Slashdot Mirror
Update to OpenOffice 2 Released
VincenzoRomano writes "The very first update to OpenOffice 2, namely v2.0.1, has been released. Despite its version numbering, along with minor bug fixes there are a number of new features. From the update page: 'For example, it is now possible to disable and hide particular application settings, which comes in handy for central administration in networks. Plus, a new keyboard shortcut permits the user to return to a saved cursor position. The bullets and numbering feature has been expanded, and a new mail merge feature is available.' Downloads are ready in both binary formats and source code for an ever increasing number of localised languages. Go grab your version!"
I guess the fact that OpenOffice gets coverage in the Olive-XP-colored "IT" section can only be a good thing.
As an OOo user living mostly in the academic world, I have a question for those in the "corporate, IT world": how do you perceive the inroads OpenOffice has been making? How does upper management reacts when OOo is pointed as an alternative? Is it working satisfactory as a Microsoft Office alternative?
The filesystem is the package manager
We complain that the marketing people took over the numbering at Microsoft and other companies--like Oracle "10g" when there was no a, b, c, d, e, or f.
Now open source is pulling the same stunts--Firefox went from 1.0 to 1.5, and OpenOffice squeezes new features into a 2.0.1 release.
Whatever happened to the standard that major feature releases increment the first number, minor feature releases increment the second number, and tweaks and bug fixes increment the third number? What is the point of numbering releases "2.0.1" if you're not going to follow the standard?
And who are the marketing people who have taken over these projects who think that version numbers are a marketing tool, and not a way to convey useful information about the extent of the changes?
My room mate the other day had a power point presention for a report due. He was going to go to the library at 5am to type this thing up. I was like.. Why? He said it was because he didnt have powerpoint. I gave him a crack Office 2003 CD and told him power point was there. He said he would never use software he didnt pay for, and gave it back. So I told him to goto openoffice.org, and get the free office suite. He asked me what that was, I took him to my desktop, and showed it to him. 20 minutes later he was making a power point in open office.
I went back from Open Office 2.0 to 1.1.4 because 2.0 was a memory hog. Does 2.0.1 fix these issues?
I would rather put 99% of efforts to improve compatibility with MS Office. Isn't it the only reason why 99% of people don't switch to OpenOffice ?
No. And I wish people would put this red herring to rest. OOo's MS-Office compatibility is very good, and it's even better with the 2.0.x releases. The compatibility doesn't have to perfect. Heck, speaking of perfect, when MS Office took over, it did so by including imperfect compatibility for the two major reigning apps of the day: WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3.
The are lots of reasons why people haven't switched to OpenOffice. But not all of them -- and in fact most of them do not -- have to do with file format compatibility.
My blog
At the company where I previously was the Sys Admin for 3 years, I did have success using OO 1.12,1.14,and 2.0 on our Citrix Farm. It was pablished as a seamless application, but it ran fine in a full desktop as well. We were using Win2k Terminal server running Metaframe XP at first, and then upgraded to Presentation Server 3.0, and then finally just before I left last month we moved the farm to 4.0. We had about 40 concurrent Citrix OO users running right alongside Citrix MS Office XP users. Don't get me wrong, there were a couple small hiccups here and there but all inall it was and still is a huge success. Were using roaming TS profiles of course, and then made sure that we installed OO using the network switch for pre 2.0, and for 2.0 made sure we chose "Install for Everyone" during the wizard. I had thought about getting all fancy and using one of the custom scripts to pre-answer all of the little setup questions, but time never really allowed me to. And for new users it was just as easy to just go through it for them as I was setting up the rest of their profile anyway. When an upgrade came out we always had the users choose "install a new profile" rather than the "upgrade you profile". It had the best outcome. Since our users had been using OO 1.1x for about 2 years when 2.0 was released, they were very happy and outspokenly appreciative for the new look and functionality. Yes, I know as IT staff we probably would prefer to stay as vanilla as possible when it comes to Office apps, btu the funding wasn't there for 40 Office licenses, OO was and still is a lifesaver for that small company. They have about 80 employees.
OO is the greatest thing since sliced bread.... We now use php to generate odt formatted documents straight from the web servers and OO in headless mode to auto generate three formats odt, pdf and doc...
Keep it up team we love OO...
Got Code?
I absolutely agree, and have had an open bug report at OOo for a couple years now. It's issue 4914 if you'd like to add votes. :-) ) is the ability to display the Style for every paragraph in a column to the left of the text area. This is only available in NormalView, and you have to set a variable in the Prefs under View/StyleAreaWidth.
To respond to a child post: yes, there's WebLayout view, but it doesn't really do the job; doesn't display page breaks, for example.
One of the features I really like in MsoftWord (bet you didn't know this one existed
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Plus, a new keyboard shortcut permits the user to return to a saved cursor position.
Not that I'm not very glad that OOo is here and getting better, but...
this catches them up to WordStar 2.6 on CP/M, circa, what, 1978? (^K1..9 to set one of the markers, ^Q1..9 to go there, ^Qv to get back to where you were before a file operation). Yay team!
you can use Java to find the fields and replace them directly without needing any temp files. It is easy and fast. Can you do this in PHP? (just curious)
Pining for the fjords
I DID (not yelling at you, mind you, but I feel profound disappointment, enough to want to light a cig and down a few cups of sake and risk missing work tomorrow). And, with much heartbreak, it seems they (or the team back then) got territorial (remember the days of: This is OUR thing; we don't have to be embracing...?)
I know the **code** has improved, but every single time they released OO.o, I crossed my fingers and gave it a try. Every time, I found they made NO significant, meaningful improvement in the areas I recommended, begged, cried for changes. Every time, I want to pound my desk into splinter when I feel ignored as each release eviscerates me when the screen time after time shows they obviously never LOOKED at and USED Lotus Approach as a user. Maybe it's because Lotus has maybe under 5% of the market. Maybe they're afraid of IP lawsuits. Maybe they're afraid to just **ASK** IBM if a collaboration would be nice and sweet for a few years.
Every time, I wanted to take my laptop (which died months ago) into Sun's and Star Offices offices and show them the Lotus WordPro and Lotus Approach projects I do which can NEVER be done in SO/OO.o the way they are.
Every release, I download and try it, just to keep my Libra scales balanced on integrity. It TEARS ME TO PIECES that it seems to me they operate in a vacuum.
Base took too long to get out the barn, and it can't EVEN touch Lotus Approach-- at least in the past pre-releases. Lotus Approach is an award-winning database that exemplifies what END-USERS need and want, not what dorks and geeks and nerds THINK the end-user needs or wants. I don't know what focus group Sun and OO.o are using, but they need to FIRE them. Lotus SmartSuite would be the perfect focus group. Then, just offer IBM an offer IBM wouldn't refuse, all for the sake of propelling Linux forward to the END-USERS.
I guess, to be balanced, I'll grant Sun & OO.o THIS possibility: They're evolving sloooowwwly. Slowly enough to buy time that IBM might actually not give a shit what Sun and OO.o rip from SmartSuite. By then, -if they take 5 more years to mimic what I NEED that exists in SmartSuite, it won't matter because Win4Lin might be part of the Kernel, or Wine or Cedega or something else will render my tears dry and moot.
I bitch and moan, but not out of selfishness. SmartSuite is a very, very good product. By many accounts, it ought to be neck and neck with orifice, yet IBM and Lotus persist in limiting it to corporate sales, and I hardly EVER see it in Fry's anymore, much less MicroCenter. Worse, IBM and Lotus let the code slip into "maintenance mode", and even as it is with mostly pre-1999 code, it would have been great if IBM/Lotus delineated what was IBM/Lotus-owned and what wasn't, and then donated the code to FOSS teams to improve it and allow IBM to reap some of the code.
Instead, StarOffice took off, reinvented the wheel, cost us time, spawned into orifice-mimicking OO.o, and we still have half-baked features floating under a name or description that defy logic (my logic, I'll admit). I even showed some hackers/speakers at the Linux/Open Source convention in Portland in 2003 Lotus SmartSuite and a couple databases and forms I made. They were "wowed" a bit, yet nobody of rank and power seems to want to lend Lotus some cred. Probably there is fear that Linux-ized SmartSuite will gut OO.o.
Well, IBM/Lotus and Sun/OO.o ought to collaborate and spawn 2 or 3 products to various markets: Corporate, Small-Business, Non-Profit/Home and GeekLand, with necessary variations in the licensing and such.
All that good code (IBM/Lotus-owned as well as the private-party-owned code that is licensed to IBM/Lotus just languishing, going to waste...
How fitting and funny: word image is: "justness"...
I want to cry...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"