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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?
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!
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.
The typical requirements of a typical home/office user.
Anything beyond this is frivolous.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
While still unproven, Microsoft's recently announced Staroffice integration will increase the visibility of business process automation (BPA) and raise market expectations for a small to medium sized shop. Although some G2000 organizations value BPA mechanisms for enterprise application integration (EAI; e.g., Vitria BusinessWare, Tibco/InConcert), these tools have not achieved widespread utilization. The notion of creating procedural flow logic in a graphical flowchart will extend from the EAI world to become a common development paradigm in many application server-centric environments during 2H01. Bottom Line: Users undertaking EAI and inter-enterprise integration initiatives should utilize BPA mechanisms to improve the speed of implementation/maintainability of these critical and complex solutions, targeting widespread use as a programming paradigm in 2002+.
Including a robust business process automation (BPA) engine in Staroffice Server differentiates a lackluster (and late) entrant into a crowded market. Staroffice promises the rapid, seamless integration of business processes across the enterprise and out to business partners. Though 2001/02, inter-enterprise integration (IEI) vendors (e.g., webMethods, Netfish) and BPA specialist Vitria will be pressured by Staroffice. A weak adapter SDK (software development kit) and refusal to directly support MQSeries will prevent Staroffice's general adoption for EAI in G2000 companies through 2004. Staroffice Orchestration will enjoy some tactical success in MSFT-centric shops, linking disjointed NT applications into a single process. Bottom Line: Organizations should continue selecting proven products (e.g., eGate, Mercator, MQSI) as EAI backbone infrastructure until Staroffice Server matures (2001/02) as an IEI adapter.
Because users have little leverage in last-minute software procurement, asset managers advancing procurement processes can reduce Suites and enterprise software costs 3%-5% each month the negotiation process is extended forward. Best-practice tactics include having standardized acquisition processes, paperwork, addenda, etc. and enforcing competitive suppliers. Suite users save 5%/month the first two months and up to 35% by concluding negotiations six months prior to license expiration or new product installation. This practice yields an interesting theorem of cost-control economics: it is not what users do to reduce cost, so much as when effective action is implemented, that pays the greatest dividend. Bottom Line: Software asset managers must develop programs that streamline and advance software purchasing cycles by three months or more, exploiting salespeople's desire to close business early.
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!)
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
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