odf-mode.el -- Open Document Format for GNUemacs

["T. V. Raman" <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with you that speech-enabling odf-mode inside Emacs will
be far far faster than coaxing screenreaders to work well with
vanila Open Office Apps.

That said, I would not advocate implementing odf-mode purely for
emacspeak users --- or even specifically just for blind users;
the number of blind users using Emacs is vanishingly small
compared to the size of the overall Emacs user base, and what's
more, the proportion of Emacs savvy developpers who cannot see is
even smaller.

All that said, I believe the ability to easily manipulate odf
files from Emacs if viewed as a mainstream tool to allow Emacs
users to interoperate with colleagues using Open Office and its
derivatives  is both inevitable, and also likely to be successful
when it is created.

You could do this either by leveraging something like nxml-mode
along with Open Office's export to XML capability; though I
suspect this might be suboptimal  given that ODF probably has way
too much detail in the markup.

Another avenue to pursue might be to allow export/import to
things that are convenient to author in Emacs e.g.
(a sample list follows)

A) Outline Mode and its derivatives e.g. org-mode
B) NXML mode fronting a simpler DTD than ODF 
C) Export/Import from/to a subset of LaTeX 
D) Export/Import from /to basic XHTML (and I mean XHTML, not html
tag soup which would be unmaintainable at both the exporting and
importing ends)


--Raman 

>>>>> "jcgs" == John Sturdy <john.sturdy@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
    jcgs> I've started to write a major mode for handling Open
    jcgs> Document Format files, particularly in the hope that it
    jcgs> will be useful with Emacspeak.  Before I get deeply
    jcgs> into it, I'd like to hear how much interest there is
    jcgs> likely to be in this.
    jcgs> 
    jcgs> You can get a very rudimentary version from
    jcgs> http://www.cb1.com/~john/computing/emacs/lisp/editing/odf-mode.el
    jcgs> 
    jcgs> Adding ODF to a speaking system may be a faster route
    jcgs> to getting accessibility started than adding speech to
    jcgs> an ODF system!
    jcgs> 
    jcgs> __John
    jcgs> 
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-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

      
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