"Narrative Mode" *Not* OO Request

[Alexandre Enkerli]

[Let's hope I didn't open a can of worms and that this won't degenerate 
in a flame war!]

> OO does lots of very clever things such as columns
Well, I personally see it as a brilliant design philosophy, an 
innovative step in the right direction. True, Frontier/Radio have 
tables and maybe the idea for columns in OO came from there. But 
coupled with XML...Ah, the visions I'm having!!!

> as my 'MUST HAVE' writers document
Well, then again, maybe OO's not as much of a writer's tool...
A dedicated writing tool is in fact quite different from what OO is.

[Nisus]
> is unlikely to incorporate outlining in it's impending cocoa release
Really? Why?
I just sent them a request for just that with NWE and, IMHO, there's a 
spot right for it. If we get away from the interface features necessary 
in a dedicated outliner, Nisus could do it, I'm sure.

> OpenDoc arrangement be made between OO and Nisus
Really? OD made sense in OS8 philosophy, but in Cocoa, I'd much rather 
have basic outlining features (à la Word) in the built-in RTF editor 
than an OD or OLE inspired "let's build an integrated apps out of 
separate apps"... After all, basic outlining (navigation levels) is 
basic enough to be useful *everywhere*, not just in a dedicated WP...

> view a word processed document in any stage of it's production in an 
> outlined mode
Exactly, it's a WP feature. Just like you don't write narrative text in 
Excel just because you can use cells...

> I've gone into a 'plead and/or harangue' mode with both OO and Nisus
We'll see how it works. I, for one, sincerely hope OO does *not* 
implement it. True, I use OO a lot and it goes extremely well with my 
workflow. But linear textual narratives and structured documents are 
very different things. This is one reason WP apps and text editors 
coexist. They serve different needs. Maybe Apple's "Document" 
Word-killing app will merge the two. But IMVHO this is not where OO 
does best.
Again, PLEASE, pretty please, no flame war.