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.

Comments

Native Widgets!

[Mr. Sketch]

It's about time!
(From TFA)

Native system theme integration (native widget rendering)

To enhance integration of OpenOffice.org with the underlying operating system, all user interface elements (such as buttons and scrollbars) will have the same look as those used in most other 'native' applications for that platform. OpenOffice.org will react on-the-fly to changes of the desktop theme, so when the user changes the desktop colors or theme, OpenOffice.org will adjust its own appearance to match.

Native system theme integration will be available for Gnome (version 2.4 or higher), Microsoft (R) Windows (including XP and future versions), and KDE (version 3.2 and higher) desktop environments. On Windows XP the 'Windows XP Style' must be chosen under Settings - Control Panel - Display - Appearance to achieve the correct look.

Theme integration will be the default for desktop environments that support it (listed above). Systems (for example, Windows 98/ME/2000, CDE) that do not support it will see no visual change in OpenOffice.org. On supported systems OpenOffice.org will always adopt the theme of the system and cannot choose not to do so.

Re:Native Widgets!

[cozziewozzie]

Actually, I do think you are wrong.

My understanding of their Native Widget Framework is that the VCL (the toolkit used by OO.o), in addition to drawing the widgets itself, can be used as a wrapper for Qt, GTK, MFC, or whatever else you are using on your system. So a little bit of overhead is there, but OpenOffice 2 should bring trully native look and feel.

How's the database?

[RazorJ_2000]

I'm more interested in how the database is looking to be.

Re:How's the database?

[sploo22]

The important thing that OpenOffice really needs in the database area is a good front-end like Access. Like it or not, Access's UI works quite well, even though the database backend is the ultimate in suckiness.

Currently some of this can be done through the OO Writer, but all forms and things have to be stored in separate documents, making organizing a full database application a real pain. Plus, even if you just want to build a quick and dirty single-user system, you still need the overhead of a server like Postgres.

Re:How's the database?

[iabervon]

The database is HSQLDB, which is a reasonable SQL database with the distinction of keeping the contents of the database in SQL scripts, and normally interacting with a file rather than with a service. It's essentially the right thing for cases where you want to have "your" database rather than "the" database. It's also easy to import on a database server, because you can just connect to the database and run the file as a script. It's quite a nice package, but it's not actually an OOo project at all.

The OOo project is a front-end, and can access various SQL databases. They just include HSQLDB so that people who want to stick some information in a database in an ad hoc fashion don't have to set up a database service.

Rundown of what to expect?

[Raindance]

Can someone on the inside of OO.org give a quick rundown on what to expect from this beta RC in terms of stability/usability?

It sounds like "Release Notes, a list of know issues, system requirements are in preparation" but I assume that'll be written for the LCD and hard for folks to get the big picture from.

So... if anybody in the know is out there, what's this release like? How buggy is it? What's the worst-case scenario if I start using it?

RD

Re:One day it'll be as good as MS Office!

[Gadgetfreak]

Our company just upgraded (I use the term loosely) to MS Office 2003, which got rid of the standard Office Toolbar. I thought it was rubbish anyways, and didn't use it. Programs are easy enough to find on the start menu, IMO.

But you would not believe how many people came to me asking how to get their Office Toolbar to show up again. They just piled everything into it, and ignored the start menu altogether.

I was so disappointed to find out just how many people really like those toolbars...

just curious

[Anonymous Coward]

have any professional (for-profit) organizations switched to OO yet?

Re:just curious

[niki9]

Plenty of small businesses, I'm sure. Mine is one of them, I work for a small design studio in NYC, 5 permanent employees on multiple OS's, all using OO, and most of our consultants do as well.

Re:just curious

[__aamcgs2220]

I work for a large company that is in the process of switching to OOo now... Quite a few users are already MSO free, and I believe everyone will be done sometime this year. Not a lot of complications that I know of so far other than some scripts, macros, etc., that didn't quite make it but were easily converted, and some of the PowerPoint stuff doesn't come through right. Other than that, I have heard very few complaints.

I can't wait

[Schlemphfer]

I suspect I'm always going to be a WordPerfect fan, at least when I'm trying to do real writing instead of just get business done. But I'm nevertheless so grateful that OpenOffice.org exists.

Just today, I got a friggin' Excel spreadsheet from my distributor. They wanted me to complete it and send it back to them. It would kill me to fork over my hard-earned dough for Microsoft Office, but thanks to OpenOffice.org I never have to. 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.

This wasn't the time and place, but whenever I get a chance I tell people they can probably get by with OpenOffice.org instead of purchasing Microsoft Office. OpenOffice 1.1 is more than good enough for most tasks, so I can't wait to see how good 2.0 is. It's always nice to use a fantastic product that also just happens to keep me from having to pay the Microsoft tax.

Now smaller!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone noticed that it is about 30megs smaller than the previous verison.

Wonder why...

Impress Templates

[dduardo]

When is OOo going to include more standard templates. To most people, Impress is useless because it doesn't come with a sufficient amount of bundled templates. Sure you can find more online, but people used to MS Office are not going to deal with that.

Re:Impress Templates

[dduardo]

That's exactly the problem. Many people, including myself don't have any artistic skill. That's why we need the bundled tmeplates.

Re:One day it'll be as good as MS Office!

[zurtle]

I don't use the office toolbar per se, but here at work I use multiple applications - the Quick Launch toolbar is perhaps the handiest thing I've got. Screw the Start menu, that's slow. Once you've memorised the shortcuts for other handy things like "calc" and "freecell", you don't need much else!!

Back to the topic... I'd be keen to find out how OO.o handles .xlt files - the MS Office viewers bite, and buying licences for Office is a waste when we only need it for test stations that don't need anything but Excel! Is OO.o truly an Office clone? Or is it still an occasion where we need to have both to get the useful features of both?

Re:Where is the grammar checker?

[graphicsguy]

Do people actually use the grammar checker in MS Office? I find that it usually suggests that I change something that is grammatically correct to something totally wrong.

Re:One day it'll be as good as MS Office!

[fermion]

It is funny to bring up the most obvious mistake, which realy is an emblem of the disconnect between MS and the average user.

But seriously OO.org has a chance to compete because MS has not done much useful in MS Office in about 10 years. The only interesting thing they did was gut Foxpro, put a cheesy GUI on the Rushmore engine, and say look ma we can make one of them new fangle databases.

So as soon as OO.org makes it to fully to Office 95, and has a cheesy database GUI, then I will be happy. Hopefully it can maintain compatibility with the latest formate without falling into the pitfall of useless features.

A step forward

[water-and-sewer]

I'm discouraged by the tremendous amount of comments here by people who have obviously not read the article but rather rushed to post "I hope it imports WP files" and the like. Holy schmoly.

I think it's a great step forward. I signed up to be a beta tester for Star Office 8 and while I have only downloaded it this afternoon and won't get to install and play until tonight, I'm looking forward to the new features:

Word Perfect import, a cleaned up user interface, better PDF export, better input filters for crapomatic Microsoft documents, and a database front end that can interface with MySQL? Who's yo daddy? Those are features that mean a lot to me.

I'm a writer and I'm picky about my tools. And I take a Mac to school with me but run SUSE 9.1 and Xandros XD3 at home. Openoffice is the only software that really allows me to bridge the gap between those two platforms. On the Mac I run NeoOffice/J - a tremendous piece of software that's far more robust than people make it out to be. It doesn't load quickly, but once it does it gives me all the goodness of Openoffice.org with all the power of Mac OS X, and the interface is nice and clean, including native Mac print dialogues, and the like. I don't know what kind of alchemy went into marrying OO.o to Java to Mac OS X but I'm grateful someone went ahead and did it.

Look closely at OpenOffice 2.0r1 and what you see is an attempt to steal marketshare away from existing MS Office users. That means cleaner widgets, better import/export capacity, and a look and feel that isn't too foreign. It's not breaking any barriers in the document-writing paradigm here (check out Mellel for Mac OS X for that), but it is making it easier for existing Office users to jump ship. And jump they will.

There are several things I like about OO.o, including the stylist and navigator, the export to PDF functionality, and the way the interface meets my needs. At work I use MS Word 2003, and I swear to God I hate it, not because of who produces it but because it's the most awkward, confusing, automatic-in-unnecessary-ways piece of crap I've come across. And all that additional complexity has done little to make the secretaries I work with write good documents. I'm talking about borked-up formatting, inconsistent styles, and so on. OO.o deals specifically with those issues in a way I really appreciate.

The new database component is a huge addition. To all you pinheads pontificating about how important an Access-like program is for the future of OO.o, shame on you for not having RTFA. This could very well be a killer app when all is said and done (the Star Office 8 beta forums make it look like it's still a bit buggy). That is: a front end that "looks like" Access, tied into a MySQL back end. That's fantastic! I currently use Rekall for my database front end, but I can't get a version for Debian, which is a major pain in the butt.

In sum, ease up on all the "they better have included feature X." This is a major but manageable step forward, and while it doesn't solve all our problems, I think it's a big step forward to improving upon the success of previous editions of OO.o, and a big step forward to convincing potential MS Office refugees to give something new a shot. As for myself, I've decided compatability with MS Office users is no longer a concern to me. I'd rather just work alone with my grumpy ol' self. :)

Re:OO.o for OS X?

[aldoman]

The trouble is that porting GUI software to OSX is very hard. This is due to Apple/anyone not caring about porting GTK to OSX, to run outside of X. Why Apple doesn't fix this is beyond me, as they could enjoy a wealth of nearly native software. It would also finally give some sort of cross platform GUI development platform that the Mac can be part of.

I think OSX is getting very marginilised, which is a real shame since it's a very nice OS. When Linux supports my _printer_ and I can set it up in 1 minute using the GNOME printer configurationg tools, but I can't do it whatsoever on a much more expensive Mac, I think there is a problem.

This is only going to happen more often as Linux starts to become the de-facto OS for 'simple' tasks - a hell of a lot of businesses only need an OS which can run a web browser (Firefox), do email and print, thanks to the huge amount of web-based applications which are coming on board. I still think it's got a way to go before businesses will completely migrate to it (even though Novell Linux Desktop makes it so much easier than any other distro I have used), but I think we'll certainly see more and more hardware/software being supported first on Linux, then Mac, if at all.