>On 5/31/02 @ 11:54 PM richard_at_cyberphotographer.com wrote:
>
>>Who knows, maybe Open Doc could be come a reality. OpenDoc
>>in concept and principle, was really cool...
>
>I thought the really cool thing about OpenDoc was not so much the
>portability of documents which can be achieved by not using closed
>format documents (no matter how many other people do), but rather
>that since the document only booted required application code
>fragments ('parts') you didn't have to open 20MB of application code
>in order to change a piece of text from italic to bold. This meant
>that you didn't need acres of RAM, an unnecessarily cluttered
>interface, or a Unix style virtual memory page system to get on with
>real work in real time. OpenDoc could have enabled us to use very
>humble hardware to edit any document and as such it would have had
>wonderful implications for the handheld market.
You are sort of correct.
In basic form, OpenDoc was to be a container from which small apps (I
forget their specific name) would run.
The container would basically look like a blank page on your desktop.
Using the quality arena for this example, let's say you wanted to do a
Pareto chart. Instead of having PP or HG for your presentation, you
could just use a Pareto app. The Pareto app would indeed be small and
use very little RAM.
What was really cool, is that I could use a Pareto app from company A,
while you use one from company B. Both would be able to access the data.
Interface wise, it would depend on the app. One company could have
complex interfaces while another would have a simple on for the same
purpose.
Having used FullWrite Professional, which is menu driven and has
virtually no icons, comparing it to Word Perfect or Word, I could really
see how this would be nice for the end useer.
Another aspect of OpenDoc is that the apps would cost very little
compared to the full featured software packages that we have today.
You could easily have one Spell Checker for everything this way.
Yep, there was a lot of potential with OpenDoc. IBM and some others were
involved as well. Too bad it didn't go forward. IMHO, it sure beat OLE
by a mile.
Sushi
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