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Re: reading on small devices, was discouraged by .docx

2011-11-28 11:47:22
Hi,

Obviously, the key evolution is greater competition and market of display devices, i.e. lack of a standard perhaps and patent restrictions which promotes the propensity to just use HTML and HTML5 with OS file association shell launching. This is especially the case since the 2006/2007 EOLAS patents for embedded object rendering changed the industry landscape in this area. Frivolous or not, the patents were reaffirmed (Microsoft lost) and EOLAS has been very aggressive about it with all major end-user client device vendors.

Of course, once upon a time, the devices were limited in their dimensions, standards on rendering and most people had "PCs" where it wasn't an issue for publishers of information. For text/ansi, the old punch card 80 or 132 columns carried on to all devices. Scan Line pitches for FAX machines, Displays were well defined and I don't think it has changed even today, but then again I am not an expert with it comes to needs of the Asian market. What dimensions do they need for norminal viewing of iconic images good for the human eye?

Personally, it is still too early to get all nuts about how documents should be published with the moving target of small device and its changing display rendering technologies. I also think it is unreasonle for people who are now with smaller devices on a greater percentage of their time to mandate changes to a world that is still using larger or normal standard display devices. If these people have a problem reading on their iPAD or mobile device, they should had realize it was not going to be always ergonomically pleasant to them.

Sure, the purest can say - "Everyone should use a standard, multiversal (not universal) META format and everyone should be using document creation and viewing tools." But thats always the case when someone gets comfortable within his own universe. He wants it to be everyone elses universe as well, or more appropriately, he believes it is already is!

Just the other day, an old customer came out of the wood works and now wanted his old printed manuals to be viewable via his iPAD, so he now demanded a PDF we redo the manuals for PDF output. When told we long migrated and converted the old Word Docs to HTML and CHM files, he said "My iPAD doesn't support CHM." Go Figure.

In my view, we will never eliminate people who will always or mostly use text based communications. Not everyone is going to use GUI document creations all the time. For me, it is highly unproductive when over 99% of my communications is in text. I don't need to add a PICTURE and when I do, it is done on the basis that everyone else will be able read it - if they wanted to But I am not going to waste time trying to limit or restrict dimensions because there might be people who has using smaller devices. Thats their problem.

My view.


----- Original Message ----- From: "Yaakov Stein" <yaakov_s(_at_)rad(_dot_)com> To: "Christian Huitema" <huitema(_at_)microsoft(_dot_)com>; "Richard Shockey" <richard(_at_)shockey(_dot_)us>; "'John Levine'" <johnl(_at_)iecc(_dot_)com>; <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Cc: <tytso(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 5:02 AM
Subject: RE: reading on small devices, was discouraged by .docx


The time interval between ASCII text threads seems to be decreasing over time.

Perhaps when half of the traffic on the discussion list is related to this question
something will finally be done.

Y(J)S

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org [mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Christian Huitema
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 08:00
To: Richard Shockey; 'John Levine'; ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Cc: tytso(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu
Subject: RE: reading on small devices, was discouraged by .docx

Do we have an official web page listing the timings of the "ASCII text RFC" discussions? It ought to tell us something about the state of the IETF...

-- Christian Huitema




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