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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."
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!
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
Bonobo is the name for the GNOME component architecture, which is intended to allow each compliant system to embed other compliant programs and gain their features. This is pretty similar to the way that you can embed any kind of MS Office document in any other kind of MS Office document. I guess that you could view it as allowing the programs to interact with each other promiscuously, although I'm not sure if that was exactly what the designers were thinking when they gave it that name.
FWIW, Bonobos are actually apes, not monkeys, are sometimes referred to as pygmy chimpanzees, and are believed to be the species most closely related to humans.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
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.
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.
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"
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
Agreed, but Abiword is definitely getting there!
.doc files it stands to be a real gorilla!
Star Office scores a bit better with respect to filter/file compatibility, but it just seems to slow and bloated on my 500 MHz K6. I've always been bothered that SO has never seemed truly integrated w/ my GNOME desktop. Perhaps it's better w/ KDE.
But back to Abiword, it loads and executes quickly and works well with simple files. Once it can deal with tables and output
Keep up the good work Abiteam!