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OpenOffice 2.3 Released
ClickOnThis writes "Surely I'm not the only one who noticed that OpenOffice.org has announced the release of version 2.3! From the website: 'Available for download now, OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an extensive array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it. Plus: It is only with 2.3 that users can make full use of our growing extensions library.' You can download it but be kind and use a P2P client instead, such as bittorrent."
For me, the only two missing features is quicker startup and better performance during use... I couldn't care less about anything else they might add.
Too true, I'm doing all my office type work on windows and MSOffice again because I couldn't stand how slow OpenOffice runs. I'll still download this to try it, but I'm unlikely to use it regularly until they make it somewhat more efficient.
It is always good if someone bothers to post about an application that (s)he is not impressed with (Like you did). But it will help more if users like you give specific examples of what's missing or what's slightly difficult to use etc. In my case, I got so frustrated by the slow loading of documents in MS Office, the ever-so-frustrating virus-scanning of every document, and the lack of flexibility and anti-virus/anti-spyware mess of Windows (I know that the topic is not OSes), that I decided to move to Linux completely (After 5-6 years of dual-booting - Linux for work and Windows for gaming and office documents etc). Surprisingly I haven't had a single format problem in any MS document that I have imported, and I am very happy with my odt documents that I just save as Word doc before sending and nobody has complained. Although I know that I am no power user. So maybe you are saying that OpenOffice is not ready for the power user. But in that case, I would like to know where and why.
I agree, but let's come up with some specific examples for the OOo developers,
:)
1. Use Tango Icons (another example).
2. Ditch the floating toolbars, dock everything by default.
3.1 Simplify the toolbar: only show toolbar icons by default that are used every hour (eg, open, save, bold/italics, etc.). Eg, I haven't tried 2.3 but in Ubuntu 2.2 there's a button to toggle AutoSpellCheck. It's not used that frequently -- move it to a dropdownlist. And then we might even see the OpenOffice.org help button.
3.2 Group toolbar items into tabs (call them the Office Ribbons if you want... the Office Ribbon is just a ripoff of Dreamweaver UI Tabs anyway and I'm sure they borrowed the idea from someone else. Stealing good ideas is a good thing).
4. Don't flicker in the spreadsheet when scrolling through lots of selected cells (eg, select a whole page and scroll)
5. Choose good default graph colours and design. Get gnome's jimmac to pick some... he may be colour blind but that guy knows colours.
6. Grey-out icons with alpha, not with a every-second-pixel-grey mesh.
7. Make better HTML output targetted at profiles of browsers... the current one doesn't understand shadows or borders, and with CSS3 you can support that stuff. For older browsers that don't support CSS3 drop shadows then fake it with nested DIVs or something.
8. Have a strict ISO OpenDocument profile to save documents as... not just ODF 1.0 but check for proprietary stuff all through the document.
9. Don't use Java for ODF... well allow it as an option but come up with some JavaScript syntax (Java is too heavy to type, prefer Javascript/Python/Ruby or something). Use a P4X syntax for accessing a document object.
10. Allow arbitrary border images. Allow acronyms and abbreviations for disabled users.
Some of these are probably addressed in 2.3... sorry for the dups
Sharepoint connects nicely into MS-Office and so does MS-Project. Everything is "interleaved" or whatever I should call it. This doesn't mean that I can't use OO.o or KPlato or something else, but it does mean that its harder for me to do so.
Yes, the filters on OO.o are great, but are they good enough for me or do I have to do some extra work to convert those documents? Most likely there's something that won't work and I'd hate to be the one to explain that I broke document just because I wanted to use OO.o instead of the MS-O that the company provides.
Microsoft is damn good at making sure that it's harder to use competing products than it is to use theirs. Let's hope that the EU will make them open up all specs so that all companies can compete on equal terms.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Yes, I have tried turning off Java and increasing memory. Makes no difference. The problem is this 'adapt row height' thing that it does on opening a workbook. I have some array formulas, and it simply takes forever to get through it. Its not acceptable. The row heights are all defaults in any case, so it must have some other than its literal meaning. There seems to be no information on it, no way to turn it off or find out what it is really doing.
This needs fixing asap, or its not competitive.
This is getting old. In Vista, the UAC elevation process checks the file signature. Since the OOo installer for Windows elevates, it should be signed. So should the actual application binaries, but the installer is particularly problematic.
A code-signing certificate is around $100 per year. This is peanuts for the OOo Foundation.
Mozilla signs their Windows binaries. So do Adobe, Corel, Apple, NVIDIA, ATI, Sun, Microsoft, and thousands of small software companies.
It's faster than their download servers right now, maybe because the story just broke...
As for this release, I'm still a rabid fan of MS Office but when I dual-boot into Linux this is my Office suite (got it under Windows as well). It's nice that MS has some promising competition, even if it's not ready to quite replace MS Office (especially with the advancements made in 2007)
I find this odd. I don't use word processors much, same for spreadsheets. You probably wouldn't catch me even thinking about doing anything with power point.
But when I do need to do something, I find OO.org to be easier to get it done with then MS office is. I have both and I'm not really sure why we are at the exact opposite of the experience unless experience in using the app is the big difference.
I guess it would make sense that someone who isn't as clued in to MS Office might take to something else easier. But for me, OO.org just seems more intuitive and natural when I use it or the features. I have to hunt for things in both products but I tend to locate them and use them easier in OO too.
AFAIK, there is not even a snag list of things to be careful of, that will work on OOo, but will break the sheet on Excel.
As well as formatting and display issues, as far as I remember the most systematic mistake I'd made was using mathematical formulas on ranges of cells including cells that are empty or contain strings. OOo would just treat them as having the numerical value zero, and carry on fine; but on Excel it would make the whole formula return an error.
Going through and debugging this (finding workarounds to make it work on Excel) is something I don't want to have to do again. Because I don't know what other things are there that may then not work on Excel, I no longer use OOo for spreadsheets.
My first discovery on installing OOo 2.3 (for linux) is that Open Document files created in KWord no longer load into Writer correctly -- the default text style turns to Times New Roman, no matter what it was in the original document. Since I work on an old Thinkpad T21 (which takes 30 seconds to load OOo), I tend to use KWord for most of my writing, and only load up OOo if I need to do more complex things like tracking changes or printing A5 booklets. I've filed a bug report, reinstalled 2.2, and now wait to see whether it will be fixed before KWord 2.0 comes out, possibly with the features I'm currently missing.
This is one reason for me: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=66871
I guess since I was the first to report it, it might not be such a big deal, but that's kind of bad...
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Electric Pencil!
In 1976 I was in a computer store owned by a friend, a very nice store in an upscale area.
Someone walked in who I assumed would be asked to leave because he looked so disreputable. He had poor skin and unkempt hair. If you had looked in the dumpsters in that area you could not have found clothing as old and trashy-looking as this man's. (That is not an exaggeration.) Back then you would have called him a bum, because we didn't have homeless people in that area until after Reagan was elected and had a chance to work his corruption.
After a while my friend came over to me, and I asked him why he didn't ask the disreputable person to leave. He said, "That's Michael Schrayer, the man who wrote Electric Pencil!. He may look poor, but he is at least a millionaire."