Hi David.P, thank you for your comment.
If we are talking about XML in general, as you say, it should be human readable and editable. If you put tabs in the right places and end tags in natural positions, you will have the ideal XML that looks like a textbook, as you have shown.
On the other hand, as you know, Acrobat is the original format for XFDF, and if you look at the history of PDF on Wikipedia, it says that XFDF was supported in PDF 1.5 released in 2003, replacing the XML support in PDF 1.4 released in 2001.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_PDF
I forget what coding style Acrobat output XFDF in then, but I suspect it is probably not much different than it is now. Even if the style adopted by Acrobat is unacceptable to the general public, if it works reliably, and if software companies are already working to ensure compatibility with it, then I think it is important to adhere to the style adopted by Acrobat in order to ensure broad compatibility. Software compatibility can cause problems even when there is only a one-bit difference, so I understand the temptation to think as conservatively as possible. I imagine that Tracker also uses the same style to ensure maximum compatibility with the XFDF format output by Acrobat.
At the end of the day, the theme of this issue is not about the PDF-XChange Editor, but rather about why the original Acrobat writes end tags in an uncomfortable style. you say it's an old bug, but I don't think it's a bug as long as both Acrobat and PDF-XChange Editor are working properly. It is simply that they are not beautiful by the standards of ordinary people living in the modern world.
The performance of the hardware on which PDF viewers operate ranges from top to bottom, and even electronic dictionaries on the bottom of the scale can run. I think every developer has a desire to use limited hardware resources to the limit and release software to the world. Although it has nothing to do with XFDF files, I have seen XML files exchanged over the network that were created with a policy of removing all tabs and line feeds, and using as little network bandwidth as possible. It is not human readable. I personally think that such a thing should be left to the compression function of the network equipment. However, if the goal is to make network performance a top priority, then the evaluation is excellent because it is perfectly suited for that purpose.
Going back to the XFDF, it would have been normal for Adobe at that time, more than 20 years ago, to write in the style that we are talking about here. It would certainly be ideal if everything could be rewritten in a beautiful coding style. However, it remains to be seen whether PDF applications that have been released by various companies, including Tracker, for more than 20 years will be able to handle the beautiful style of XFDF without any problems, at least to the same extent as current XFDF. I guess we will have to weigh the risks involved with that versus the benefits of meeting user expectations for increased readability.
I still use Acrobat 8.0 from 2006 and Acrobat 10.0 from 2010 in combination with the latest version of PDF-XChange Editor. Although Tracker has announced that older versions are buggy and should not be used, I use them in the right places based on a proper understanding of their advantages and disadvantages. Of course, I have never claimed any claims arising from the older versions. However, I am grateful to PDF-XChange Editor for its compatibility with such older versions. I believe this is due to Tracker's development attitude of adhering strictly to PDF standards, which they always talk about.
As long-time PDF-XChange Editor forum reader David P. knows well, releasing a new feature or fixing a bug often leads to a bug in something else. At least at this point, aside from user readability, if it does not affect the behavior of the application, and if users are not reporting any bugs other than readability, then I can understand the choice to keep the current coding style, or even the old Acrobat style.
Thank you for taking the time to read this message.
Best regards,
rakunavi
