[folklore]

dpaanlka said:

In the beginning of your response, you say you fail to see what's more simple and organized about packages, then near the end you admit you do see the benefits "for some documents" - I assume you recognized that it is far simpler for media-rich documents to be delivered as packages rather than folders full of many files about halfway through your post.

You are correct that for documents that are not media-rich, packages does add a (teeny tiny) degree of complexity, but is it really worth reverting to the old-fashioned way of sending lots of files, just for the sake of saving yourself a mouse click? Is that extra "layer of complexity" really that frustrating and/or confusing?

Basically, does that small negative really outweigh the great positive?

Sure, I see the benefits of using packages for some filetypes - mostly applications and things like iPhoto libraries. But not for documents. And certainly not for the types of documents I create and work with most (academic papers, nearly 100% text).

But even where media rich documents are concerned, we've been able to embed graphics and whatnot into Word documents for a long time - and they are saved as just one document. That is, if I put a slew of graphics and even other files like Excel worksheets, and Visio diagrams into a Word document, I certainly don't have to send a folder full of other files along with my Word doc. I just end up with one huge Word document, assuming that I actually embed those files instead of merely link to them.

Which is why Pages' document packages are a pain in the ass. It'd be different if Word did the same thing but clunkier. But it just ain't so. Instead, this is one instance where Microsoft's solution is simpler for the user than Apple's.

[dpaanlka]

iWork files take it a step further, and package QuickTime movies, audio, and even quartz composer animations. These are especially useful in Keynote, but applies exactly the same to Pages and Numbers.

So yeah...

[kepardue]

And again, exactly the same thing happens in both ODF files and OOXML files. Binary files such as movies, audio, and images, are stored right there, preserved in the file. ODF takes the step away from the user of having to mess with compression or from programs in having to determine whether this is a directory of unrelated files or a package.

[folklore]

kepardue said:

And again, exactly the same thing happens in both ODF files and OOXML files. Binary files such as movies, audio, and images, are stored right there, preserved in the file. ODF takes the step away from the user of having to mess with compression or from programs in having to determine whether this is a directory of unrelated files or a package.

It sure would be nice if there were a truly interchangeable format. You know. An open standard that every productivity suite could use and no single company could control. Wonder why we don't have that? :)

Any chance that both iWork and MS Office will include full support for ODF any time soon?

[kepardue]

ODF is designed to be exactly that: a universal, vendor-neutral exhange format like HTML or PNG. The problem is that some office suites do things that need to be saved that the file format cannot support such as, I believe, Excel's conditional formatting which cannot be expressed in ODF or iWork's multiple-tables-on-a-single-spreadsheet that probably can't yet be expressed in either ODF or OOXML. The ideal situation is for the program manufacturers to work within the standards body creating the ODF standard to introduce their specific needs into the specification, but ODF was designed to be extensible from the get go to accomodate the reality of companies not wanting to work together. I'm not sure how well it would hold up, but it is designed to degrade gracefully.

The good news is that Microsoft has recently elected to join the OpenDocument standards body. Native support for MS Office (Windows) will come next year with Service Pack 2, not sure about Mac Office. But in the Windows version you'll even be able to make ODF your default format in the Save As dialog. iWork, of course, is anybody's guess about ODF adoption, but I for one would be very surprised to not see it as one of the Export As options in iWork '09 (or whatever). ODF has gained a lot of traction in Europe.

iWork is very young and it takes a long time to get flawless rendering for different formats. Apple has correctly chosen to offer exporters instead of native Save/Save As support because they would be in the hot seat if they started screwing around with the layout of important documents in a multi-platform operation. But I'm sure it will come. Maybe not with iWork '09, but it will come. It has to if Apple truly wants to keep the 'Work' in iWork. Remember that the ODF specification is 800 pages vs. OOXML's 6000... to the point where it's easier for even MICROSOFT to implement ODF than OOXML. ;-)

Before I close my evangelism tag, PLEASE to anyone who cares about this, leave feedback at Apple's feedback page at this location.

[nbidgood]

dpaanlka said:

I assume you recognized that it is far simpler for media-rich documents to be delivered as packages rather than folders full of many files about halfway through your post.

a package just a special kind of folder (full of many files), so how is it far simpler than a folder full of many files?

Quote

You are correct that for documents that are not media-rich, packages does add a (teeny tiny) degree of complexity, but is it really worth reverting to the old-fashioned way of sending lots of files, just for the sake of saving yourself a mouse click? Is that extra "layer of complexity" really that frustrating and/or confusing?

it's not confusing, but it is frustrating. as folklore said, it's not "the simple "it just works" Apple way"

Quote

Basically, does that small negative really outweigh the great positive?

are you saying the package format is the great positive, or iWork as a whole? (serious question, not being a smart-ass)

[dpaanlka]

Quote

a package just a special kind of folder (full of many files), so how is it far simpler than a folder full of many files?

Surely you can see the usability difference between a package and a folder of files.

Quote

it's not confusing, but it is frustrating. as folklore said, it's not "the simple "it just works" Apple way"

I disagree, I think it's exactly that. It just works for me, every time. Although, to be fair, I use iWork exclusively. Office 2008 runs unacceptably slow on my Mac Pro... which is scary.

Quote

are you saying the package format is the great positive, or iWork as a whole? (serious question, not being a smart-ass)

>

Both.

[folklore]

dpaanlka said:

>
> a package just a special kind of folder (full of many files), so how is it far simpler than a folder full of many files?
>

Surely you can see the usability difference between a package and a folder of files.

You bet I can, and packages are less usable. Users can easily see that a folder of files is a folder of files. Users can therefore take the appropriate measures (zipping, etc) when sending those files. Users cannot easily see that a package is a folder of files. Users therefore don't know that packages are really just a folder of related files. When they try certain things, such as uploading to a website or emailing using anything except Mail.app, it just doesn't work. There's usually no explanation of it, not even a cryptic error message. It just doesn't work.

Just to be clear: My problem isn't with the concept of packages. If the implementation of packages in Pages were closer to how kerpardue described ODF and OOXML, I'd have absolutely no complaint. The problem is the inconsistent user experience provided by packages in OS X.

Some applications, like Finder, see a Pages document (or any other package) as one file. Others apps, like web browsers, see packages as folders. Because of that, it's very difficult for ordinary non-technical users to work with documents-as-packages. On our course management website, for example, Safari simply greys out Pages documents with no explanation. How is a user supposed to know that's because their single document that looks like a single file in Finder is really a folder of many files? How is that intuitive? How is that the "it just works" philosophy of most of Apple's software? Firefox handles Pages documents even worse, allowing selection but hanging indefinitely on upload.

And at any rate, your comparison is dead wrong. What we should be discussing is the usability difference between a single file and a package of files. Again, Microsoft Word documents - even those containing other files - really are just one file. It doesn't matter what application is looking at it, Word docs are just a file. I don't have to send a folder of files with my MS Word document that contains graphics and whatnot. It is therefore easier to send a Word document to a colleague than a Pages document.

Quote

> it's not confusing, but it is frustrating. as folklore said, it's not "the simple "it just works" Apple way"
>

I disagree, I think it's exactly that. It just works for me, every time. Although, to be fair, I use iWork exclusively. Office 2008 runs unacceptably slow on my Mac Pro... which is scary.

Packages are both confusing and frustrating, especially to switchers. There's simply nothing in their Windows experience that prepares them for documents-as-packages. Again, it's the inconsistency in how packages are handled that causes the confusion and frustration. Technically, one could argue that's not Pages' fault. However, the developers knew (or should have bloody well known) how packages are handled elsewhere in the OS. They could have devised another way to use packages that provided a consistent experience. And they didn't.

Does that make Pages a bad piece of software? Certainly not. But it does make it needlessly harder to use for some things such as collaborative work.

[JCasio2]

As a teacher I along with my colleagues create and share many presentations. I use Keynote. My colleagues use Powerpoint on PCs.
I've never had more than minor problems exporting my Keynote files as Powerpoint Office 04 files. These could then be transferred to and used on a PC.
Now - if I export to Office 2008 version of Powerpoint, the Powerpoint app on OSX quits when attempting to load the file. I hope our school district doesn't upgrade to Office 2007 anytime soon as I'm afraid I'll lose the ability to export and share my presentations with others.

[nrets]

I tried doing the same, and Powerpoint 2008 just hangs and quits when opening the exported powerpoint file from keynote. I got it to work by opening the exported file with Powerpoint 2004, saving it from PPT 2004 and then opening this version of the file with Powerpoint 2008. A bit of a pain, but at least you can still share your presentations with your less-advanced Windows toting colleagues.