On 8 Jun 2007 at 7:30, Phil Daley wrote: > At 6/8/2007 12:06 AM, Mark D Lew wrote: > > >If that's true, then any programmer ought to be able to write a > >little utility with a user-friendly interface for editing it. It > >wouldn't even have to be a plug-in, since it's only manipulating a > >text file. > > That is what I was thinking. > > I have not seen this file. But a program to convert it to and from > xls is all that is needed. > > The actual editing would be in Excel.
That has got to be the most idiotic thing I've ever seen you propose on this list. First off, Excel can edit a text file without conversion, and save it as text, so there isn't any conversion needed in order for Excel to edit the file. Secondly, if you'd taken any time to actually try what you're proposing, you'd see immediately that the layout of the file is inappropriate for Excel: 1. it uses unequal numbers of tabs to separate key/value pairs (sometimes one, sometimes two), which means Excel can't figure out which columns belong where. 2. it uses = after the tab so that Excel thinks what comes after is supposed to be a formula. Third, this doesn't begin to address the actual problem, which is the danger of editing the data manually in a way that invalidates the data (e.g., by inputting the characters wrongly). The need is for a user interface that allows the user to edit the data without being able to screw up the layout of the file. And that can only come from a custom program that knows the rules for the layout of the file. That should be created by the makers of Finale or by a plugin developer. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
