OpenOffice as XML editor equivalent or better than MS Office (not)

Hello,

this is a post originally made to the users list, but it
went under in the 
noise and likely is more appropiate here:

please consider the following situation: 

We have an XML schema defined and files according to that
schema. In MS Office 
2003 it's possible to associate a document with this schema
of our own making 
and open/edit these.

It's possible to add tags and content and have Word verify
and show the 
document structure and validity on the fly. 

When the document is saved, the resulting XML contains the
XML tags from our 
schema, just put into a namespace. In fact, the Word XML
file refers to our 
schema. The both schemas of Word and our schema can be seen
as overlayed. 
It's very easy to extract the XML data document from that,
and Office seems 
to allow to make "data only" saves of the XML.

Even better: In the XML SDK for Office there is a tool that
accepts a Word 
file as input, and creates a transformation from our XML
data files into Word 
XML documents well formatted and attaching corporate
identity and stuff, 
which would allow to automate things with xsltproc.

The question I have now. Can the same be done with ODF? My
research in the XML 
project documentation showed that it would not. And also
that Writer would 
not even allow such tags in a different namespace to persist
a open/save 
cycle. Is that a shortcoming of ODF or an implementation
detail? 

And I think I saw that OOo would not have a validating XML
parser, which would 
be a pre-requisite.

As we are planning to use this work flow, I want an idea, if
there any chance 
or plan that oowriter could be used in the same way.

Best regards,
Kay Hayen

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On 08/09/2007, Kay Hayen <kayhayengmx.de> wrote:

> We have an XML schema defined and files according to
that schema. In MS Office
> 2003 it's possible to associate a document with this
schema of our own making
> and open/edit these.
>
> It's possible to add tags and content and have Word
verify and show the
> document structure and validity on the fly.
>
> When the document is saved, the resulting XML contains
the XML tags from our
> schema, just put into a namespace.
Perhaps your schema should be namespaced to start with, to
differentiate
it from the M$ ns.


> The question I have now. Can the same be done with
ODF?

Possibly, I'd ask why should we want it?
There are lots of good XML editors out there, IMHO that
isn't the job
of ODF?

Puzzled.


-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk


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It's completely true that Microsoft Office has ways of
associating XML
content with XML Schemas. Unfortunately XML Schemas are not
the best
language for describing document formats. One of the typical
MS
marketing things is that this will not require any
programming just
have your schema and your markup and you have to do nothing,
which is
laughable (hey you should at least do some work in design
mode). But I
suppose people find that out sooner or later.

Open Office has no good equivalent. It supports a subset of
the Xforms
functionality, but not enough to be useful for significantly
complex
XML formats. Furthermore the Xforms implementation has a
performance
problem when getting over a few hundren bindings. I don't
know that
this project is getting the support it needs to fix these
problems. If
it did then it would be simple enough to produce an XML
Schema to
XForms transform that provided the inherent functionality of
Infopath
type stuff in MS (I believe), I have already produced a
generic any
(non-mixed content) to OO Xforms implementation, that also
tried to
provide for some of the missing functionality in the OO
implementation
(such as lack of XForms repeat.)

Cheers,
Bryan Rasmussen



On 9/8/07, Kay Hayen <kayhayengmx.de> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> this is a post originally made to the users list, but
it went under in the
> noise and likely is more appropiate here:
>
> please consider the following situation:
>
> We have an XML schema defined and files according to
that schema. In MS Office
> 2003 it's possible to associate a document with this
schema of our own making
> and open/edit these.
>
> It's possible to add tags and content and have Word
verify and show the
> document structure and validity on the fly.
>
> When the document is saved, the resulting XML contains
the XML tags from our
> schema, just put into a namespace. In fact, the Word
XML file refers to our
> schema. The both schemas of Word and our schema can be
seen as overlayed.
> It's very easy to extract the XML data document from
that, and Office seems
> to allow to make "data only" saves of the
XML.
>
> Even better: In the XML SDK for Office there is a tool
that accepts a Word
> file as input, and creates a transformation from our
XML data files into Word
> XML documents well formatted and attaching corporate
identity and stuff,
> which would allow to automate things with xsltproc.
>
> The question I have now. Can the same be done with ODF?
My research in the XML
> project documentation showed that it would not. And
also that Writer would
> not even allow such tags in a different namespace to
persist a open/save
> cycle. Is that a shortcoming of ODF or an
implementation detail?
>
> And I think I saw that OOo would not have a validating
XML parser, which would
> be a pre-requisite.
>
> As we are planning to use this work flow, I want an
idea, if there any chance
> or plan that oowriter could be used in the same way.
>
> Best regards,
> Kay Hayen
>
>
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>
>

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Hello,


Am Samstag 08 September 2007 10:47:39 schrieb Dave Pawson:
> On 08/09/2007, Kay Hayen <kayhayengmx.de> wrote:
> > We have an XML schema defined and files according
to that schema. In MS
> > Office 2003 it's possible to associate a document
with this schema of our
> > own making and open/edit these.
> >
> > It's possible to add tags and content and have
Word verify and show the
> > document structure and validity on the fly.
> >
> > When the document is saved, the resulting XML
contains the XML tags from
> > our schema, just put into a namespace.
>
> Perhaps your schema should be namespaced to start with,
to differentiate
> it from the M$ ns.

That's a good idea probably.

> > The question I have now. Can the same be done with
ODF?
>
> Possibly, I'd ask why should we want it?
> There are lots of good XML editors out there, IMHO that
isn't the job
> of ODF?
>
> Puzzled.

That's obvious to us at least. We want a two way process,
where we have "Test 
Script" writer documents and XML test scripts, where
you can create one from 
another. Think of the writer document as a rich annotated
form, where things 
can be bold, footnoted, etc. free form WYSIWYG (ODF format
is supposed to 
translate that, right?).

You may declare this useless. But it's an entirely different
thing from a XML 
editor. It's for us the perfect mix of XML editor with
presentation editor.

It would allow our developers to work closely with the
testers, while sharing 
one common preferred source of modification, the
"hybrid" document.

And I was wondering, is ODF only an afterthought to OOo, or
does it reflect 
internal structure as well? Would an application that tags
things as this or 
that style, really have a hard time to expose this XML alike
structure to the 
user?

Best regards,
Kay Hayen

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Hello Bryan,

thanks for the reply.

Am Samstag 08 September 2007 11:47:27 schrieb bryan
rasmussen:

> It's completely true that Microsoft Office has ways of
associating XML
> content with XML Schemas. Unfortunately XML Schemas are
not the best
> language for describing document formats. 

Are you hinting for Relax NG here? I am willing to bite into
XML schema for 
the benefit of integration with a rich word processor.
Obviously my initial 
hope and even - possibly absurd to you - expectation was
that OOo would allow 
that already.

> One of the typical MS 
> marketing things is that this will not require any
programming just
> have your schema and your markup and you have to do
nothing, which is
> laughable (hey you should at least do some work in
design mode). But I
> suppose people find that out sooner or later.

Well, what's true for us, is that this will help us to make
users edit 
documents and be sure, the data can be easily extracted. I
mean, that's what 
you told people why ODF is so good, because it has a schema
and people can 
process it.

We don't mind programming, not at all. But we do have work
flows that involve 
people, that cannot possibly work efficient when staring at
a bunch of tags 
only, with no WYSIWYG. These people are highly appreciated
in fact. They want 
to be able to look at things, and paste them into bigger
documents. Like 
taking test scripts of their choice and copying them to
documents that 
contain a test plan.

And we developers would like the result of that to be
something we can 
automatically process.

So, I guess, the real questions are:

a) As XML already allows to mix several schemas in one
document, what's going 
to happen if I open it in OOo (or KOffice, I have yet to ask
them, what they 
have), modify and save it. Will it be one schema only?  

b) If not, could that be considered a bug by the projects.

c) Provided OOo/KOffice can transport foreign data, how hard
would it be to 
expose this on the GUI in one form or another?

d) And given a mixed schema template document, I guess, it
wouldn't be too 
hard, to create something to make it from data.

Best regards,
Kay Hayen

PS: I am willing to invest development time of my own into
this.

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On 08/09/2007, Kay Hayen <kayhayengmx.de> wrote:

> > > The question I have now. Can the same be done
with ODF?
> >
> > Possibly, I'd ask why should we want it?
> > There are lots of good XML editors out there, IMHO
that isn't the job
> > of ODF?
> >
> > Puzzled.
>
> That's obvious to us at least. We want a two way
process, where we have "Test
> Script" writer documents and XML test scripts,
where you can create one from
> another. Think of the writer document as a rich
annotated form, where things
> can be bold, footnoted, etc. free form WYSIWYG (ODF
format is supposed to
> translate that, right?).
>
> You may declare this useless. But it's an entirely
different thing from a XML
> editor. It's for us the perfect mix of XML editor with
presentation editor.

They do exist, though the model you're presenting seems like
a good
candidate for tangle and weave, a technique that came from
TeX worlds.
Mixing two vocabularies (two ns's) then sorting them via a
process to
produce two different documents. In your case both the test
documentation
and the tests.
  Stops the tests drifting from the associated documents!


regards


-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk


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Hello Dave,

thank you for your reply:

> > You may declare this useless. But it's an entirely
different thing from a
> > XML editor. It's for us the perfect mix of XML
editor with presentation
> > editor.
>
> They do exist, though the model you're presenting seems
like a good
> candidate for tangle and weave, a technique that came
from TeX worlds.
> Mixing two vocabularies (two ns's) then sorting them
via a process to
> produce two different documents. In your case both the
test documentation
> and the tests.
>   Stops the tests drifting from the associated
documents!

I can't get much out of Google, about "Tange and
Weave", so forgive me if I 
seem to not understand. But since both formats, ODF and our
data would be 
XML, there is no real magic about it, multiple namespaces
are supported. One 
application only neads to process tags from the namespace it
cares about to 
do useful things.

What we would like to have, is an _editor_ for this kind of
thing, one that 
lets us edit the ODF and the data according to our schema at
the very same 
time, having a WYSIWYG layout combined with structured data.


I take, it's a full path change of the application, down
from the reader of 
ODF to the internal representation, to the GUI, and back to
the ODF writer, 
so it's not easy.

Best regards,
Kay Hayen

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Kay Hayen wrote:

> That's obvious to us at least. We want a two way
process, where we have "Test 
> Script" writer documents and XML test scripts,
where you can create one from 
> another. Think of the writer document as a rich
annotated form, where things 
> can be bold, footnoted, etc. free form WYSIWYG (ODF
format is supposed to 
> translate that, right?).

I'm still having a hard time understanding the use case.
What kind of 
content are the users dealing with?

Some of this "custom schema" sort of stuff might
be covered by the new 
metadqta support in ODF 1.2. There you can attach RDF
statements to 
pretty much any content node, including a new generic
field.

But a) as I said, I'm not sure of your use case, so it might
not be 
relevant, and b) ODF 1.2 isn't yet implemented.

Bruce

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On 9/9/07, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>
> I'm still having a hard time understanding the use
case. What kind of
> content are the users dealing with?
>

I am also interested in custom schema support, my use case
looks like this:

- a custom schema that validates the document structure in
terms of
rules defined in the schema ... for instance in terms of
what styles
are allowed, and maybe how sections are nested in an OOo
document.

-I know this validation can be done "post"... as
in validate the ODT
against a schema... but what I am really interested is
something that
does it on the fly when I am within the editor...., i.e. the
behaviour
of the editor changes based on the rules defined in the
schema...

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Hello Bruce,

thanks for the reply:

> > That's obvious to us at least. We want a two way
process, where we have
> > "Test Script" writer documents and XML
test scripts, where you can create
> > one from another. Think of the writer document as
a rich annotated form,
> > where things can be bold, footnoted, etc. free
form WYSIWYG (ODF format
> > is supposed to translate that, right?).
>
> I'm still having a hard time understanding the use
case. What kind of
> content are the users dealing with?

In our test scripts, we have a test name, a revision number,
a date, an 
author, the basic things, mostly stuff that should get a
layout automatically 
via fields.

Further we have references to requirements in other
documents which the test 
covers. For these we must later build table mapping tests to
requirements. 

Then we have test steps, some of which have one or more
standard form of 
execution that could be pointed to in footnotes or text.

And we have expected results for each test step. Ideally
such a result will 
refer clearly to an observation made and named in one of the
test steps, or 
to simply the output as must be expected from requirements.
Like starting the 
system, leads to the system actually starting.

We have systems that automate test executions, and systems
that automate test 
creation. We have users that need to do special stuff, that
only free text 
can explain. We will always want to include nice tables with
expected 
results, corporate identity, and stuff. And we have
important use cases, 
where for fabric acceptance testing, massive amounts of
tests must be copied 
together into one document, and presented as such to
customers, together with 
documents that detail statistics, etc.

For the automation to work nicely with the users, a common,
identical file 
format must be created. We thought this should be XML.
Imagine our surprise 
to discover that at least MS Word which outputs
terrible-but-still XML will 
play absolutely nice with our schema. Imagine my complete
surprise that OOs 
won't (yet?).

> Some of this "custom schema" sort of stuff
might be covered by the new
> metadqta support in ODF 1.2. There you can attach RDF
statements to
> pretty much any content node, including a new generic
field.

This meta data stuff sounds like inventing the ability to
attach things. But I 
don't really want any of our tools to actually deal with ODF
itself. Our 
schema is to be understood or generated, and that should be
it. A step that 
would translate would introduce loss. Any tool of ours to
work on the test 
scripts should "only" be able to ignore the ODF
tags and keep them intact, et 
voila, everything would be fine.

> But a) as I said, I'm not sure of your use case, so it
might not be
> relevant, and b) ODF 1.2 isn't yet implemented.

See it this way: Our approach doesn't mind of it's WordML
(Office 2003 XML) or 
OOXML or ODF 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 or anything else that is mixed
in. It should be 
considered a good thing. 

Another topic is of course, if it makes sense for OOo to
read, present and 
edit beyond the ODF schema. I think it does.

Yours,
Kay

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