[sugar] Abiword on the OLPC?

[msevior@physics.unimelb.edu.au]

> On 10/20/06, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
>>
>> Our primary focus in the long term is to use a wiki-based collaborative
>> editing system, currently in design.
>
>
> While a realtime system in the form of a native text editor (See:
> SubEthaEdita on OS X, and others) is an ideal way to get kids to
> collaborate, if a wiki-based system has been chosen, I'll look forward to
> helping with that as it becomes available.
>
> That being said, abiword's capabilities as a light-weight Microsoft Word
>> display program (and, for the moment, editor) is very attractive.
>
>
> Indeed. It's interface is quite complex, but it has a great bit of
> usefulness that comes with it.
>
> If you want to scratch the itch it really fast, and can get us an RPM of
>> current abiword "sugarized" by Monday, we'd be more than happy; even
>> happier, if it is the version that was .  Even if you don't, we'll may
>> throw onto the distribution as is temporarily, just so we have something
>> in the image that can display .doc files and serve as a place holder for
>> editing.
>
>
> We will look into getting the "sugarized" abiword code, and see if we can
> make something happen with it. A long shot, but will be fun to try.
>
> Given the weight and complexity of Abirword, a more simplistic and
> Python-written editor still seems to have an attractive option. With the
> notable functionality of it being easily expanded and integrated with
> other
> Sugar Acitivities. More specifically, I envisioned this editor's engine to
> be able to serve as the basis for other Activity's text input (ie. the
> chat
> and IM program's input can be spell-checked or formatted by using the Text
> Editor Activity engine).
>
> If the OLPC is planning a more web-based interface, with collaboration and
> UIs being presented in the form of natively hosted webpages, most of the
> above Editor ideas fall by the wayside.
>

Hi Michael,
          There is a lot of complexity in just getting full-justification
and BiDirectional text working correctly in a WYSIWYG
application. I think that both of these will be needed for OLPC
target markets.  The construction of the AbiWord interface is
very flexible and easy to change. It's just a matter of editting
some configuration files. The current sugarized interface is has
just 6 toolbar buttons.

Cheers

Martin

> --
> Michael Burns
> Oregon State University
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