OpenOffice.org Built with KDE and GNOME Support

ks writes "Novell hacker Jan Holesovsky has released a build of OOo 1.1.3 that integrates with either KDE or GNOME depending on the environment it's running in. The build features KDE/GNOME look and feel, KDE/GNOME file dialogs and the Crystal icons. If you're running NLD, you have this already." Update: 11/27 18:13 GMT by T : Also on the OpenOffice.org front, the OO.o front page links to this interview with Debian ARM developer Peter Naulls, who has ported the suite to ARM processors. Hint: they're everywhere.

Comments

I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet

[Megaweapon]

This should help with either GNOME or KDE adoption in office environments since the user interface looks more streamlined.

Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet

[tepples]

How does it support things like ppt, doc and xls files?

Rather well. I've read success stories of OO.o flawlessly opening corrupted .doc files that crash Microsoft Word.

Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet

[reverius]

It does indeed open corrupted .doc files that crash Word... I did it once at work, to the amazement of everyone present (myself included). However, it did lose a bit of the formatting. Nothing that 5 minutes of dragging pictures around couldn't fix, though.

Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet

[Janek Kozicki]

How does it support things like ppt, doc and xls files?

everything is great except for video in presentation. It works somehow, but does not even correctly open .ppt with video inside, though.

Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

i think the reason it will open corupted .doc files is because of the "formating". OO.o will ignore formating options it cannot recognize or perform were office will continuously try to open it (hence the crash). Without the expectations of OO.o having some dificulties, this probably wouldn't have ever been possible.

It was probably formatting problems that caused it to crash/corupt in the first place. The loss is probably what saved the file :)

Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first of all, forget your macros; if your organization already has Word or Excel "applications" written in VBA, it will need to rewrite them to work with OO or develop them into real, cross-platform applications (web-based comes to mind). Don't underestimate the impact of this issue! Incredible things can be done with Word and Excel using the scripting built into it, especially when you get into integrating it with external systems (like printing invoices with information retrieved from a billing system). You may lose half of your audience right there if they are currently knowledgeable Office users.

After you get past that, the compatibility is hit-or-miss. Complex formatting, embedded content such as spreadsheets, and other issues make it hard to guarantee interoperability. I am careful to avoid doing things with documents I share that may make them difficult to work with, but managers and even secretaries can be expected to play with documents in a way that makes them only work in Office.

In short, the idea that Linux and OO is suitable for a work environment where Windows and Office is currently used is difficult to justify. OO is far slower, far less flexible, and will cost all but the smallest companies a fortune to re-train users. I use OO as well as Office and while I like the idea of OO (and I especially like to use it to export to PDF), it is a clunky package when directly compared to Office. Combined with modern Linux desktop systems that trade usability and performance for the sake of "proper" programming techniques, OO provides a dog-slow working environment that you will regret recommending.

I work with some small businesses that have historically balked at paying for software licensing, but the owners prefer to knowingly illegally license Windows/Office than use something else that they are unfamiliar with. However, if they had no predisposed aversion to something other than Office, these particular businesses may be able to get away with OO because they don't do anything complex that requires VBA or a particularly high level of integration. It all comes down to knowing your audience and knowing all of the limitations of the software you are advocating beforehand.

Finally, if you add filetype:doc or filetype:xls or filetype:ppt to a Google search, you can search for files of those formats. Try opening business-oriented documents found with those searches with both Office and OO and see what you find!

Mirrordot Link

[b0lt]

here

Re:NLD?

[sloanster]

Novell Linux desktop

Re:NLD?

[crazy blade]

Novell Linux Desktop. http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/

Re:NLD?

[Janek Kozicki]

Novell Linux Desktop

Re:First Reply|

[FlipmodePlaya]

You could always use something like MetaTheme, or an equivalent (check kde-look.org), to have GTK widgets drawn with QT. Seems like a convoluted solution, but it really works quite well.

NLD

[Anonymous Coward]

I just started playing with the Novell Linux Desktop and it looks really nice. After having Novell removed for Windows AD at work, it was nice to see the big N on a screen again. ;)

It's basically Suse with some tweaks, but it's got a very professional look and feel about it with everything nicely integrated.

mirror

[gr8fulnded]

Poof... Good old mirrordot to the rescue...

Something similar for Mozilla

[Dreadlord]

Something similar for Mozilla and Linux:
The Mozilla integration project for Linux desktops

Why OpenOffice is important

[Ars-Fartsica]

Microsoft has essentially turned into a replacement parts business for Windows and Office - adoption of new PCs at home and at work has normalized, new business is flat. Many of their new ventures are flat, ROI negative, or true money losers.

Having a drop-in replacement for Office is critical to attacking their core replacement parts business.

Kudos by the way to AbiWord and Gnumeric, two excellent programs that are native GNOME apps today.

Only KDE icons

[Xpilot]

In the link provided, only KDE icons are provided, though GTK+ is used when run in GNOME, and you need the NLD version for the full GNOME look. So the best bet for GNOME-only using folk like me is still the build tool itself.

Re:Is this the real thing?

[th3w4y]

it is using those... NO simulation

Direct Link to Mirrors

[twener]

Download OOo_1.1.3-kde_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz

Open Office: your MS Office document repair kit.

[MsGeek]

It also removes macros. Sometimes it is a pain, because those macros are needed in an MS Office document, particularly in Excel. But if those macros are either corrupt or infected with a Macro Virus, losing the macros is actually A Good Thing. (tm)

Last year, the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival sent the band Saccharine Trust an elaborate Excel spreadsheet which provided an overview of the schedule for the entire weekend's performances at Camber Sands in the UK.

Joe Baiza had Office 98 for Mac running on his iMac. No joy opening the spreadsheet. He then sent the spreadsheet to Chris Stein, the band's bassist, (No, not the Blondie guitarist! Same name, different guy...) who tried to open it in Office XP. Again, no joy.

I get the spreadsheet sent to me. I open it in OO.o. Success! I saved the document first as an OO.o native format file, then resaved the native OO.o file as an .XLS. I sent it back to Joe and Chris, and voila! They could open it too!

I'll have you know that NOTHING got screwed up in the formatting. Maybe a few weird calculations used by the ATP folks got messed up, but the guys in ST didn't need them. All they needed was the time that ST needed to go on, and also the times for some of the other bands on the schedule the guys wanted to see. OO.o rules.

Re:Running NLD

[ScrewMaster]

So what what you're saying is: rather than be nice sometimes and nasty at others, it's better to be consistently nasty. And that's true, from the perspective of a user who just wants to be able to figure something out once, get used to it, and not have to keep re-figuring it out every time he loads a different application. Microsoft has their Common Controls libraries for things like file and print selectors: they aren't an optimal solution in my opinion but they work, people are familiar with them, and I will generally use them for that reason.

Re:What about OS X?

[IamTheRealMike]

The integration work for GNOME and KDE has been largely funded by Novell and Red Hat. There are apparently no such companies funding OS X integration, probably because Apple values its relationship with Microsoft too much.

Re:My my my...

[SiliconEntity]

1. The entire concept of a 'Word Processor' is stupid - http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html

Oh, right. I love this comment:

Take for instance a section heading. So far as the logical structure of a document is concerned, all that matters is that a particular piece of text should be ``marked'' somehow as a section heading. One might for instance type \section{Text of heading}.

Come on. No one in their right mind would want to type "\section{Text of heading}"! Nothing could be less intuitive!

If this is your alternative to a word processor, 99% of people would do better with a word processor. I mean, really, backslashes and curly braces and magic keywords that have to be memorized? Give me a break. That will never work for the typical user. Programmers, yes, but users, no.

Re:My my my...

[bwalling]

1. The entire concept of a 'Word Processor' is stupid - http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html

That entire article was written on the basis of the fact that most people incorrectly use word processors! You can do exactly what the author is describing in Microsoft Word, and it is a hell of a lot easier than Tex. As you are typing your document, you simply mark things with Heading 1, etc (create new styles as you need them). When you're done "composing", then edit the styles such that your document is rendered as you want it to be.

As for the argument that the recipient of your document will need to have the same program you composed it in, I fail to see how Tex is better. If I sent my Dad a Tex document, he'd be pissed off that he had to read all of that \section{} crap along with the text, because we both know he isn't going to have anything that will render Tex.

screenshots

[sewagemaster]

here and here

Re:What about OS X?

[bjhonermann]

Check out OOo's page on OSX development at http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/timeline.html

Quoting the relevent section

What's holding back the Quartz and Aqua tracks?

To implement Quartz and Aqua, we will need to change APIs that are owned by different projects here at OOo, and the one we really do need to target is undergoing a major revamp (Toolkit2). These changes will affect all platforms, so we are working with gsl to get the hooks we need to complete a native port.

Aside from our compilation efforts, the majority of our work can't be completed until these APIs are in place or at least designed to a point where we can begin figuring out how to marry them to MacOS X. There is no active coding at this time. With limited testing and development resources, it is unwise to spend all of our efforts porting a "dead" API that would not allow our work to be incorporated into newer versions of the software. As such, any delivery estimates here should be considered "relative" to the time the APIs are completed.

All further development of the Quartz and Aqua tracks has been postponed until OpenOffice.org 2.0 due to gsl timeline. Initial delivery of 2.0 for Win32, Solaris, and Linux x86 expected in Q1 2005. Projected OS X X11 port availability expected to be Q2 2005. Projected OS X native availability of OpenOffice.org 2.0 is currently Q1 2006.

In other words, native OSX is coming but right now all the API's are being rewritten so porting the old ones is a waste of time for the developers. Porting the new ones can't really begin until the API's are finished being designed. It's a pain and it's frustrating. I still recommend NeoOffice/J (http://www.neooffice.org/java/) to my OSX using friends if they don't have access to Word. It's native but still pretty ugly. Just saves on having to install X11.

-Brian