Splashscreen for OpenOffice.org 2.0 Wanted

An anonymous reader writes "From the OOo site: 'OpenOffice.org 2.0 is coming fast and it needs a new splashscreen. You can help. Send us your best by 10 December and it might be seen on the desktops of tens upon tens of millions next year.' For more information, visit the OpenOffice.org website."

Comments

What we need more (from a member of OOo Marketing)

[oldosadmin]

We need you to GIVE OUT CDs to friends.

We need you to DONATE MONEY (paypal button on openoffice.org).

We need you to BE VOCAL in your support of OpenOffice.org.

We need you to say "THANK YOU" to Sun Microsystems for donating all the code and their continual support of OpenOffice.org.


And a few friendly reminders. Open Office(tm) != OpenOffice.org.

And to kill the license trolls, we are LGPL.


(and I may get FP!)

Jason Faulkner

OOo RegiCon North America Webmaster

Splash Screens are Evil

[RAMMS EIN]

Splashscreen for OpenOffice.org 2.0 wanted?!

Splash screens are evil! They pop up in front of you, disabling you from doing what you were doing, and don't allow you to start doing what you started the app for. They are just a smoke screen for a badly done application.

The way to do it (assuming you're going to open a window) is to first open the window, so that the user sees the app is launching, and can position the window where he wants it. This prevents popping up a window at some unpredictable future time, which distracts and annoys users.

So what to do if your app takes a long time to load? First off, it shouldn't. You don't have to load all functionality at once, just in case the user might want it. You can load it on demand. Secondly, if loading still takes a long time, you can indicate loading progress in the window you created.

Re:Splash Screens are Evil

[renoX]

Agreed, splash screen should be removed, "splash window" like you described are much, much better!

Plz consider my entry

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a rough outline here.

Re:Plz consider my entry

[jacksonscottsly]

What's with all the talk about OOo being so damned slow? I find it incredibly responsive on my machines. The machine I'm using now (Gentoo on P4@700MHz + 512MB RAM) takes less than 3-4 seconds to load up (ximianized) OOo 1.1.3! My laptop (Gentoo on PIII@400MHz + 256MB) still only takes 10-15 seconds to load OOo entirely (non-ximianized, OOo 1.1.3, i think). Give them a break, it's a damned good application and it runs almost as smoothly as Abiword for me.

More on Openoffice.org 2.0

[cortana]

The Openoffice.org marketing site has more information about upcoming features in Openoffice.org 2.0.

Re:What we need more (from a member of OOo Marketi

[DrJonesAC2]

I have been giving away a compilation CD containing a slew of open source software including Firefox, Thunderbird, and Open Office. I have been doing this for about the last three years for christmas because I'm too poor to buy everyone a gift and it helps get the word out. This year I'm including a little Christmas RPG that I wrote in Java as well. I have found that many people are willing to give free software a chance if they don't have to download it and have someone that will answer questions for them. I suggest more people try this approach.

I would also like to get feedback on if there would be interest in an ISO of the disk I give out. I would be more than willing to host it if there was interest.

Agreed

[jefu]

I agreee completely. OpenOffice starts slowly enough that a splash screen does help indicate that it is really doing something, but honestly I'd rather not have to watch it. Often I start OpenOffice to open a MS word document that someone sent me in my mail and I'd rather keep reading my mail than have to watch the progress bar creep across (slow machine) the screen. Make it optional at least and make it easy to find the preference to turn it off (if there is one now I can't locate it).

Judge 2.0 on it's own merits ...

[oldosadmin]

One of the #1 goals in OpenOffice.org 2.0 was to increase speed.

Yes, we are a bit slow at times, but you also have to remember that we don't use OS hooks to help it load quicker. MSO, AbiWord, etc, all have integrated hooks to help it load faster (libs are already loaded).

Try a developer snapshot of OOo 2.0, and then decide.

Re:Judge 2.0 on it's own merits ...

[Foolhardy]

What integrated hooks are you referring to in MSO?

MS Office has a program that (by default) loads at the same time as the shell does (after you log on) to precache binaries. This is the same thing that the OpenOffice.org Quickstarter does.

The only other thing that MSO does to load faster is that it uses common libraries that other programs, like the shell, use (like for OLE and COM) instead of re-inventing the wheel; something that OO.org can't do heavily because it would make them too dependent on a single platform, whose libraries they are not free to distribute.

What else could it be doing?
Personally, I don't think either one starts very fast, but not intolerably slow either.

The ideal OpenOffice.org splashscreen

[KWTm]

Could someone please design a splashscreen that is:

1. transparent, and
2. 2 pixels by 2 pixels? Okay, maybe not that big

Every time I start OpenOffice.org, the huge splashscreen just sits there blocking the way of all my other apps. And it sits there for a LOOOooo...ng time! (Later I discovered that I could drag it out of the way by holding down Alt, but why should I have to?)

Even some translucency would be good so that I can at least see what's going on underneath the splash screen. And someone can design a logo for their new slogan: "OpenOffice.org --now only takes 60 seconds to load!"

Okay, okay, I shouldn't be so hard on the OOo team, since it *is* open-source. Please do take a look at some comments that I and other Slashdotters have made which I hope are being addressed. I recognize that some of these take time to work on, but the first step is to know that the items listed above are a significant incentive to switch to a lesser-developed program like AbiWord despite its inferior MSWord-importing capabilities (for example).

UI

[Per Wigren]

Have they got ridden of that weird custom GUI-toolkit in 2.0 yet?
Real native look and feel (not just look) is my major #1 wish for OOo. Especially on OS X it feels extremly alien right now..

Re:UI

[Puggs]

OpenOffice.org is a strange one on OS X...

You have two choices at the moment - OpenOffice.org for X Windows, the official port, but development is very slow, and recent version(s) do not compile... or, NeoOffice/J, a port that runs in Java, with the OpenOffice toolkit although this is being worked on to have a native Aqua interface.

In other words, be patient, (or in true OSS-style) join either or both project and start helping ;)

I use NeoOffice/J on my mac - its a little slow, but i prefer it to running X just to use an office app

Here you go

[mr_tenor]

The trademark for "OpenOffice" belongs to someone else.

Re:It needs it like a hole in the head

[Make]

why troll. i like applications the unix way. if they have nothing useful to say, they should not say anything.

what use is a splash screen? (okay openoffice may be so SLOOOOOOW that they want to entertain the user while it loads... omg what a self diss)

Just thought I'd let those interested know...

[Roman_(ajvvs)]

... that the splash screen is one of the first things that I turn off when I install a new program and run it for the first time. It really doesn't matter what it looks like to me. It could be the equivalent of Michelango's David and I'd still turn it off.

The primary reason I turn it off, is because I don't want some static, always-on-top window blocking my view of other windows I'm working on. I don't mind programs taking time to load if they need it, just let me read something while it's waiting. In my case, programs rarely get opened up on their own.

Usually splash screens play nice, but they always seems to block something I'm looking at there and then. An about box will suffice if I really find out what I'm running.