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StarOffice 5.2 Released
CMettler writes: "Just saw on the Sun Web site that StarOffice 5.2 is released. They improved the MS Office Import filters, better Database support and there is a player for playing StarOffice presentations without an installed StarOffice."
When will they remove that terrible MDI interface though? I don't want StarOffice to be my Window Manager. Am I the only one?
... or are all of these "integrated" (and I use that term very loosely) office suites getting way out of hand? There is definitely such a thing as trying to do too much, and MS Office, StarOffice et al. are heading this way at a full gallop rather than concentrating on refining what's already there.
At the rate it's going these suites will contain even more added extras than Emacs, and that program will look positively trim compared to the full suite, coming on 4 DVDs as it will. And the more "value added" features that get incorporated, the worse they get to use - trying to format long documents is always a complete nightmare, and to be honest, I'd rather do it in HTML by hand than in Word or Writer.
Anyway, my point is that if I really must have an office suite, all I want is a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database, tops. Anything else is something I can get separately to suit me. The size of a program really shouldn't be proportional to the year it's released in.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
i ran staroffice for a while and foud it verry nice
but the 2 things that i dindt like was the windowmanager like interface and it was so slow
so i switched back to apllix witch doesnt have all the functionality but is loads faster
(and its not free), so i hope they made it faster
42
It would be an interesting test to take two people who have never used a computer before and see if they can more easily learn MS Office or StarOffice. You could use the results of that test to improve the interface of whatever product performed worse. My point is that these big, bloated office suites are becoming indistiguishable from one another.
Somebody should write an emacs-style editor with advanced Tex-style formatting features and WYSIWYG support. It should be able to import DOC, RTF, WPD and other popular formats. Just my $.02.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/pea nut/pkgs /OFFICE-SUITES/STAR-OFFICE-SUITE/Star-Office-5.2.t ar.bz2
I just love 1337 W4R3Z!
I am thinking you should stop bitching about the software not being "Open Source."
I am grateful that Sun--for whatever reason--has decided to eat a few million dollars and release a damn decent office suite at no charge.
If someone gave me car, I wouldn't rag on them for not including the owner's manual, know what I mean?
It looks like sun.com is having it's little . kicked.
/pub.
The obvious ftp site has nothing in
Anyone want to offer alternatives?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I was terrible.
:)
Don't be so hard on yourself
Finkployd
Have you ever compared the X and Windows versions
of StarOffice? They look pretty much identical.
The buttons, scrollbars, menus, etc. I mean.
Most of the people who will use SO( assuming that
it starts to get some share of the users at all )
will be the kind of people who could care less
what OS/Windowing system they are running. They
are office workers, home users, etc. A user
who learns to operate SO on a Mac will *instantly*
know what to expect when they sit down in front
of a Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris box running
SO because the fullscreen WiW hides the underlying
OS and windowing system completely. An initial
learning curve and then no loss when moving to
another platform. In some sense the WiW is good
for people who would like to get Linux or some
other alternative OS out of the server room and
onto desktops. If the person who uses that desktop
is a heavy office suite user, they probably
wouldn't even know the difference.
That's not to say that I like the WiW. It's
annoying to *nix-ites who are used to multiple
desktops and terms spattered everywhere. I can
just understand why they use WiW. It's there
attempt to appease what they think will be the
largest chunk of users.
IMHO.
Where is Irix or HP-UX?? I am sure some people would like BSD too.
I need Irix more the anything.
atto
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Context is what matters. Sure, I could correctly call an entirely artificial cherry-flavored candy "organic" because it is made out of carbon-based compounds and so is "organic" in one sense of the word, but that is not the sense which people generally interpret the word "organic" in relation to food, so this usage would be somewhat misleading.
Similarly, calling a piece of proprietory software which is downloadable without charge "free" is correct English but again not how people generally interpret "free" in relation to Linux software, so the usage is again somewhat misleading.
"Open Source" is yet another concept altogether (it is a philosophy of software engineering aimed at helping the developer through obtaining bug fixes from users, and really doesn't relate to the freedom of use at all; although in practice Open Source projects tend to be free software, the two terms aren't equivilent)
Okay, I downloaded the full 96MB this morning and have been checking out some of the features during the day. But unfortunately StarOffice is still not good enough for me to convince others in my office from using word.
I work in a large corporation and Word is the standard for sending documents. I work at a Unix workstation and it annoys me having to go to another machine to read these files. So in recent weeks I have been looking at the various options. Yes StarOffice filters have improved from 5.1, but looking at documents I have been sent during the week, it still makes glaring mistakes.
I am running Linux and I have truetype support in my font server (with all the Windows fonts available). But Staroffice still see parts of my documents in a symbol font (correct font appears in word).
Another document conatining a table with lists of bulleted points in the cells. Some of the bulleted point come back with the wrong formatting. 5.2 did handle this document better than 5.1
A third document which has two images at the top and two URLs embedded is cropped short. 5.2 did a worse job than 5.1, adding in a large blank space between the images and the text.
Yes it does perform better but it is still not good enough for me to use it as a replacement. Oh, and like other postings I would prefer seperate exectables instead of everything clumped together. My next target to investigate is WordPerfect Office 2000 (I do not need it for free, but I do need it to work!)
Nobody asked yet, but StarOffice for Mac is expected to be out by the end of the year.
Source code for StarOffice not available yet. I wonder what license Sun will use - they're using quite a few at the moment. Hopefully they'll use the MPL (Mozilla Public License) like for their "Forte for Java Community Edition" IDE.
[RANT]
You can call it no-charge if you want to download it but the deal sucks if you want an English cd-only kit!
Check it out: here.
It's amazing that if you want the English version on a CD (for those of us that don't have the time/bandwidth to download it) that you will have to pay $39.95 for the product. This was supposed to be a "free" "give away" product per Sun.
$39.95 is far too pricey for just media - but wait you get a book!
I'm sorry but I don't need a book and I shouldn't be forced into getting one with a software package that is supposed to be free.
[/RANT]
The Tick - "Spoon!"
"Bah!" - Dogbert
I don't know if this thing works with other versions. I downloaded the spanish version of SO 5.2 for Linux. If you create a database, by example a text database, you'll find a table that has been created previously, named Win32.dll (hummm
I don't know if this is an 'easter egg' or
what
Interesting question!
I, for one, much prefer Applix 5.0 over the other office suites, including MS Office and Corel Office. This is quite remarkable, as I didn't care for Applix 4.x much at all (they have switched to GTK and have made many improvements in the GUI design). I find the Applix word processor in particular much less bloated and irritating than wordperfect and word, with their "I'll fix that typo for you" attitude (yes, I know it can be turned off, but the default is more than a little irritating).
It would be interesting to see what completely new, unindoctrinated (from both the windows and alternative OS perspectives) users would prefer. I suspect we'd find that many people end up using windows because their friends do (and/or the perception that there is more software available, when in truth there is only more commercial software available).
On the other hand, I think, despite the fact that the X Window System has come a long way, we'd hear some strong criticisms about aspects of the GUI as well. KDE is slow and unattractive, although KDE 2.0 looks to have improved on both accounts (due out in September I think). Gnome is excellent, but still not easy enough for newbies to use and customize as it should be. Software installation doesn't automatically set up icons/menu items for either, which for a non-techie is an important feature.
One scathing criticism I have personally is the recent trend among window managers toward defaulting to the ugly "click to focus" paradigm (perhaps this is a distribution thing, not a window manager issue, in which case, my criticism is redirected to them). This hides one of the nicest features X has over windows from new users! I remember when I first used X, with twm, on an old Sun box, thinking to myself "God, this is ugly, but I can get so much work done so much faster with this automatic focus and single click cut-and-paste!").
When I gave my mother and sister Linux boxes, the first thing I did was change the default back to the sloppy focus it should have been at to begin with. Contrary to popular myth, it didn't confuse them at all (and I forgot to tell them about it when I did it). On the contrary, it helped in no small part to make them enthusiastic converts, and neither would willingly go back to using windows. But both have made comments similar to mine above -- they'd like it to be easier to add apps, and see those apps visible in their GUI.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
> If your answer is "because it runs on Linux",
/. for sure.
> does that mean that Slashdot will print a story
> when MY Linux software emerges from beta?
Does your software compete head-to-head with widely used software from MicroSoft? If so, I would expect it to be covered on
MS Office is often cited as the *only* reason that many users have not given up their Windows.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
1) It cannot see my mounted fat32 partition (which all other Linux apps could ). How is it? I don't think they have bypassed Linux file-system. My guess is that they have a 'portability layer' over it[since SO runs on Win32 too], and this layer does not work with Linux vfat file system.
2) It works only for the user which owns the SO files. It is not a matter of protection, since I tried 'chmod -R 777'. Is this intentional, as a way to enforce 'personal use only' agreement?
Ciao
----
FB
Oh, great. An email server. Yeah, most people are keeping their Windows machines around because there's really no alternative to MS Exchange.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I have recently tried weening my boss off of powerpoint. Instead, I got him to allow me to use HTML instead.
With HTML, CSS, DHTML and some Javascripting, I was able to do everything (and more!) that PowerPoint could do.
It took a little longer, but it was well worth it.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
However, I guess, being so used to seeing GPL'd or any other kind of "open sourced" software, that I'm used to seeing some kind of information about how bugs have been fixed or small errors have been found and dealt with. And, even though I don't always read this, it is good to know that people are still fixing problems (because you know there will never be an end to them).
So ... when I went to the StarOffice site, I expected to see some reference to the fixes they had made. To my surprise, I couldn't find anything after a short time of searching. No ChangeLog or REVISION_LOG or anything like that?
Like I said, I have been using SO for a while now (probably since January) and I've noticed some things that should be fixed. They're small things such as the fact that the font size always changes back to 12pt. whenever you try to go to the end of the file. Other stupid little things I've noticed, too, and before I download 5.2, it would just be nice to know if these had been fixed.
It's easy to do, although I could count the situations where I'd need it on one hand. The use of multiple columns for text is a holdover from print media, and is usually not necessary for purely electronic documents.
Ever hear of the TABLE tag? That's what most people use for multi-column text. Sure, it doesn't balance the text automatically across columns, but it works and it gives you better control over what goes where.
Also, for what it's worth, column settings are being built into the CSS spec. Of course, it will take awhile before all browsers support it.
-JD
Unix and Linux StarOffice 5.x installs fine as a multiuser application. You just need to read the instructions.
/net argument.
In order to install it multiuser, you have to be logged in as root and start the installer from the command line with the
As others pointed out on the above thread, that's the public beta and not the final 5.2.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
$9.99 CD-ROM of SO 5.2 is not available in english.
People who speak english must pay $39.99 for a CD, which includes a printed manual.
See what all those RTFM comments got you?!
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I have but one question re: 5.2: /usr/local would fail completely, even copying the few files needed for a user (w/ "net" install) would fail if that user's ~ was NFS mounted. I got it to work by symlinking ~/Office51 to a dir in /tmp, but honestly, I shouldn't have had to, don't you think?
Can it install correctly in NFS mounted directories? I recently installed 5.1 on my computer, but not before fighting with it for several days. Attempting to install into a subdir of
So can anyone confirm if these issues have been resolved?
MoNsTeR
this is suprising to me. i've never seen sun.com go down before under pressure.
ouch! the ne^Hotwork is the computer.
must be a java servlet or something, i'm sure hotspot will circumvent the bottleneck any hour now...
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Well, sorry to "disappoint" you - but Mac version is expected by the end of the year.
Hetz (Heunique)
IBM's pretty much told everyone to clear off of OS/2 before the end of 2001. After that, even bugfixes will be something you'll need to contract IBM consultants for. It's highly unlikely you'll see any more major upgrades to Smartsuite or the Notes client for OS/2. Why should Sun do more than IBM?
At least you won't have to reformat the OS/2 machines to turn them into X terminals, right? Grab a big Linux or Solaris box and run StarOffice 5.2 remotely if you insist on being the last passenger on the ship.
OS/2 was nice. It was a better Windows than Windows for a while, and is still a better DOS than DOS--just ask your voice mail system vendor. But it's over. Time to pack up and move along. IBM is.
I'm more surprised IBM's pulled the plug on OfficeVision. Who will fill the demand for 5250 green-screen-terminal office suites? The humanity!
I refer you to the original question that started this thread:
What would the "unindoctrinated" prefer?
In this case defaulting to the familiar serves no useful purpose, except to hide one of the nicest features of X as an alternative to windows. You "and several others" hardly constitute a majority. As for the other 80%, we don't really know what they prefer, as they haven't been given a choice they are aware of, and most will likely never stumble across the possibility of changing the default behavior, or even understand what "focus" means.
Until recently, focus follows mouse was the default for nearly every window manager. It was a very positive way of differentiating between Unix/X and everyone else, an added feature of the GUI that everyone was immediately aware of and, contrary to your assertion, one that most people preferred. I find it disturbing that major distributions have started slighting one of the nicer features of the Linux/UNIX GUI in order to mimic an operating system most of us recognize as inferior. Part of switching to a new OS entails being willing to learn something new. The notion that people should switch transparently and be unaware of the change is IMHO flawed. What shall we get rid of next to mimic windows, logins and multi-user capabilities a la BeOS?[1]
Besides, if you don't like focus-follows-mouse, you can always change it.
[1] BeOS actually hides this, they've gotten rid of the console login, but multi-user capabilities exist for such things as network logins.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You're right, it isn't as usable, but you hardly ever need to do it. I work at a large architecture & engineering firm, and of the huge amounts of specs and other documents we put out every day, we never use multi-column text. There's no point in using multi-col for electronic documents, it's bad design.
-JD
Awhile back, a friend at work showed me a trick I use here at work all the time. I print my code in landscape on 11x17 paper, which keeps lines from wrapping for the most part, and leaves me lots of scribbling room. When you're done you can fold it in half, so it looks like a small book.
:-)
I guess that's kind of the opposite philosophy though
-JD