Slashdot Mirror

but so far i haven't heard a single legitimate complaint leveled against OO.org.

How about lack of anti-aliasing, making some presentations look a lot worse? (this has now been implemented but is not ready for 3.0 - is targeted for 3.11 http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=28526)

It seems the Windows version of OOo can't open files that are on a Windows file server that happens to have a "_" character in it's name. In our case, there's only one such unlucky server in the entire site, but that's the one that our people most commonly use. MS Office users can click on those files with no issue, but nothing happens with OOo. That is, OOo just closes with no warnings, no error messages. The poor program just dies silently.

In http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=53184, status says it's "fixed", but the activity log shows it's never been merged into the release version. This is the 3rd release since the bug was declared "fixed", but it's still not released. Scroll to the bottom of that bug report to see the story.

Related discussion here... http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=52413

Maybe I should just fix it muself...

It seems the Windows version of OOo can't open files that are on a Windows file server that happens to have a "_" character in it's name. In our case, there's only one such unlucky server in the entire site, but that's the one that our people most commonly use. MS Office users can click on those files with no issue, but nothing happens with OOo. That is, OOo just closes with no warnings, no error messages. The poor program just dies silently.

In http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=53184, status says it's "fixed", but the activity log shows it's never been merged into the release version. This is the 3rd release since the bug was declared "fixed", but it's still not released. Scroll to the bottom of that bug report to see the story.

Related discussion here... http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=52413

Maybe I should just fix it muself...

It's in the porting section.
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua-PPC.html

Sorry Charlie, but the Navigator don't quite cut the mustard. Please read through the (lengthy!) comments posted to Issue 3959, which incidentally has apparently been on the books since before OOo reached version 1.0. I think you'll find that, as useful as the Navigator can be, it still falls short of what people need.

(On the plus side, it seems the devs have finally agreed and understood what folks were clamoring for, and are in the process of massively reworking document views to allow for this. However, the heavens only know how long this might take to make it into a release -- various other potentially show-stopping issues are still on the books years later, despite what must be much simpler coding to fix them. Extrapolating, this seems to speak of either not enough resources, or an overly complicated API. The API docs are indeed plug ugly to wade through, whatever the case.)

Cheers,

Sorry Charlie, but the Navigator don't quite cut the mustard. Please read through the (lengthy!) comments posted to Issue 3959, which incidentally has apparently been on the books since before OOo reached version 1.0. I think you'll find that, as useful as the Navigator can be, it still falls short of what people need.

(On the plus side, it seems the devs have finally agreed and understood what folks were clamoring for, and are in the process of massively reworking document views to allow for this. However, the heavens only know how long this might take to make it into a release -- various other potentially show-stopping issues are still on the books years later, despite what must be much simpler coding to fix them. Extrapolating, this seems to speak of either not enough resources, or an overly complicated API. The API docs are indeed plug ugly to wade through, whatever the case.)

Cheers,

Sorry Charlie, but the Navigator don't quite cut the mustard. Please read through the (lengthy!) comments posted to Issue 3959, which incidentally has apparently been on the books since before OOo reached version 1.0. I think you'll find that, as useful as the Navigator can be, it still falls short of what people need.

(On the plus side, it seems the devs have finally agreed and understood what folks were clamoring for, and are in the process of massively reworking document views to allow for this. However, the heavens only know how long this might take to make it into a release -- various other potentially show-stopping issues are still on the books years later, despite what must be much simpler coding to fix them. Extrapolating, this seems to speak of either not enough resources, or an overly complicated API. The API docs are indeed plug ugly to wade through, whatever the case.)

Cheers,

Sorry Charlie, but the Navigator don't quite cut the mustard. Please read through the (lengthy!) comments posted to Issue 3959, which incidentally has apparently been on the books since before OOo reached version 1.0. I think you'll find that, as useful as the Navigator can be, it still falls short of what people need.

(On the plus side, it seems the devs have finally agreed and understood what folks were clamoring for, and are in the process of massively reworking document views to allow for this. However, the heavens only know how long this might take to make it into a release -- various other potentially show-stopping issues are still on the books years later, despite what must be much simpler coding to fix them. Extrapolating, this seems to speak of either not enough resources, or an overly complicated API. The API docs are indeed plug ugly to wade through, whatever the case.)

Cheers,

As a Mac user, I'm excited to finally be dumping NeoOffice. I hate the system-deep installer. With OO.o v3, it's a proper single-directory bundle. Installation is just drag-and-drop. And no more random boat - the OO.o icon is slick and looks great in the dock.

My biggest complaint with OO.o (and I use it exclusively now, and have moved over my parents from MS Office with no issues) is a frustrating bug with OpenType fonts. They always render fine, but exporting to PDF (something I do often) converts them to some other random font.

Looks like it will be fixed, but not until 3.2 — which feels like forever, since this has been an issue for a very long time. It's especially frustrating since some of the best free fonts out there are OTF fonts.

If you to help increase the visibility of this bug, please vote for Bug #43029.

Also I would really like to see Base fleshed out. Or at least better documented. I have tired to play with it but it just makes me nuts.

Check the OO.o documentation pages. There's a full-on tutorial on Base being prepared. IIRC, the advanced setction is not quiteready, but the intermediate part is. Not sure if it's available as yet. You might also like to check out the OO.o wiki, which is where most of the documentation is developed.

OpenOffice 3.0 was released on BitTorrent a few days ago, download link: OOo_3.0.0_Win32Intel_install_en-US.exe.torrent

The RSS torrent feed (via OpenOffice P2P Downloads) has different languages, OS versions to choose from.

Feature list is available here

Release notes are here

Feature list is available here

Release notes are here

Miscellaneous Features

• Autokerning Enabled by Default

I would love to see a feature list.

Took all of three seconds to go to the website and get it.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html

So let's make that happen?

OpenOffice3 is really cool. I use RC3.

wait so what you want is concurrent versioning to be dealt with by some sort of system?

if you don't want user to have to learn about the subversion controls (because it can be a real GIT to use sometimes), then many programs implement similar functionality using plugins.
e.g
Web2.0 OpenOffice.org collaboration & document management extension
OOoSVN

I would setup an SVN/cvs/git for everything then find extension tools to deal with each use case as the need for transparent svn access becomes apparent

CE at least has Mobile Office 2007, something that traditionally Windows users might find comforting.

OpenOffice 3, which runs on Linux, is currently at beta release. It can read Office 2007 .docx files.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html

http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html#Microsoft_Office_2007_Import_Filters

Enjoy. It should be available in final release in a month or so.

You most certainly don't need to burden your nice new netbook down by getting it with Windows or any expensive MS software at all, really. Buying MS software for a netbook would double or triple its price. It makes absolutely no sense to do that when you can have the entire package of functionality pre-installed for you at no cost just by opting for the Linux option.

CE at least has Mobile Office 2007, something that traditionally Windows users might find comforting.

OpenOffice 3, which runs on Linux, is currently at beta release. It can read Office 2007 .docx files.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html

http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html#Microsoft_Office_2007_Import_Filters

Enjoy. It should be available in final release in a month or so.

You most certainly don't need to burden your nice new netbook down by getting it with Windows or any expensive MS software at all, really. Buying MS software for a netbook would double or triple its price. It makes absolutely no sense to do that when you can have the entire package of functionality pre-installed for you at no cost just by opting for the Linux option.

Ok, I dabble with some writing, so your question prompted me to do a quick survey.. maybe there is some interesting stuff out there now?...

Here are a couple of options I found:

http://www.celtx.com/features.html
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/scr2
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/node/909
http://www.write-brain.com/power_structure_main.htm (notes that it works under Wine)
http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter4.html (under Wine)
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2008/03/an-equivalent-o.html (How to get "outline mode" in Open Office)

The other route, that will help if you don't want to keep a second machine around to clutter all that desk real estate, is to install VirtualBox under Ubuntu (easy under 8.04) and then put Windows inside that with FD or MM etc on it.

Ok, I dabble with some writing, so your question prompted me to do a quick survey.. maybe there is some interesting stuff out there now?...

Here are a couple of options I found:

http://www.celtx.com/features.html
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/scr2
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/node/909
http://www.write-brain.com/power_structure_main.htm (notes that it works under Wine)
http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter4.html (under Wine)
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2008/03/an-equivalent-o.html (How to get "outline mode" in Open Office)

The other route, that will help if you don't want to keep a second machine around to clutter all that desk real estate, is to install VirtualBox under Ubuntu (easy under 8.04) and then put Windows inside that with FD or MM etc on it.

Ren'Py is pretty basic (the "Py" is for python). I'd rate it as slightly better than clicking through an Impress presentation. But the documentation seems English enough to me, and there's even a simple and rather silly demo game for you to get a feel of the game engine features (or lack thereof). Official packages for Debian and Ubuntu are available for point-and-click installation via synaptic.

If there was a free alternative with sufficient compatibility which I don't have to pay for, I would still not subscribe to such a service.

The problem arises when I start being forced to do it. For example, when the machines start using trusted computing to expel a free OS and a free office suite.

The first result for 'getfirefox' is http://www.getfirefox.net/ which seems to be correct to me.
The first result for 'Linux' is http://www.linux.org/ not some Microsoft website.
The first result for 'Open Office' is http://www.openoffice.org/ and not some Microsoft website.

You lie?

I'd suggest that Linux has more software than Apple on the whole.

As far as writing tools I use:

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/scr2

and

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/writertools

I love both.

I'd suggest that Linux has more software than Apple on the whole.

As far as writing tools I use:

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/scr2

and

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/writertools

I love both.

This is after expressly asking users to submit bugs when they encounter them. I've given up, and I'm sure I'm not alone on this.

I've only ever submitted a few bug reports. My first was actually a report and fix for a pretty minor bug in phpBB. The second was simply a bug report for Miranda IM. The third was a bug report for OpenOffice.org...

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=66871

Almost exactly two years ago...

It was assigned and marked as P3 priority ("P3 marks non-trivial problems which probably affect a noticeable number of users. Issues with this priority must be fixed before the target release."). The awesome part is that they never assigned a target release for this bugfix, so the whole P3 classification is utterly meaningless as a motivator.

Honestly, I probably could have fixed this particular bug myself by now.

Anyway, I haven't filed a bug report since. I just don't care. I appreciate and respect that most developers of OSS are doing this in their spare time, but... I just don't care.

I probably wouldn't be as upset with OOo if they at least gave my bug a P4 priority. Leaving it at P3 and not assigning a target release just seems incredibly lazy.

I can't think of a benefit that couldn't be replicated through another method with both less hassle for the user AND less work for the developers.

Slashdot recently ran a story about a study of dial-up Internet users, which showed that 49 percent of dial-up Internet users in the United States couldn't afford broadband. The OpenOffice.org project works around this by listing vendors that will distribute copies on CDs for a fee. Once KOffice for Windows is out of alpha and beta, who will be the first to do the same for KOffice?

http://openoffice.org/ has already been mentioned heaps of times. I won't bother saying anything more about it.

This is old news, Microsoft has been wanting to rent software for ages.

Two types of customer. The home user is used to renting software such as Virus Checkers and the like. Yes, it isn't really renting as such, but whatever. Microsoft really just needs to convince them that it's a good deal, and they are done. However, considering that many people don't have access to broadband (yes, not everyone lives in a city, and some people are still too poor to pay even if they can access it), I wonder how they will distribute the updates. Actually, do you get to keep the software when you stop paying? Previously it stopped working (you could only view the documents). Is that such a great thing for home customers?

Business customers would probably love this though. At least some of them. Pay less, always get the latest version. Except they got screwed over with something like this before already, they didn't actually get a new version for ages (I can't remember the details).

Oh yeah, one final thought, what about setting up your own server to pretend to be the MS server and say, "yes, you're a legit copy" to any software that queries it? And/or introduce a crack into the system so that it doesn't shut down?

Invalid comparison. OOo is also encumbered with 20+ years of bad code. See for yourself. Then go get KOffice.

A set of Debian installation DVD's and an installation CD of OpenOffice.org, so he can see the worlds computing future! I think he has seen the writing on the wall, and is jumping ship.

Ironicly, he has done more to promote Linux, Open Source, and "Free" Software than anyone.

I don't see much change in the way Mickey$oft will do business in the future. They have never learned from their mistakes!

It's even more obnoxious because the stupid Open Office installer comes with a JRE by default, too.

If you don't want to download the installer which is bundled with a JRE, you have to hunt through links on the OO.o site. The download link silently includes a JRE. Instead you have to click on "Get more platforms and languages" if you don't want the JRE.

But wait! Note the anchor on that more platforms link? By default, it jumps you to your current language. So now you need to scroll up and then uncheck the checkbox that tells it to include the JRE.

But wait! What checkbox? Oh, you need to enable JavaScript to see the checkbox. So enable JavaScript and then clear the checkbox. Now you can finally download OpenOffice.org without a JRE.

Why would you want to download OO.o without a JRE? Well, as they say in bold text: If you already have Java installed there is no need to download the OpenOffice.org installer with Java.

I agree completely. If you already have Java installed, there's no need to download a second copy. But then why is it so stupidly hard to do so?! And if they're going to use JavaScript to auto-detect your OS, why not add in a quick check to see if you already have a JRE through the Java plugin?

Of course, skipping the JRE download only saves 13MB, so for people on broadband, it's probably not worth the time jumping through the hoops just to skip the JRE. But if you do that, you need to make sure that you choose a "Custom" install so you can tell it not to install the JRE. Which you'll want to make sure you do, because at least with the copy of OOo I just downloaded, the bundled JRE is a couple of patches out of date anyway. (6u4 versus 6u6.)

I suppose just blindly downloading the OOo copy from the Java installer is the "preferred" way of not getting a second JRE? Or does that include it anyway? Maybe I'll have to reinstall Java to check...

It's even more obnoxious because the stupid Open Office installer comes with a JRE by default, too.

If you don't want to download the installer which is bundled with a JRE, you have to hunt through links on the OO.o site. The download link silently includes a JRE. Instead you have to click on "Get more platforms and languages" if you don't want the JRE.

But wait! Note the anchor on that more platforms link? By default, it jumps you to your current language. So now you need to scroll up and then uncheck the checkbox that tells it to include the JRE.

But wait! What checkbox? Oh, you need to enable JavaScript to see the checkbox. So enable JavaScript and then clear the checkbox. Now you can finally download OpenOffice.org without a JRE.

Why would you want to download OO.o without a JRE? Well, as they say in bold text: If you already have Java installed there is no need to download the OpenOffice.org installer with Java.

I agree completely. If you already have Java installed, there's no need to download a second copy. But then why is it so stupidly hard to do so?! And if they're going to use JavaScript to auto-detect your OS, why not add in a quick check to see if you already have a JRE through the Java plugin?

Of course, skipping the JRE download only saves 13MB, so for people on broadband, it's probably not worth the time jumping through the hoops just to skip the JRE. But if you do that, you need to make sure that you choose a "Custom" install so you can tell it not to install the JRE. Which you'll want to make sure you do, because at least with the copy of OOo I just downloaded, the bundled JRE is a couple of patches out of date anyway. (6u4 versus 6u6.)

I suppose just blindly downloading the OOo copy from the Java installer is the "preferred" way of not getting a second JRE? Or does that include it anyway? Maybe I'll have to reinstall Java to check...

It's even more obnoxious because the stupid Open Office installer comes with a JRE by default, too.

If you don't want to download the installer which is bundled with a JRE, you have to hunt through links on the OO.o site. The download link silently includes a JRE. Instead you have to click on "Get more platforms and languages" if you don't want the JRE.

But wait! Note the anchor on that more platforms link? By default, it jumps you to your current language. So now you need to scroll up and then uncheck the checkbox that tells it to include the JRE.

But wait! What checkbox? Oh, you need to enable JavaScript to see the checkbox. So enable JavaScript and then clear the checkbox. Now you can finally download OpenOffice.org without a JRE.

Why would you want to download OO.o without a JRE? Well, as they say in bold text: If you already have Java installed there is no need to download the OpenOffice.org installer with Java.

I agree completely. If you already have Java installed, there's no need to download a second copy. But then why is it so stupidly hard to do so?! And if they're going to use JavaScript to auto-detect your OS, why not add in a quick check to see if you already have a JRE through the Java plugin?

Of course, skipping the JRE download only saves 13MB, so for people on broadband, it's probably not worth the time jumping through the hoops just to skip the JRE. But if you do that, you need to make sure that you choose a "Custom" install so you can tell it not to install the JRE. Which you'll want to make sure you do, because at least with the copy of OOo I just downloaded, the bundled JRE is a couple of patches out of date anyway. (6u4 versus 6u6.)

I suppose just blindly downloading the OOo copy from the Java installer is the "preferred" way of not getting a second JRE? Or does that include it anyway? Maybe I'll have to reinstall Java to check...

It does:
http://zh.openoffice.org/new/index.html

Here's the list of localized version:
http://projects.openoffice.org/native-lang.html

It does:
http://zh.openoffice.org/new/index.html

Here's the list of localized version:
http://projects.openoffice.org/native-lang.html

http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html

This is version 3 and one of main new features is "a new zoom control on the status bar"?? The other big "improvement" seems to be shiney new icons. That's pathetic.

No mention of performance improvements at all.

Have always hated open office for its slow speed (even after disabling java) but I recently tried OpenOffice 3.0 Beta and its extremely fast - no difference from MSO 2003. Plus a lot of new features incl office 2007 document support some new eye candy. Do try it once before dismissing OOo. You'll be surprised. - http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/ooo2gd

Fortunately, if the website is large enough and has enough visitors then garbage can be easily rooted out.

Look at craigslist for example, FREE everything except job listings in a couple of cities. Yet, the majority of advertisements posted in the more serious sections (Free Stuff, Automobiles Ect., NOT man looking for woman) are not noise or junk.

All of this is done due to the self moderation buttons at the top of every ad, and the tens of millions of users who hit these buttons. Slashdot itself functions in much the same way, only you must be registered to moderate.

It is a myth that just because something is free, it's not as good as it's costly competitor.

Office 2008 for Mac exists now, and yes it doesn't have VBA. However, VBA will return to Office in the next release.

See http://www.macworld.com/article/133393/2008/05/vba.html?t=201 for details.

It's an interesting strategic move to bring VBA back despite it being a complete re-write from what I've heard. They must reeeeeeeally need it to stay competitive with OO and similar apps.

OO.o 3 will include support for VBA macros. That should help.

Oh, and MS Office 2008 for Mac will not.

In addition to Calc, there is also Base, the alternative to MS Access. Check it out here: http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html It's gotta be way easier to work in OpenOffice than a whole database system (making up accounts, tables, reports, and all).

Were I extremely pedantic I could claim OOo3 no longer supports ISO standard ODF ... but that would be silly.

Wow, you actually found documentation? I tried writing an OO.o macro once. I have almost gotten back my sanity now. =)

Start at the API project homepage, and dig down from there. But it's still rather hideously organized, all apparently put together not to be useful for coders, but rather from a software architect perspective, with modules, services, and interfaces all separately documented so that it's nearly impossible to figure out what you can do once you have an object of type X -- basic questions are left unanswered, such as what are its properties or methods. I find it a rather glaring shortcoming that after so many years, the best tool for figuring out the OOo API is still a third-party macro (the X-Ray tool by Bernard Marcelly).

But anyway, there's one part where OO.o differs from Word: Documents are not coupled to the application. You don't have to use OO.o to process OpenDocument.

< ... snip ... />

I've written a word count tool for my own use for LaTeX text myself in 15 minutes... and there's a bunch of libraries for parsing OO.o. How hard can it be? =)

I may look into that, thanks. I'm a sole-prop and thus have precious little free time, but I am *very* interested in getting myself completely free of the MS tax. The lack of any sane counting functionality in OOo has been one major stumbling block, so it'd be quite nice indeed to remove that particular obstacle. :)

Cheers,

Most people in the Americas, Europe, Australia, Middle East and Africa have no use for Asian characters, so this bug doesn't affect us.

Fair enough. But if OOo really wants to eat MSO's lunch, it needs to cover at least the same bases. And don't forget, the number of people worldwide using these Asian languages comes to somewhere around 20% of the global population. That's a rather large chunk of the potential userbase to ignore. OOo already seems to have some sort of language detection built in; extending the counting functionality to break down Western vs Asian counts similarly to MS Word would theoretically be relatively trivial -- count up the double-byte chars in the document and exclude spaces. Issue 17964 itself has been on the books for almost five years now, and the CJK-specific comments have been part of the public record for over three years. No dev has even deigned to comment on when this relatively simple enhancement might be added, aside from marking the issue with the extremely vague "later" category. Plus, IBM's Lotus Symphony, which is apparently based to a significant extent on OOo code, appropriately breaks down counts to show Western vs Asian stats (and accurately does not include whitespace in the Asian character count). This makes me think the problem is not in the OOo codebase itself, so much as in some other aspect of how the OOo project is put together -- perhaps the poorly organized API docs, internal dev organization, prioritization, or politics, or some other factors.

I can definitely understand the decision to ignore certain areas of functionality when a project is young and still getting its foundation put in place. But OOo itself has been around for almost eight years, and the preceding StarOffice app was begun back in 1994, with the still-older ancestor StarWriter stretching all the way back to well before even the IBM PC. I'd say it's bloody well time OOo moved beyond core functionality. If the core is such a mess that this is still impossible so many years later, that speaks very poorly of the project...

Cheers,

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean texts are pretty much never counted by word -- they are counted by character (or syllable in the case of Korean), not including whitespace. This is standard in both academic and professional settings. MS Word appropriately separates Asian and Western counts, and the Asian count does not include whitespace. OOo's character count does include whitespace, rendering it stupidly error-prone even for Asian-only text samples.

If you're at all interested in how the two counts work out, even just in terms of idle curiosity, please look at the .odt file included in the bug report (links: Issue 17964 bug report, Asian Count Sample.odt)

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean texts are pretty much never counted by word -- they are counted by character (or syllable in the case of Korean), not including whitespace. This is standard in both academic and professional settings. MS Word appropriately separates Asian and Western counts, and the Asian count does not include whitespace. OOo's character count does include whitespace, rendering it stupidly error-prone even for Asian-only text samples.

If you're at all interested in how the two counts work out, even just in terms of idle curiosity, please look at the .odt file included in the bug report (links: Issue 17964 bug report, Asian Count Sample.odt)