I do not believe that most Windows machines came with a JavaScript interpreter. As such, expecting a user to have to install one in order to use FOP is an unnecessarily high bar.
However, if the 'cmd' language and the 'bat' languages are fairly identical, feel free to change them. As long as the user doesn't have to install a program just to use FOP, I don't see a problem. Simon Pepping @ Home wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 04:32:09PM -0800, Nicol Bolas wrote: >> Well, consider this. >> >> I know what a .bat file is; I know how to use one. I don't know what a >> "cmd" >> or a "js" startup script is. If I need to modify the .bat file, I can >> read >> it, understand it, and use it without looking something up online. A lot >> of >> Windows users who would be interested in FOP are in pretty much the same >> boat. >> >> So what would be gained from using a relatively obscure script format >> rather >> than a .bat file? > > In the past three months we have had two incidents where the startup > script fop.bat lagged behind the update of a jar file. One such > incident forced me to cancel 100MB of candidate release files, fix > that batch file and create and upload 100MB of new candidate release > files. > > You would not gain anything as long as we suffer the pain of > maintaining the startup script in the age-old, powerless batch > language designed for x86 computers in 1990. We would gain the comfort > of a more powerful language, which is able to find out itself if a jar > file has changed version number. In addition, the javascript file > offers customizability to the users. > > Until someone creates a comfortable GUI for FOP, you better learn what > cmd and js files are. Or at least, you learn that you can execute them > by double clicking on them, just as the batch file. > > B.T.W. the cmd and bat file languages are the same language on recent > Windows systems. It is just that the batch file does not use more > powerful features of that language, in order to enable you to run the > same on a Windows 98 computer. My Windows 98 system broke down quite a > while ago, but there seem to be people who are kinder to it, and have > kept it alive until now. > > Simon, who prefers to spend his time and efforts on forward looking > features > > -- > Simon Pepping > home page: http://www.leverkruid.eu > > -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/fop.bat-needs-patching-tf3361048.html#a9387403 Sent from the FOP - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
