Quote:
Originally Posted by Farling
I don't think LWD will ever implement printing because it will be too easy to violate the copyright of a purchased product.
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Disagree, the same was thought on the advent of computers in general...
While not a Patent/ Copyright Lawyer myself (left brained Engineer here) I do have friend that is, but this is certainly not the forum nor thread for defining the differences and legalities.. suffice to say there are several grey areas (that Rob & LWD discovered when trying to trudge through the obstacles they present) but they are no more risky or "easy" than when cd burners or the advent of Xerox machines came along....
Some grey areas of IP are: How the was the work as originally distributed. Meaning if there was never a published and distributed work in electronic form, then it could fall under fair use /and or derivative works depending.. Also since this forum (and many others) are not solely US in its user base, international law will also vary from place to place...
I'm certain these are the discussions that LWD and their "partners" have discussed in detail. but to apply never.. donno about that.. There wouldn't be the aforementioned DVD burner, Xerox machine nore DRPG sites that also make use of the approach.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farling
They provide a method to import information,
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eh, no... unless you mean "they" as in
the community provided a means to do it, when it was infact LWD job to do so. And those dedicated creative souls that got tired of waiting created a work around for import / export and some means of printing stepped in to make it possible.... OR the "great choice" of a delimited Stripped out text version via cut and paste....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farling
........ but your "already formatted information" sounds like it isn't in a format that they support. It would be difficult to support many different formats when trying to pick from within each particular format which elements should be placed into which category type and which snippets within that type.
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Again no....... to clarify..... While there are as many formatted things as there are stars in the sky , I'm not suggesting LWD have realmworks pre-anticipate all of them.
What I am suggesting are things that are entirely doable.
- The ability to Export a user friendly template into a word or excel file (since most have that or the open GL version), Allow the user to populate it and re-import without having to understand how to write code... (not an issue for me, but we are talking UI stuff here)
- Import formats for font styles, paragraph lay out, etc.. these already exist in Word and can be feed to other programs... I do it all the time for Acad, and various programs my wife uses for Sewing and Embroidery.
- Import / Create custom buttons, markers, etc for maps, tool bar etc.. This is simple 1980's stuff here.
I could go on and on but hopefully this clarifies what I am implying when I say "already formatted information"... RW doesn't have to do everything or plan for every contingency.. As you add a font to word, it is in Excel too, right? If you had a folder just like Herolab that contained
User docs for your "custom things" you could create mapmarkers, repetitive snipet layouts, etc all you wanted.
Am I over simplifying, sure, but its not impossible, nore does LWD have to have a crystal ball and think of ALL possible contingencies before they release it into the wild. IT could grow using the shoulders of other work that already exists in most people's machines, or at the vary least in a "community file structure".... just a thought...
It aggravates me to no end that RW insists on blowing out the font styles and paragraph indents, etc that I have already done elsewhere for a delimited text file to have to do it all over again.
Anyway since this is not pertinent to the thread, I will conclude with.... RW lack of 64 bit support will hamper the ability long term to do lots of things all other core programs already do utilizing memory above 2g.... including mapping, video display, and even multitasking with other programs when the REAL goal is to enhance our game for our players....
DLG
And for any that love Grey of lawereessee lol.. here is Mike's Blog
https://www.henrypatentfirm.com/blog...mark-copyright