on Words

[C. Boemann]

Hi fellow Words developers

The sprint is nearing and I think it's time to start thinking about what we 
should do. The following is up for discussion at the sprint but I'd like to 
get a head start:

Mission statement
------------------------
Inspired by Krita we should come up with a mission statement. Here is a 
suggestion:

"Calligra Words is an all purpose word processor useful for writing such 
diverse documents as for example: A simple letter, a university dissertation, 
a rule book, school reports and much more.

We will not provide very specialized features if they clutter the user 
interface, but on the other hand should try to be flexible enough that people 
can create their own plugins.

As examples we find changetracking a core feature, but a function that 
generates custom documents based on external input is not"

Road map
------------
With such a broad mission statement we need to limit ourselves initially. Not 
to the point of excluding contributions, but in defining what we, the core 
developers, will focus on.

I suggest that we will target the university student. Meaning we should be 
able to view MS Word documents and be able to create from scratch reports and 
dissertations.

The viewer part is not strictly needed but if a user is not able to view 
documents the user will choose another tool for viewing, and thus choosing 
Words for creating documents becomes very unlikely.

For the creation part we need to support creation and editing of tables, 
change tracking, foot notes, endnotes, bibliography, basic page setup, images, 
and style management.

We are already pretty far along this road (it's been an unspoken roadmap for 
quite a while) I suggest that we just keep on pushing for these features to 
mature and stabalize.

In 8 months we ought to be really strong with these kinds of tasks.

User interface
------------------
At the usability sprint in Berlin two weeks after the first Calligra sprint 
(also in Berlin) Celeste lead a small design process for the overall user 
interface for Words. As with all usability designs it has to undergo iterative 
finetuning and experimentation, but I quite like it already.

I've implemented the idea but we need to carry on from there and continue 
improving the user interface.

http://wstaw.org/m/2011/10/04/wordsui.png

kotext, textlayout, textshape, words division of responsibilities
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We should come up with a plan for how we want the code structured in the long 
run. We've come a long way already, but we should discuss what further things 
we can do.

KoTextEditor hacking
---------------------------
I'd like a hacking session where we start extending the functionality of 
KoTextEditor.

Changetracking
--------------------
I'd like a brainstorm on how we proceed on change tracking. The current state 
leaves much to be desired.