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Open Office 2.0 Beta Candidate Released
JPyObjC Dude writes "The
OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta candidate has been released. You can find the feature guide that covers the wide array of improvements over the current 1.1 release. There are a bunch of problematic UI quirks in 1.1 that have been fixed in 2.0." Feature categories include increased interoperability with Microsoft Office, Asian Language Features, Developer-Specific Features, and new Internet based features. Commentary and an interview with Colm Smyth available at NewsForge.com.
The only thing keeping my small office from switching over to OpenOffice is compatability with the Corel Suite, specifically Word Perfect and Quattro Pro.
It used to be what our officed used exclusivley, but several people have been having issues with them. I've slowly started a switch to Open Office, but opening old documents and spreadsheet is impossible with Open Office, if they are any of the Corel Formats.
I just fired up the OpenOffice spreadsheet, inserted the data, saved it as an .xls file, and my distributor won't have any idea I don't even own Microsoft Office.
Which gives them exactly ZERO impetus to switch away from MS formats.
-mkb
When will there be a Outlook clone for OO? It's the only reason I own Office, and the reason that my office (13 computers) runs Office as well (since OO has similar features to Word and Excel).
is to work exactly like MS Office. Let's learn from the success of Firefox (vs Mozilla). Shortcuts, Menus, should be similar even if functionality is different. So people can migrate from Word without noticing the difference.
hey, they have a clippy, only that it looks like a star or sun if you prefer. when you type something and it auto corrects, you see the little guy on the lower right. equally irritating as the clippy.
One of the worst examples of karma-whoring, I piss on you!
>>I just fired up the OpenOffice spreadsheet, inserted the data, saved it as an .xls file, and my distributor won't have any idea I don't even own Microsoft Office.
>Which gives them exactly ZERO impetus to switch away from MS formats.
But it gives you the ability to do so if you choose -- and isn't it all about choice anyhow?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Well, yeah. The open source databases are way beyond Access in robustness and performance and compare favorably with commercial offerings for non-enterprise level stuff. As a database professional, I would never willingly target Access as a delivery platform.
But what is missing is the ability to give a normal person the capacity to muck around. That means spreadsheet entry view, a form entry view, forms design and report design components. Are you going to run a fortune 500 MRP system on Access? No. Are you going to run your office supply inventory on it? Sure. Even I use Access some times to do one shot projects like data conversions.
What gets people into trouble with Access is when a small, ad hoc project gets not-so-small and not-so-ad-hoc anymore. We call it "hitting the Access wall". The world would benefit greatly from giving a system like mysql, postgres, maxdb, for firebird (preferably your choice!) the kind of front end convenience Access does.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The interest, at least for myslef is not in the database engine - there are plenty of those, as you know.
The killer feature I'm looking for is a RAD for creating a good database frontend. Basically, can OOo Base surpass MS Access by combining powerful data aware components + object model, a good IDE, switchable backends & portable runtime with a report engine.
Alex
> After a week the infringing code is removed and OO is back.
Oh I agree totally, just look at the speedy resolution in the SCO case!
Code is protected by copyright, ideas are protected by patents. Wasn't Ballmer recently threatening to sue Governments in asia for patent infringement unless they bought his shoddy wares?
I've been using OO 1.x for a long time now, and really, I probably won't go back to MS Office. However, the one feature that I want more than anythning is in OO Writer - to support MS Word's "Normal" text entry mode. With this, you don't see unecessary gray borders, as it doesn't try to make you think you're typing on an actual piece of paper. Normal Mode in MS Word just gives you a blank window. Page breaks are shown as dotted horizontal lines. That's it - why make it more complicated and take up screen real estate?
OO 2.0 does not support Normal mode, and there are some threads on the Writer board over at OO.org requesting the feature. I have no idea why this isn't supported, and I'm tired of having to resize my Writer window every time I open a document, just so I don't have to look at the stupid borders. Those that are preachy about oo Writer will post here that all I have to do is make a template with my window resized, but that's not the point - I just want it to work in as simple a way as possible. Is that so wrong?
Now you know what the rest of the world has had to put up with MS products for years!
Every now and again, I get a call from a user saying that the page setup has gone weird and I show them how to reset the paper size to A4.
Perhaps they can teach you about logical date formats too?
I also get calls from people with stories like I entered the date for 1 March this year and it changed it to January 3. Be logical - small - middle - big ddmmyy is a logical order. Middle - small - big mmddyy is backasswards.
Vive la difference! If we all did things the same, there would be no room for innovation.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Yes. It's one of the things I really miss from MS Office. Of course I never used it in-line. Rather, I'd run it after finishing the document. It kept me from sounding too much like an idiot. It also helped improve my writing skills. After all, the fewer mistakes I made in the first place, the less time it took to correct. As for pointless suggestions, it's easy to ignore them.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
The biggest problem for Open Office is that Sun is rapidly turning it into a big 'ol Java fuckfest. Open Office is already bloated and slow... and Sun is gradually moving more an more Java into the codebase making it a true grotesque. It's like they are trying to make the worlds fattest app.
My understanding is that it is NOT native widgets.
Instead OOo did a lot of work to upgrade their own unique GUI framework to look and behave LIKE native widgets. This should guarantee longer load times, some unusual behaviors, and difficult integration. Most importantly though, this guarantees a duplication of effort as they maintain a completely seperate code base rather than contributing to one of the alternatives (eg. GTK+, wxWindows, SWT).
As a C++ developer, I'm not going to work with the OOo code until they get their act together and start sharing code and work. Until then their code base is innaccesible to me.
Please correct me if I'm wrong about what OOo is doing (I hope I am).
Look we all know office is good, the problem is not the quality of the software (IMHO Office is MS's finest product, esp. excel) The problem is the closed-source, closed file format, and the fact that it is cost prohibitvie for home use. You can buy a PC for office/web use for $299 with windows, why should your Office suite cost as much? If Office was $79 or $99 (for the version with all the bells and whistles) I would by it, but im going to have to stick with 2000 for a long time on my windows box and I'll probably be using OpenOffice for most of my office work at home.
-kaplanfx
Visualize Whirled Peas
I find in cases like this, it's generally best to just say "changed".
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
If you're going to break the EULA, why not just steal it in the first place?
>Amazon lists MS Office Standard Student and Teacher Edition 2003 for $125. Installs on three PCs, no student-teacher ID required. Ranks #3 on the Amazon software sales chart. Student-Teacher Office 2004 for the Mac is $136. Ranks #18.
That doesn't strike you as part of the problem, that you have to essentially lie to get a fair deal on MS Office? Doesn't it make you feel the least bit uncomfortable knowing that you need to lower your morals to MS's level (read as: none) to pay a decent price, while an alternative that's nearly equivalent is free? If it works for you, great, but it would make me feel a little off.
Next thing you know, you'll be visiting animal shelters to stock up on meat for your freezer...
Microsoft has just released their much anticipated hands-free cordless mouse. Warning, it may hurt a little at first.
Ok now the problem is you are saying what you think things should be, I'm telling you how things are. If you want an underdog product to eat away at the dominant one, one of the things you have to do is offer what people want. It doesn't matter if you think that what they want is stupid, or that they shouldn't use your thing for that, you have to give them what they want.
So you can scream until youa re blue in the face about how you shouldn't be useing a spreadsheet for financial projections, the bussiness people will say "That's nice" and go back to using Office. I'm not claiming it's the way it should be, I'm claiming it's the way it is.
However, I will note that this is the orignal reason spreadsheets were developed, and the orignal reason peopel were so excited. Accountants could use them to easily store, tabulate, and modify massive amounts (relitively speaking) of data.
Either way, it's how they like to do it and telling them "No, you are wrong" isn't going to change it.
If you approach the world like this you have problems.
Man, there is opportunity X. Now, I'll plug X into my Personal Morality Unit. Ahh, crap. It seems that I can't do X, since the PMU has decided that it would be necessary to lower my morals.
This is really hilarious to me. "It is wrong to click the box that says you're a student when you aren't". Why? Does it make Jesus cry? Is Kant turning in his grave? I bet when you find loose change you leave it on the ground because you don't know how to report it on your tax return. When the cable guy accidently left HBO on for free you called them and forced them come turn it off, AND charge you pro-rata for the time it was on. You heard your neighbor playing mp3's so you had to go and buy the albums, since otherwise you're getting to hear them free through the wall. (you bought 2 copies, because sometimes your wife hears it too)
Personally I only use Free Software. Free as in Bittorrent, sucker!
It keeps people from walking off with my stuff.
I find it amusing and disturbing that someone would have such a badly misfunctioning PMU that they need to put down someone else for having a more functional one.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.