Brian Barker wrote: > > May I please rehearse an alternative viewpoint? > > One of the obvious needs for document files is their exchange between > users, and users may have different platforms. If I save, say, an odt > file on my system, I may wish to transmit it to you by some means. If, > with your suggestion, I can use any file name that my operating system > allows, it may transpire to be an illegal name under your system. We > are not talking about "migration" here - at least as I understand that > term: I merely want to be able to send you a document file and - > especially if I am an ordinary user - I need to be able to do this > without being troubled to know what your operating system may be, still > less what its idiosyncrasies are. > > Under your proposed arrangement, if I send you a file and tell you what > it is called, you may well have difficulty finding it. Either its name > will be a problem for your operating system and it will be inaccessible, > or perhaps its name will have been regularised in some unpredictable > fashion for your system and it will no longer match what I tell you the > file is called. In each case the ordinary user may be at least confused > or even unable to find and use the document. On the other hand, if any > application software capable of saving in this format lays down more > restrictive rules for file naming than most operating systems and allows > only names which will be acceptable to all or most operating systems, it > will be possible for me to save a document and be confident that any > user that can use the format will be able to use the file. > > I've no idea where OpenOffice stands on this issue. But I do know that > one of its professed advantages is its availability for a range of > platforms. I imagine the same goes for Open Document Format. > > Brian Barker
You know, this leads me to recall one of my pet peeves against the kind of "typical average joe" users (many business or corporate or "I am going to show you my powerpoint" types fall into this) who have this misplaced belief that not trying to know even the basics of how to use a computer or their OS is perfectly okay. They are totally oblivious to the fact that it is common sense to know the important things about a machine they are using. One does not need to be an automobile engineer, but not knowing how to properly use and maintain his/her vehicle is just not wise. Regarding this problem of valid characters in filename, I have always discourages uses from using spaces in their filename. I think all of the present OSes handle those perfectly well, but one cannot be sure if an application will do so or not; that depends on the programmer who built that application. I recommend the rule of thumb: use alpha-numeric characters only (a-z, 0-9) and perhaps an underscore to separate words in the filename, and additionally a period for the extension. How hard can this be? Using basic common sense precautions prevents huge headaches later on. Coming back to your point of making the application warn the user, well that depends totally on the programmer. And if you ask me, trying to force programmers to do this is fighting a losing battle. Programmers are not known to follow best practices rigorously. In short, one just cannot replace users' common sense with programming best practices. regards. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
