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A Last Look at ApplixWare
Linux.com (Also owned by VA) is taking a look at the once widely popular office suite, ApplixWare. From the article: "Passed to a subsidiary of Applix called VistaSource that later became independent, ApplixWare was repositioned as a combination of a basic office package and a developer's toolkit running from a common main menu. For a while, it was even renamed AnyWare. Now at version 6, ApplixWare is back to its original name, with versions available for AIX, GNU/Linux, and SPARC Solaris, with earlier versions still supported for Windows and FreeBSD. The trial download for GNU/Linux shows ApplixWare's age, but it also shows a trick or two that its newer rivals might learn from."
Passed to a subsidiary of Applix called VistaSource.....
;-)
I hadn't heard of a subsidiary of Applix called VistaSource.
But a quick google finds that VistaSource is 60% imcomplete
Thank you, thank you - try the salmon.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
-- ac at work
I know after deploying Applix some years back, I do miss having it around. I thought it was simple to use and quite nice for the users. The fact that all my users were on Solaris boxes helped though.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Just imagine if all the work that has been going into cleaning up the behemoth OpenOffice codebase had instead been directed at an open source version of ApplixWare. Maybe the world would be a slightly better place today, but obviously the Applix guys have decided to take their office suite to the grave with them.
I got Applix ware and it got me threw college. The next year they had Word Perfect 7 for Linux so I used that until Jr. Year then I used StarOffice. Applix Ware did have some nice features espectially for publishing. But It wasn't an Office 97 killer but it worked. But if you are using the email client be sure that it is set to delete email on download otherwise it will keep popping the same message over and over again.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
When the alternatives were the Motif or Sunview provided text editors and a Framemaker version that cost about the same as a PC, I guess Applixware might have been "wildly popular" in the same way Yugos might be wildly popular among those who had been waiting for three years for their Trabant to be delivered. Applixware sucked then and it sucks now.
I noticed some time ago that the PowerPC Linux version of ApplixWare had been dropped. Getting them to port to LinuxPPC was a point of pride for me, and the product of my work with ApplixWare's Richard Manly. (Where are you, brother?) It sold fairly well by our standards, and assuming you've still got a LinuxPPC box, ApplixWare 4 is still a very usable package. (I don't know why you would, but you could. ;-)
Much to my surprise, my old comrade señor Carro declared PowerPC dead after our little adventure collapsed, which happened after I left, leaving him alone on the sinking ship. In realistic terms, with Apple's switch to Intel processors, he's right. There's still lots to do with embedded and server PPC, though. Good luck whoever's still working on it; nods to Cort, Ben H, Paul M, Gary T, Dan B and K.S.
-- haaz.
Anyone else notice that Mr. Wittamore's comment is timestamped "By pwittamore (221609) on 2006.04.26 7:45 (#88706)" while the story itself is timestamped "Wednesday April 26, 2006 (08:01 AM GMT)"?
Wittamore apparently posted it fifteen minutes before the story was posted.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
FTFA:
The applications also share a Save dialog -- or "Directory Displayer," as ApplixWare calls it -- with several features that I'd like to see on modern programs, including a complete directory tree, a history, and the ability to set permissions as a file is saved.
While I think a complete directory tree is unnecessary (personally, I think the way GTK 2.6 and KDE/QT handl directories are both fine, with the "bookmarks" along the left side like in Windows XP file dialgs, though I am partial to the GTK 2.6 dialog), I do think that adding the ability to set permissions on a file would be a welcome addition to the GTK 2.6+ dialog box.
My blog
Man, the ApplixWare I used (vintage 1998 or so) made Office 97 look stable. I liked it otherwise, though.
The original company, Applix, has gone through some interesting transformations. After ApplixWare, it focused on CRM for awhile, but has since returned to focusing exclusively on TM1, its OLAP database. Once upon a time, you could buy TM1 for Linux for $100; now, licensing a TM1 server cost 5 figures and the primary platform is Windows (I think there is still some development for HP-UX and maybe one other Unixy platform). It's pricey and somewhat buggy, but has some OLAP capabilities (speed, flexibility, Excel integration) that make it unique.
There's an open-source project PALO with similar features that looks promising. It went 1.0 about a month ago.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
What's next? A distro review of Yggasdril Linux?
with all of the damn graphics and crap on linux.com, you'd think they could have thrown up some screenshots.
Apparantly you didn't go to college either.
thru is not a proper English word. It is a marketingized (yes i know thats not a word but this is business!) version of the correct english word, "through". It was shortened to save space on advertisizing (and therefore money) for places that had "drive-through service".
Is it just really bad spelling and Grammar. Or a comintary on how poor Applix Ware and the others actually are, compared to office.
I think their name has been clearly affected by Microsoft's decision to name their most famous product Windows Vista.
Since VistaSource have existed for years and both Microsoft and VistaSource are software makers, I can almost smell a trademark lawsuit. VistaSource had better hurry up as well. If you don't protect your trademark you will lose it.
LOL. Lrn new inglsh WDY? Hvnt you hrd, old full-inglsh is ded.
Back when I worked for Montgomery Investment Technology we worked on addins to the Applix spreadsheet. The main code was written in C and then called from their ELF language. I remember we had some functions with lots of parameters and it caused all sorts of issues in ELF. At the time, ELF had a limit on the length of the function name and arguments. This called problems with functions like:t ics.htm . We had to have arguments like a, b, c, d, etc. Arg. One thing that was neat was that Applix running the same calculations on a linux box on pentium 100 was faster then excel on windows nt server running on a ppro 200.
http://fintools.com/WebHelp/index.html?bondsanaly
-Ack
-- soldack
It is super fast to load and run. I remember buying and running it long time ago in mid 90s. Liked it quite a bit. Then in next couple of years came StarOffice (now OpenOffice). Which was bloated, slow but feature rich. Anyway, it is interesting to see that Applixware is still hanging out there.
I wish, they'd release either a more modern binary package, or the source code so that a proper port could be made...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I see this as a reminder that what we often need is a fast, simple, but reasonably featured word processor without all the overhead of OpenOffice, etc. Perhaps something like Wordpad (just not crippleware) for Open Office, that will fork a full version of Open Office writer if it can't read a file. Something that would handle most casual office documents, or get most students through at least the first part of college, something with a spell checker, basic table support, margin control, maybe even embed simple charts or graphics.
Ike
p.s. it of course must write MS format files or else interchange is always a problem
http://www.abisource.com/
I had Applix 5 years ago and didn't end up using it as my primary office suite. I've often wondered what it had evolved into, but I always figured that I wouldn't be willing to pay enough to find out.
Turns out, though, that it's now apparently downloadable for multiple platforms, though I haven't seen the EULA yet (I'm gonna download it now and we'll see what the license terms are...)
Link to download page is here.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
> I do think that adding the ability to set permissions on a file would be a welcome
> addition to the GTK 2.6+ dialog box.
I'm afraid the first questions a GNOME developer would ask is "Does Windows have that? Does Apple do that? Would idiots know what it is useful for?" Then you would be laughed at and the proposal ignored. File permissions are a 'legacy UNIX' thing and have no place in a 'modern graphical environment'. Which is why I'd dearly love to see some UNIX folk get together and rethink a desktop for UNIX instead of our current fashion of imitation Mac/Windows.
It was clear Applix was designed as a UNIX app. It encouraged a 'toolkit' approach, even allowing bash scripts to populate spreadsheet cells. It has its odd bits but I have to give it props for being the closest thing to a true UNIX graphical 'office suite' written to date. My previous laptop had a copy installed but this one doesn't, too much trouble installing ancient compat libs. But my boss still has a copy on hers to access the documents created with it.
(And no, STFU you KDE fanboi waiting to pounce into the conversation because KDE is just as bad only different. GNOME wants to clone the guts of Windows with a braindamaged Mac like face while KDE wants the Windows look and whatever plumbing TrollTech delivers.)
Democrat delenda est
Last time I looked Windows had file permissions as well, in the form of ACLs. I wish people like you would stop being hysterical about one GUI environment looking like another GUI environment, so fucking what if it looks like Windows or MacOS, funnily enough the vast majority of people who use computers use Windows or Macs and a familiar interface can't hurt in the quest to supplant them. It's not like Apple didn't originally license their interface from Xerox and it's certainly not like Microsoft haven't nicked ideas from everywhere to create their interface. At the end of the day though you don't have to use either GNOME or KDE so why don't you and the three other people here who think Unix should remain pure and not ever use anyone else's ideas just STFU.
The "Anyware" version of the Applixware office suite sported a Java front end (in lieu of Windows or X-Windows). So all of their applications (word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, charting, database, email, ...) were Java enabled, offering all of the functionality of the applications since the back end was Applixware based. Thus, the word processor had spell checking, theasurus, foreign dictionaries, footnotes, change bars, embedded objects, style guides, ... And this was all available 5+ years ago.
Jesus H. Christ in a sidecar carrying a crutch and bouncing on a pogo stick, if that's "just works" then I'd seriously hate to see what "works with some difficulty" looks like...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'd dearly love to see some UNIX folk get together and rethink a desktop for UNIX
... AIX probably, too?
Just wondering, why wouldn't you get SunOS? Isn't that what Solaris was, prior to them shitcanning CDE in favor of Gnome as a window manager? It certainly seems like the likely contender for the "graphical UNIX" honor. I guess you'd have to share credit with all the CDE platforms: SunOS, HP-UX
I guess it's arguable that there's some Windows/MacOS influence in CDE, but when you look at the list of companies that were involved, it was pretty much done by your big-iron UNIX standbys; no real friends of Microsoft or Apple. (I suppose you could perhaps link it to Windows via IBM and OS/2, though.)
I never used CDE, but it just seems like 'a GUI by UNIX gurus' has come and, depending on how you look at it, gone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
> Last time I looked Windows had file permissions as well, in the form of ACLs.
.desktop files. They are executable (by nautilus and friends) yet lack both the #! that other 'script like' files of it's sort would normally have AND can invoke executable content without having the x bit. When called on it their reaction is a big yawn, file bits are so old UNIX we can't be bothered with that. On many GNOME versions you can't even see what is IN a .desktop file without invoking a shell. They are allowed to present their choice of icon AND caption text without any sanity checks.
True enough, but only admins appear to be supposed to use them. In theory Windows users could get just as much use out of them as us UNIX folk but their customs and usages don't encompass anything related to security. And neither does GNOME. Look at
> so fucking what if it looks like Windows or MacOS, funnily enough the vast majority
> of people who use computers use Windows or Macs and a familiar interface
The look too often implies the underlying broken assumptions from those broken systems. Ideas that underpin the mindset that graphical is always good, the UNIX toolset is deprecated legacy baggage and that if a command line is needed for ANYTHING it is a flaw. What part of "if I was the sort of IDIOT who wanted a TV like click n drool interface I'd buy a fucking Mac" do you fail to grasp? I like the more literate UNIX interface and would like to see that intelligently extended to a graphical interface where it makes sense.
Democrat delenda est
I understand where you are coming from and it without code these kinds of suggestions will be shot down but you miss an important detail. With a bit of luck you would be pointed to the standard File Chooser API and told you can write your own drop in replacement file dialog if you just make sure it complies to the API. The Nokia 770 does this.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And what part of don't use KDE or GNOME if you don't like them are you failing to grasp?
I bought ApplixWare in 1996 or 1997 from Red Hat. They had a price reduction back then, making it affordable for me. (Red Hat accidentally charged the full amount to my credit card, maxing it out. But that was corrected quickly.)
After being frustrated by Word 6.0 for a few years, this was heaven. No more crashes.
I still have it on my hard disk, but it's been years since I last used it.
WWTTD?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.