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OpenOffice.org 2.3 Review
Peace Frog writes passed us a link to an in-depth review of the newest version of OpenOffice. Instead of just the normal bug fixes, 2.3 has added several new features. Examples include: "A bunch of new and enhanced features like restoring the user-defined movement path in Impress and applying better default print settings in Calc. Check the release notes for complete information from OpenOffice.org. A significantly different chart tool. New extensions provided by Sun and other vendors. You will need to run 2.3 for the extensions to work. Read more about the new extensions on the OpenOffice.org web site." The general impression from the review is that the OO team is doing an excellent job of responding to feedback from previous releases.
The thing that made Microshaft Word the market winner was the integration. Regardless how much developers hate OLE, it did the job. You could take a data object from any other app and throw it in and it kind'a worked. It was not anywhere good enough from the perspective of a professional, but it was enough as far as Joe Average was concerned.
What continues to make OO on non-windows platforms a losing proposition is the lack of such APIs. Even if the GUI and underlying libraries supports them OO continues to do things of its own (not surprising considering Sun's involvement). KDE embedding and full integration, gnome integration, etc. There are present in a very rudimentary fashion. As a result OO continues to be limited to a universe of its own. This hinders both its development and the development of third party aps like Dia. It also at the end of the day puts it firmly into the niche proposition area. Until this is resolved this is exactly where it will belong. Sad...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
No, but it is too bad you have no clue what developing and releasing a project the size of OO involves.
If you had any class whatsoever, you'd be thinking that it is nice that this free project is being improved (not to mention released in the first place), and as such provides you with an opportunity to leverage other people's work to reduce your own workload.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Mod parent up. Ive had the same issues with a company-wide rollout of Thunderbird replacing outlook. While 99% of the people have switched (its been a couple of years now), the #2 question (right behind "where's my calendar?") has been "how do I drag and drop this embedded mpeg movie that I stuck into a powerpoint slide onto my email? nono, in with the words not an attachment." ... as much as that "tight integration" turns the stomache of any IT guy worth half his paycheck, the users expect it even if it doesnt work very well.
I for one appreciate the fact that Open Office is there as an option. It is being run on every system in my home with no complaints. Thanks to all of the people working on it.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Come on. From the perspective of the developer, nothing is free. Time has value, if nothing else. One can spend it in ways other than developing software. But to the user, in this case the software is available at no cost, and that is the sense I was using "free" in, as I think you (and everyone else) know very well. The fact that software costs the developer something, and then is given to the end user, is precisely the reason that any reasonable person would see value in, and be positive about, such a transmission of work product.
I certainly would if they gave it to me without charging me money, yes. I might think so anyway, if it saved me more than it cost me.
Heck, I think it is nice when there's a new and/or improved GIMP or Photoshop, and these, each in a different sense, compete for attention with one of my my own sources of income. It isn't all about who makes more money or higher sales / distribution numbers. To a large degree, it is about what benefits the users receive. YMMV, but that's definitely how I see it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Every release -- even a small point release like this one -- I hope that the OOo developers will add an outline mode to Writer. And every release I'm disappointed. I really like OOo, but this one missing feature keeps me from using it for serious work becuase it makes large document planning and writing production in Writer sloooooow.
And before some n00b who's never written a 200-page document jumps all over me: No, the OOo "Navigator" does not provide an outline mode. It provides something akin to a re-organizable TOC in a floating window, but it doesn't provide the productivity enhancements afforded by inline hierarchical control within the editing window. This is one function that MS Word got right. For example, in Word I can start typing and make a list in normal text, click into "outline mode" and either use a key shortcut or a single click-drag to promote/demote some text to headings (while leaving other items as content), or re-order paragraphs of text or headings. To do the same thing in OOo's Navigator, I need to switch to a different window to reorganize headings, but switch back to the editing window to resume editing content. I also need to switch between two windows to split a heading into two sections, switch back to move it, and switch again to resume composing content -- something I can do with a CR and single mouse-drag in Word.
Word: type, type, drag, type, type, [enter], key-combo, type.
OOo: type, type, switch-window, drag, switch-window, type, type, re-style, switch-window, drag, switch-window, type.
Come on guys, suck up the Not-Invented-Here pride and adopt this one feature that MS got right! Or do it one-better and improve on the similar inline hierarchical editing from FrameMaker+SGML. Or innovate some collapsible tag interface from something like the old HotMeTaL from SoftQuad. (But don't trash the Navigator; it *is* useful for final proofing, just not composition)
-J
I think not...(*poof*)
... I still can't add a word to the dictionary with just one click. Try it for yourself, you'll see. Make a typo, right-click on the word once the squiggly red underline appears. It gives suggestions, and not an "Add" menu -- but a submenu. So me, the uncaring user, just wants to add this to the dictionary. I pick "Add" submenu, then I am faced with a choice. "soffice.dic", "standard.dic" and "sun.dic". Um... what? Why should I care? What happens if I pick the wrong one? Is there a wrong one? Why do I have to make this decision? Screw this, I'm going back to MS Office! (Okay, slight hyperbole with that last.)
Unfortunately, this is a classic example of why open source software designed for mass use needs more contributors familiar with basic usability concepts. This way, end users could spend less time playing with their dics, and more time accomplishing their goals.
Generally, I imagine that it has to do with the fact that word processing files don't carry fonts with them. Even if the file specification were 100% open and implementable, most fonts are licensed in a way that doesn't allow them to be redistributed. As a result, you can only print the document and send paper around, or export to PDF which renders the characters as lines and fills but doesn't include the font information itself.
A desktop publishing package would have the same limitation, I would imagine, except the file formats might enable embedding the fonts (putting the license-compliance burden on the user), or a particular package might come with a standard set of fonts you can count on being available.
Incidentally, OOo also allows for the use of Python and other programming languages as well. However, while it might be my lack of Java-ness, it looks to me like the underlying problem is that the OOo API docs are mindbogglingly poorly organized. Say for instance you have an object of type TextCursor, and want to find out quickly what properties and methods such an object has. So you go into OOo's online API documentation and find the entry for TextCursor -- only to discover that you cannot tell what properties and methods this object provides. The docs show what *interfaces* it has, but while this might be exciting in terms of software architecting and discovering how OOo reuses its own code base, it doesn't offer a lot to anyone simply trying to make use of OOo objects. To actually find the methods and properties for any object, you'd have to click through each and every interface listing, which is hardly convenient or easy to use.
I strongly suspect that a reworking of the API documentation would give OOo a big leg up in terms of third party development.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
...and for most people that's true too - they don't come near LaTeX either!
/.'ers, but not everyone wants to learn a programming language to be able to create a document.
It might be bizarre to many
Where I'm studying mathematics, we write our postgrad reports, essays, assignments in LaTeX.
;-)
:D (though I somehow slipped in).
Word is inefficient for what I need to do. I reckon more university students should learnify it. Bibliographies, indices, TOCs... what more does one need?
I admit it hasn't got the easiest learning curve, but if you're at a postgraduate level, I assume you've got some brains
Couldn't stand the weather