May be take a step away from the technical how it is done but rather what the user may expect from the options.
With what you propose I would expect that all formats I can open in the open dialog I would be able to save in the normal save way, opening and saving should be transparent. By saying open and save should be transparent, I mean BrailleBlaster might use only one format internally, however I should not be aware of it as a user as going through the open and save cycle should mean the file does not differ in how it appears. If in the open and save cycle the file gets altered in the conversion, simplified, mangled or anything else which makes it look different, then it has not been transparent.
If one has a separate import option, the user becomes aware that they are loading from a non-native format and that conversion issues might exist and then they don't complain when there are small alterations from the conversion process (the software behaved as they expected).
Also if a user can only import or export a given file type but not both, then import and export options may be worth while as it alerts the user to the fact they may not be able to go through the full open/save cycle with that format.
There are other uses for import, for example bringing in from an external source (eg. eclipse allows one to bring a project from a directory outside the workspace). It is not this type of import we are discussing.
Michael Whapples-----Original Message----- From: John J. Boyer
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 2:10 AM To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [brailleblaster] Dropping the import item on the file menu I think that importing different document types will be largely automatic. The internal format of the BrailleBlaster word processor is DAISY ZedAI. (However, right now it just accepts any xml document, because liblouisutdml can handle most of the common varieties.) If it determines that a document is not ZedAI it will call the ImprotersManager in the importers subpackage. This will determine the file type and use an appropriate converter, probably a DAISY script. Unless someone comes up with a good reason to keep the import item I will drop it. In a similar way, SaveAs will eventually call the ExprotersManager in the exporters subpackage. This will pop up a dialog box similar to that in MSWord, then use a conversion script. John -- John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com Madison, Wisconsin USA Developing software for people with disabilities
