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Interview with Dominic Lachowicz of Abiword
Ur@eus writes: "We have just put up an interview at Linuxpower.org with Dominic Lachowicz of Abiword.
I think it is an interesting read where Dom talks about what features are currently implemented, and what are underway. Abiword belongs to a very small elite of Free Software GUI applications which runs on almost all major desktop platforms without any emulation."
We expect to have Bonobo support in AbiWord in the near future
From what I understand, the Bonobo monkeys are filthy hairy monkeys that masturbate in public and have intercourse with whatever they find.. How does this relate to linux?
If you think this is flame-bait, you have'nt had your coffee yet.
I don't think that *anyone* is going to get total Word compatibility as long as Microsoft has control over Word's file format. IMHO, what is really needed in the long run is not compatibility with Word, but a way to make the ubiquity of MS Office inevitable.
If you are so tired "recommending" then why don't you actually _implement_ it yourself?! If you don't have the knowledge then pay someone to do it.
/mill
For this reason, I think it's at least worthwhile to have an Open Source project that tracks the MS Word format. Any OSS word processor that is going to succeed must support the most commonly used features of Word documents. This is not an option, it's mandatory!
If I wanted to switch to AbiWord while the rest of my organization used MS Word, I would be decreasing the productivity of the entire group, not just my own. This is the #1 reason for Microsoft's dominance in the office space: every Mac and every Windows machine in a given workgroup can all speak the same language. Any OSS alternative that's to succeed has to play ball.
That having been said, I don't necessarily think the creators of an OSS word processor should be the same ones worrying about what MS is doing with its document file format. Maybe a separate group, dedicated to an OSS translator of Word-format documents, would be sufficient? Let the word processor people worry about making a good, feature-rich word processor and text editor. Let someone else worry about the file formats. (Apple actually took this approach a few years back, upon realizing it was at a disadvantage to Windows in terms of file-format compatibility, when it took to bundling MacLink Plus with all new Macintosh computers...)
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Breakfast served all day!
The last time I have tried Abiword the RTF filter was working kind of funky. Other that it was a pretty good word processor for small uncomplicated documents. I should give it another try.
Okay, I'm looking at the latest version of Abiword.
It now has rudimentary header and footer support coming in. But it can't do tables, footnotes, endnotes, indexes, tables of contents, custom named styles, label printing, envelopes, or mail merging.
Couldn't the DOS versions of Word and WordPerfect do this ten years ago? Heck, didn't most word processors (with the exception of graphical ones on the Amiga) do nearly all of those things in 1987?
What exactly is AbiWord usable for right now? One-off letters to grandma? Have any the people here "impressed" with AbiWord ever written an academic paper? I remember needing to have footnotes and include tables (at least as attachments) in papers I wrote 13 years ago in my first year of college.
Even someone whose business is mowing lawns expects their word processor to be able to do a mail merge. Sure, I guess you can take AbiWord's XML document files, insert some custom tags with some other editor, and write a Perl program to perform a mail merge for you, but if you consider that a "solution", you probably don't believe in WYSIWYG word processors in the first place. Ditto making all tables externally in a spreadsheet--with mediocre formatting control--and embedding them.
Hey, it's Free Software. I know. It's noble, pure, whatever. But after two years, it's closer in functionality to Wordpad than to a 1991-vintage word processor. It's not really fair to compare it to the now-free OpenOffice, since that had a decade as a commercial product to get where it is. But KWord is much farther along--and a younger project.
The feature matrix on Abisource's site is revealing. You'll notice that with the exception of tables, the inventory of features implemented or planned only includes what's essentially already there. There's no evidence of a serious project roadmap, or any awareness of what features a modern word processor has. I know AbiWord isn't intended to do everything the so-called "bloated" word processors do. But being able to write a paper for an introductory Biology class or send a personalized form letter to twenty people aren't exactly "frills" these days.
I can only speculate that the core AbiWord developers don't use word processors in their daily lives and never have. Maybe they wrote their college papers with LaTeX in emacs.
Hi,
AbiWord is great. I use often, as I frequently need documents that can go between Solaris, Linux and Windows. (Yes, OO can do that too, and I use it sometimes as well, but Abi's much nicer for smaller docs.)
One thing I don't understand is how little recognition Siag Office gets. I know it doesn't use GTK or Qt, but it is widely ported throughout various Unix systems, and it does a lot of the things that people complain are lacking from Abi.
Personally, I use Abi as a cross-platform WordPad that has most of the nice features I miss(spelling, better formatting, XP, etc.)
Abi's a fun tool and an excellent project to follow, but we shouldn't be so blinded by the StarOffice's and KOffice/Gnome Offices of the world that we miss the "other" free suites. Siag has been around for quite a while and offers some pretty decent features.
Check it out:
http://siag.nu/
(Yeah, Pathetic Word isn't much of a name, but it is better than the name suggests..)
If word of mouth is spread via macintouch.com, maccnn.com, versiontracker.com, macfixit.com, the apple users groups, and other popular mac sites that there's a free word processor working natively in OS X, I can see a lot of people trying it out. Remember, right now there are hardly ANY native OS X apps, so people will be turning to the net for stuff to try.
It could gain momentum if it was available early with an easy install app.
Or was that just a generic slam against mac users?
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
As I understand it (from reading the list archives), it's being worked on as we speak, but... man, would it be nice to see it come out, especially since I understand Office for OS X isn't ready and won't be till the summer. (That's right, right?)
If we can get people using it on OS X (instead of Word, say), I'm sure even more developers could be attracted, which would help the project as a whole.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Once Bonobo support comes along, can't they farm out table support to Gnumeric? Or include basic support natively and have some context-menu option to do more sophisticated stuff with Gnumeric? Because Gnumeric is really excellent.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Yes, it will "run", but it is being interpretted. Note that I said _run_ /natively/, meaning on the CPU, not on a virtual machine of a different platform. It has been done! Look at one great hack from the IOCCC which ran, I believe, on a VAX and a Sparc (written in C) due to some interesting properties of the binary formats of both platforms. Find it on http://www.ioccc.org/
-Leo
Sorry, it was written in C, but the function was defined by an array of bytes, hence machine code, not really C. Pure C, of course would have naturally run on both! But this was just using C to program in machine code.
-Leo
It's really easy to write a program that will run on Mac Os X, Windows, Solaris, Linux, IRIX, etc. in just one object file. All you need to do is write it in Java.
Contrary to popular belief, modern Java programs written by competant software engineers can be quite fast. Unfortunately, none of the Java Open Source projects seem to be doing that, and have petered out. Too bad.
(No Text)
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
Forgive my late entry into the world of AbiWord, I'd never heard of it until today. After familiarizing myself with it (to the extent possible in the limited time frame), I wonder if it is a good tool built to serve an illogical purpose -- specifically, to provide broad platform support for a vast array of proprietary document formats. Given the "infinite" number of proprietary formats that may appear, isn't this essentially a set-up for failure? All it takes is releasing a new (and modified) version of a currently-supported format, or a new format, to put AbiWord further back on the support meter.
Is it better to continually develop more palliative treatments to hide symptoms of a disease as it mutates rather than seek an actual cure? I think not. While finding the cure may be daunting, the process itself may lead to tangential benefits (even if the cure is never completed), and if the cure is attained then mitigating the symptoms immediately becomes irrelevant.
In this case, the disease is an over-abundance of document formats. It would strike me as wiser to narrow down the format array than to try to match it as it grows. Continued support for archaic formats should be limited to batch translation to newer formats; contemporary but obscure formats should be dealt with at the publisher level to eliminate the proprietary format in favor of an equally-suitable format (preferably a non-proprietary format, as it would be unwise to suggest that any given publisher try to continue playing catch-up with another publisher's format).
No Laughing Allowed!
Lyx actually supports reading DOCs. It does so through a pipe to my & Caolan's wvWare program (which turns DOC into LaTeX, which Lyx then can import). Dom
In that case, wait for tables to be implemented.
Even better, if you code, you could help out with the development of said feature.
I'm curious to know what you mean by "full featured word processor". =)
Be kind. There are too many mean people out there already.
Table provides some formatting convenience for some use. Otherwise why do you think Leslie Lamport bothered to provide table macros in LaTeX?
Hub
Ah and it cost several hundred of USD (yeah pricing os much more than on MS-Windows).
It is about providing tools that people will like and will be able to use. Abiword run on UN*X, Windows, QNX, BeOS. Why not on Mac ? It runs on Windows not to kill MS-Word (even if I personally would dream of that), but to provide a reliable interoperability solution. For QNX and BeOS, it simply fill a gap, while gaining interoperability too.
Hub
If you still experience problems with RTF files, please file a bug at http://bugzilla.abisource.com/. We will make sure it is fixed if we can do.
Hub
I think doing cross-platform development is of critical importance both to the software developer and the public. Find out why at:
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Freeing the Developer from OS Vendor Shackles
There are a number of cross-platform application frameworks, one of which is the framework AbiWord is built on. Others you may be familiar with are the Mozilla framework and GTK+. The above essay is on the website for the ZooLib cross-platform application framework.You can find a list of many application frameworks in several languages, many of which are cross-platform, and many of which are free or open source, at the GUI Toolkit, Framework page.
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
For all you moderators out there. Normally something like this would get moded down, but hey it made me life after a long dreary day...so please cut it some slack ;)
On the other hand, my personal experience with Abiword is that it is a great program to write in. I usually don't need all of the extra cruft that Word or WordPerfect throws in; all I need is a text editor that can do bold, italic, etc. So what I do is write in Abiword, save to an RTF, then import that into WordPerfect to do whatever page-level formatting I need to do.
If a person is really interested in reading a document 10 years from now a Word format will not be used. I have backed up documents now that I can't read.
Does a writer really want to loose access to a document they have written? If you use a document format that isn't open you can count on loosing access.
The real answer is to use ASCII or some format that uses plain text. If you have read "In the Beginning..." by Neal Stephenson you know of these difficulties.
If your profession depends on what you write make sure that your documents are backed up as ASCII or someother easy to get at format. Backing up a .doc file is not a backup.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
The primary complaint I have with all the Linux office suites is filters. Yes, Word documents dominate the workplace so a major concern of mine is can I read and write .doc files to the point that it doesn't matter if someone has Word, they open my files fine and that I can open .doc files without having to go through fourty levels of "what type file is this?" "are you sure?"
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
We are very well aware of the limitations of Abi. It is by no means a replacement for serious WP needs. It is great for quick letters to and fron Grandma and to read and reply to your Boss's MS Word email. My wife and I regularly do just that.
I am very well versed in Latex which I regularly use it to write long and sophisticated documents included footnotes, bibilography, MUCH MUCH better math support than any WYSIWYG word processor.
We have a foundation upon which we are building a powerful state of the art GUI app. Each itteration of Abi has more features and fewer bugs.
There are a number of ways Abi is very useful right now (for example reading and writing your Palm/Psion docs and sending them to your boss). Or for a fast launching viewer for quick docs. Or for people who need to need Word Docs but don't have >$100 Or for people who need basic BiDirectional docs but don't have $1000.
As the feature set of Abi improves the number of people for which Abiis interesting will increase.
I personally want to use Abi write Scientific Papers. I hope to be able to in one years time but whether it takes one year or two I will keep working on it. No one can stop me and it is real fun along the way:-) It is hard to describe the joy of turning ideas in your head into reality on the screen and to know that another 10^6 people will use that feature after the next release. Talk about enabling technology!
We are not daunted by the enormous challenge of surpassing MS Word in usefulness. This is what makes working on Abi and interesting and fun thing to do.
Cheers
Martin Sevior
Ok, I just mailed my editor about that one. Strange thing is that so many people read through the interview before publication, yet noone spotted it. Thanks for the catch.
I will agree with you right up till this statement.
"I can only speculate that the core AbiWord developers don't use word processors in their daily lives and never have. Maybe they wrote their college papers with LaTeX in emacs."
These are the words of and uninformed, inexperienced slashdot poster that doesn't even know that they are being a troll.
Have you ever used LaTeX? If these were LaTeX users, then they would have either stayed within the LaTeX format or made something much better than this.
LaTeX _can_ do tables, footnotes, endnotes (has _the_best_ bibliography support), indexes, tables of contents, customized style sheets and commands, has consideration for paper size and different printing media, and supports all kinds of specialized printing needs like math, of course, guitar tabs, music sheets, electronic circuits and computer boards, and a million other things.
Also LaTeX will look exactly the same if you print it out on a Mac, PC, or UNIX box, now or in the future. This is something that cannot be said about Word and most other cheap wordprocs.
The only fault I find in LaTeX and TeX in general, is its strict application of Tables, I enjoy the way I can stretch and nest tables in HTML more than anything else. However I don't find myself fighting with tables in LaTeX like I do in Word/WordPerfect/Star.
From my personal trials with Abiword, I've found that it doesn't hold a candle to a polished, full-featured word processor like Word or WordPerfect (StarOffice comes close..but it's just way too slow!). The article commented about tables not being supported, and with plans to implement them right after 1.0. For this reason alone many of us simply cannot switch to Abiword for our main word processor - I use tables in almost every document for effective formatting.
:).
Then again, vi is enough for the writers of Linux Journal, so I guess that makes Abiword overkill
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well the link is here, with the download page here, just in case the URLs for the place not not obvious.
;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If you want to write letters to mommy and daddy, or a letter to the editor at your local newspaper, then Abiword, kword, staroffice, etc, are fine. If you do SERIOUS writing: research, scientific publishing, etc, then they are pathetic toys of no use - merely glorified text editors.
I really object to the tone of this - the implication that scientific papers or research articles are somehow more important than other kinds of writing. You have a good point that the linux WPs don't have the features you obviously need - but why do you feel it necessary to make that point by putting down other people's work?
Let me put it this way - if I was responsible for deciding which features got included when in a Word Processor, I think I'd go for the most widely used ones first. Like it or not 99% of all Word Processing is writing letters and simple documents.
THERE IS NOT A SINGLE LINUX WORDPROCESSOR THAT IS A SERIOUS WORDPROCESSOR. A REAL and serious wordprocessor would support references/citations in some way. In the Windoze and Mac world, Word or Wordperfect have EndNote to handle citations and generation of bibliography pages. In linux the ONLY apps that can do this are latex plus bibtex or lyx plus pybliographic or sixpack.
It is impossible to write serious research papers or professional scientific papers without a bibliography/citation capability of some type. It is unacceptable to have to create a reference page or pages by hand and then enter your citations throughout your paper by hand. With lyx, which is not properly a "wordprocessor", this is trivial and easy via pybliographic or sixpack (or you can do it semi-automatically within lyx as long as you know the index names of all your citations).
What is needed is for SOME linux wordprocessor to actually include this functionality within itself, along the lines of a built-in EndNote or pybliographic or sixpack OR it needs to include a pipe that can be utilized by pybliographic or sixpack for interfunctionality. Pybliographic and sixpack use the lyxpipe to place citations into your lyx document. In lyx, you enter the bibliography name at the end by adding a reference section. When you print it, it automatically handles the citation formatting as well as the formatting of the reference page(s)...just like working with Word or Wordperfect on doze or the Mac with EndNote.
I have requested/suggested this functionality to everyone who is working on wordprocessors (koffice, Sun with staroffice, abiword, etc) but it never comes to anything. No scientist or serious researcher can make any use of the weak wordprocessors available to linux without this functionality. That leaves serious writers with lyx or latex, period.
If you want to write letters to mommy and daddy, or a letter to the editor at your local newspaper, then Abiword, kword, staroffice, etc, are fine. If you do SERIOUS writing: research, scientific publishing, etc, then they are pathetic toys of no use - merely glorified text editors.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Unlike other "office suite", Abiword is for one thing and one thing only: word processing. Taking to heart the UNIX principle of having small programs that each only do one thing, but do it WELL.
So what if Abiword can't do your spreadsheet, access the web and send your doc as email attachment (yuck!). With support for GNOME's component architecture, it will be possible to combine Abiword with other applications, like piping one command after another on the CLI.
Since Abiword runs on multiple platforms like Windows and Mac, it is a great way to introduce new users to GNU software without forcing them to install Linux (yet). Like the Windows version of GIMP, it shows that not all GNU/Linux programs are "hard to use command line programs", a common FUD attack.
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Codeala - Just another mindless drone
My favorite part of the conversation was the bit at the end where Christian began to loose it and talk to himself. Can you say "dissociative identity disorder"?
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.