: Esko Halttunen <esko.halttunen@luukku.com>
Sent: Nov 14, 2003 1:00 AM
To: dq-rules@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [dq-rules] Edi's Work and File Formats (Was: Re:  Edi's Work and Armor )

Jeff Johnson wrote:
> > So, everyone, feedback would be appreciated, and we could do with 
> > some lively discussion, don't you think?
> 
> Can't comment on content yet. However, can on format:
> 
> I suspect the reason you're having trouble getting your text files 
> to look right is because you're using tabs, not spaces, to delimit 
> the columns. Every editor has a different default setting for how 
> large it displays a tab character. And that's even before the 
> different default fonts used.

Usually that is determined by how many characters per tab space there is. I first had a problem with Crimson Edit using 4 and Wordpad using 5, so I switched CrimsonEdit to use the same. Still doesn't work. Crimson Edit uses the same font as Notepad, so I don't see how that's a problem. Documents written in Notepad are fully legible in CE and vice versa, but Wordpad seems to throw a wrench in the works. Of course, it might be CE messing around, but I happen to like that text editor and it was easier to fix things by hand, mostly it was just lines having either one extra or one less tab in Wordpad.

I hate using single spaces in text documents, because it makes doing a document of this magnitude *very* tedious.

> 
> So long as you use a fixed-width font, though, a text document with 
> spaces instead of tabs will display the same in every editor. (The 
> only problem you can run into is the different linebreak characters 
> used on differnet platforms, but there's utilities to handle that).

I'm not much of an expert on text files, but seemed to me that the problem was largely with Wordpad's linebreaks and inability to count 

> 
> Similarly, if you're going to provide Word and OpenOffice format 
> docs, you should use the program's native tables rather than tabs.

Actually, what I did with that was write the damn thing up in OO and then save another copy in MS Word format after the whole thing was done, and then edit the few places that are screwed up back to what they should be. OO can read native Word documents, but the proprietary Microsift file format adds some stuff which makes a lot of things appear really fucked up and these need to be fixed by hand. If you save from OO format to Word, these instances are much rarer, and typically the only problem is that if something was in bold font originally but changed back to normal, that line (or a part of it) will be bolded in the Word version.

I might do the things in table form in a later version, but I just wanted to get the thing ready and didn't really think about it at all. One reason is also that I only have experience of native tables in Word, and they are for the most part more trouble than they are worth and then some, so I've developed an aversion to them.

But thank you for the comments, I'll keep them in mind for future reference.

Edi

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