From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jambunathan K Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs as word processor Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 00:22:29 +0530 Message-ID: <87iovgiaaa.fsf@gmail.com> References: <87mwl04w3k.fsf@zigzag.favinet> <87iovo4caz.fsf@zigzag.favinet> <877gc14vzs.fsf@zigzag.favinet> <878uwhxnqe.fsf@informatimago.com> <83txf4cw9z.fsf@gnu.org> <528F77B8.9090602@lanl.gov> <83ob5ccoct.fsf@gnu.org> <83iovkcf1g.fsf@gnu.org> <83a9gvcyq3.fsf@gnu.org> <8361rjcf9u.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1385405814 32325 80.91.229.3 (25 Nov 2013 18:56:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 18:56:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Eli Zaretskii , Emacs developers To: John Yates Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 25 19:57:00 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Vl1L8-0001nZ-Ju for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 19:56:58 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54491 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vl1L8-00011j-A9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:56:58 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48661) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vl1Ky-0000qR-DU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:56:52 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vl1Ks-0007Tx-QM for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:56:48 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-pb0-x22a.google.com ([2607:f8b0:400e:c01::22a]:57900) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vl1Ks-0007TW-A4; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:56:42 -0500 Original-Received: by mail-pb0-f42.google.com with SMTP id uo5so6344935pbc.15 for ; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:56:41 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=from:to:cc:subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id :user-agent:mime-version:content-type; bh=hiKrRdBVR58SFJdVSJVlesV9YgWftFPQ+81rkg39SQ0=; b=S/PQhguGeAB8AY3C9H4IiO4+j4yv6d4CqlxVqJfxtHnN5SEV8m3XmqjVr/WiZtZXnb z6p88gyDhrQqfcLi0n3rddHyy9lgHtGBiuku2Nw9aC8pygxNUdYqWwMnv37B1aakITRF 8FPP7ojHO31URMX8H6y2yh0/gZ9hEYWZPFp82aur7oMMHg1nEmv9Rdgumf/a4mQ2rbh/ zYroUullPF0xIRqTN1lnGV5qAcoLrAfdu6VFnysuvq5O29OBKuztZ3zxIqjdhvGnrQ+p jVmToTdKdvPMMNcFRQD+8d9iTmPSLRbes5AwY6UcUqT1ZRRTzBufIPKTGKKqOD43eNwH iYCg== X-Received: by 10.68.233.201 with SMTP id ty9mr19515722pbc.72.1385405801034; Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:56:41 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from debian-6.05 ([115.242.195.187]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id ja5sm74453249pbc.14.2013.11.25.10.56.37 for (version=TLSv1.1 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:56:40 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: (John Yates's message of "Mon, 25 Nov 2013 12:51:13 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2607:f8b0:400e:c01::22a X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:165718 Archived-At: I am surprised that the discussion has more or less focussed on the "character styles" part but has more or less ignored lists and tables. John Yates writes: > structural elements Please take a look at http://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html http://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-export-reference.html The parser is in org-element.el. The "affiliated keywords" are a primitive form of specifying up some attributes - HTML or LaTeX specific - of an element (say a paragraph). There are plenty of examples of real life Org files in http://orgmode.org/w/?p=worg.git;a=tree It is instructive to run M-x pp-eval-expression (org-element-parse-buffer) in an Org file to see how the text file is translated in to Lisp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Ideally if a wordprocessing-mode buffer is DE-RICHIFIED one should could end up with an Org-mode buffer. This would be a good goal to have. i.e., For all practical purposes, the new mode should be a "RICHIFIED" Org-mode buffer. The richness would come from attaching display/rendering properties like margin, padding etc to an Org-mode buffer. Before finalizing the internal representation of document please pay close attention to Org's parser infrastructure and representation and see how it could be AUGMENTED to provide richification. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Real-life documents are a COLLECTION of files. So, the default format will be a zip file the usual bells and whistles like manifest etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Table editing: We would need the ability to edit multiple paragraphs within a table cell. This means M-q working as expected, table rows expanding down below if required etc. all with good responsiveness from display. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Markup format: As for markup format, I see that there is not much demand for docbook. (The org-docbook.el exporter which was part of earlier releases has been removed and not even a single soul - this includes the original author - has cried foul.) The primary contenders are LaTeX, HTML (may be Epub) or OpenDocument format. There could be a native format which can be "read" in as a sexp. (Think stringified buffer with text properties) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Scripting? Typically a document has a scripting language - HTML has Javascript, OpenOffice files have the Basic Macros. Emacs lisp can be considered as a "scripting language" for Emacs generated files. I am not sure what this comment amounts to, just recording it ... ---------------------------------------------------------------- In-Document Change tracking There is a lot of demand for in-document markup that highlights changes. This permits colloboration. Even if colloboration between two users editing the SAME document but with different TOOLS (say Emacs, LibreOffice, MS Word) could be an ideal to aspire to, ability to do change tracking between two Emacs users should still be permissible. This IMO is not a desirable but an essential feature of the proposed wordprocessing mode.