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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."
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.
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)