Hi, for a long time now, I�m a user of this great word processor AbiWord. I�m not a programmer at all, so I never thought that it could happen to me to post an idea to this mailing list.
But there�s one idea not referring to features or coding, but in general referring to the installation of Abiword: I thought about some kind of stand-alone-version in one file, that e.g. fits on a simple floppy disk or could be started simply by opening the "package file" (SFX-Archive) in Internet Explorer. Please don�t misunderstand my suggestion: Most of us have Abiword installed on their home-PC and won�t want to take it with them on a Floppy Disk. But think about all that students at university, where just Wordpad or Word(viewer...) are installed because the admin doesn�t trust OpenSource (because he trusts the MS-"philosophy") - they will have to use MS Word. If they have a PC of their own (not every student got one), they will buy a commercial wordprocessing package for their home-PCs because they don�t know how to split e.g. the Abiword installation file on 4 Floppy Disks so that they can take it with them to have it their home-PCs. Today, a girl I know urgently needed a good word processor for writing a text at home on her new-installed PC (OS Win95), and so I came to think: what about having everything on one single floppy, no need to tell people: "do this, do that, then install ..." - just: "all you need is starting that single file on this floppy", or: "launch http://......abiword.exe in your Internet Explorer [most beginners only know that browser], then you got a word processor in that university CIP-Pool". This isn�t a really great idea, I think, but could bring much more people to use Abiword. Those people, not yet "lame" (I would simply call them "beginners", maybe they will become advanced users in the future), otherwise wouldn�t have a chance to take anything else than that normal Word97/2000 or Wordpad. I uploaded the file I took at http://members.xoom.it/j0erg/AbiWord.exe, it�s 1.20 MB - without language codes, helpfile and spell checker, and all I can say is: I think it�s very practical. Think about other apps like K-Meleon (http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net) - it would impower the not-advanced user to use Opensource-Software without having to know anything about software-installation. Please tell me what you think about my idea, and please don�t be angry if you disagree with it or because of my bad English; I know I�m sending this to a mailing list of very good coders, and have much respect referring to your great work. All the best Joerg __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE Valentine eCards with Yahoo! Greetings! http://greetings.yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.
