[openbeos] Re: File format support in Haiku

Um, have you read up on translators on BeOS?

Speaking of which, someone mentioned on this list a few days ago about Gobe
not understanding new Office doc formats - isn't that also what translators
are for?  Wouldn't Gobe Productive be able to handle that?  Granted, once a
binary compat breakoff occurs, another office solution will be required...

DJ


On 4/3/07, Ar18@xxxxxxxxxxx <Ar18@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


The Problem:
Currently, when you want to open, convert, or create a particular file,
you must find the program that has the ability to open or save that
particular file type.  This is further complicated by the fact that the
particular program, like an image editor (designed to manipulate bitmaps)
often does not have the capability to handle all the various formats that
are available.  The problem thus requires installing and using additional
programs in order to accomplish the simple task of opening, converting, or
saving a particular file type.
This method is neither productive for the professional, nor helpful to the
beginner.
Summary:
In the spirit of "It should just work," we should offload the ability to
handle file formats from the program to the OS itself.  Thus, introduce the
ability for Haiku to natively handle various file formats.
Details:
The actual details of how to implement this are left up to those who know
how to do this best.  Possibility include developing an API that must be
included in any Haiku program that wants the ability; another possibility
includes adding the feature to the file system itself.
Anyways, to gain a basic idea of how this system might work, it may be
best to actually divide file types into categories such as:
video
audio
bitmap
vector
text
word processing
etc...
As you may notice, these categories are closely aligned with the various
types of programs that are on the market (bitmap image editors, vector image
editors, word processors, video players, etc...).  Each of these categories
usually consists of a number of different file formats:
video - (wmv, avi, mov, qt, rt)
audio - (mp3, ogg, wav)
bitmap - (bmp, tiff, gif, png, jpg)
vector - (svg, )

A likely way for the system to work would be for a program to request a
particular category of file type, and the OS handle the conversion process.
For example, an image editor would request information in raw bitmap
format.  The OS would then be able to process the varoius bitmap files that
is supports (bmp, png, gif, etc...) and serve it up to the application.

This is, of couse, a very simplistic approach to the issue.  There are
actually many issues to consider in the process:
....  I won't include all that in this email ...
anyways, would any developers like to discuss this issue via email or chat
via AIM or MSN?

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