Anthony Chilco wrote: > Mathias Bauer wrote: >> Hi Joost, >> >> Joost Andrae wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> on 'real' operating systems file extensions aren't necessarily needed as >>> the operating system provides automatic file content detection by itself >>> (eg. /etc/magic). Inside OpenOffice.org in case of text files (eg. >>> ASCII) there's the only exception I know because if a text file uses the >>> file extension .csv then this file is opened in Calc and otherwise >>> Writer will care about text files. I can second your opinion that the >>> removal of an 'auto-extension' is not useful because files can be >>> overwritten by accident but in my opinion the user should have the >>> choice to create files without an extension. >> >> Saving without extension is a bad idea for a platform independent >> application where the still most used platform relies on them to detect >> the file type. You will start getting problems when you want to use this >> document on another system. >> >> I can find a lot of features that may be useful for some users in some >> cases. But I don't consider saving files without extensions as important >> and OTOH the drawbacks are obvious. >> >> As this isn't a development related topic I recommend to move the >> discussion to [EMAIL PROTECTED] But as 2.4 deadline is >> approaching we also must find a fast and simple solution (or live with >> the current state until 3.0). And that's what we are currently looking >> for anyway. >> >> Ciao, >> Mathias >> > Hi Mathias, > I wanted to throw in my two cents' worth before this disappears to the > discuss > list. Since a period is a valid character for filenames and not simply an > extension delimiter, any solution must allow for filenames with periods. I > would > recommend that OOo append the proper extension to all new files, based on the > module they have been created in and/or the file type chosen in the save > dialogue. This would apply to 'file / save as' as well as 'file / new'. > Exceptions: > 1) Files opened explicitly using drag and drop or 'file / open' should keep > their original file names. > 2) New filenames (first save or save as) enclosed by double quotes should not > be > modified. > 3) In situations where the file type is unknown, open a 'what file type is > this?' dialogue.
I'm afraid that many proposed "slight" changes in the way how auto-extensikon should be done are not possible as the feature implementation is not under our control. The auto-extension feature is a feature of the dialog. So it's a part of the OS and not of OOo. We can either use it or switch it off. My idea of witching it on or off depending on the used file type is a result of that considerations. Adding quotes to file names to prevent adding an extension most probably will confuse the dialog and nothing else. Your idea sounds great - if the dialogs supported it I would immediately switch to that solution as it is elegant and most probably also intuitive for the target audience (more experienced users). Please let me add a more general comment. This is a typical developer discussion. Just because something is possible it must be done. Just because a file could be named "foo.bar" I must be able to do so. Just because a period is a valid character in file names we must not assume that it always preceeds an extension. But though I'm a developer too I think that sometimes it's necessary to see things from a user's point of view. Windows' idea of extensions as file type indicators is broken by design and we can't fix that. We can't remove it but we have to live with it. This forces us to circumvent the contradictory work flows this feature creates. My proposal is: when saving a file always add the extension of the selected file type to the file name, except if that file name already contains *this* extension. With a single exception: text (txt) files should be treated differently. My proposal for these files is to add the "txt" extension to a text (txt) file name only in case the file does not contain a dot. This will allow Joe to use the "csv" extension as wanted. If the file name contains a period but no extension (as you described) - no problem! Just add the extension explicitly. This is the same as today and so the user problems I mentioned only persist for a single file type (txt) and only if the file name contains a dot. I think this is a great achievement and a huge improvement. OK, with my proposal you can't name your ODF file "foo.bar" or "myfilenamewithoutextension", you can do this only for text files. But is that really something users need? Yes, I know, on Linux the type of a file can be detected without an extension. But again: just because something is possible ... Ciao, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer (mba) - Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS Please don't reply to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". I use it for the OOo lists and only rarely read other mails sent to it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
