Slashdot Mirror
Open Office Plans To Party Like It's Version 3.0
penguin_dance writes "The Register reports that 'OpenOffice.org is throwing a launch party in Paris on 13 October' to celebrate eight years, and hopefully announce the release of version 3.0. Some notes: [OpenOffice.org 3.0] will support the OpenDocument Format 1.2 standard, and be able to open files created by MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac OS X." As maj_id10t notes, though the OO.o site does not yet carry an announcement, "Lifehacker has posted an entry stating the final release of OpenOffice 3.0 is available for download via their distribution mirrors."
Having made an honest effort for more than a year to switch to something other than MSOffice (removed MSOffice from Vista and installed OpenOffice, also installed NeoOffice on Mac), I have recently gone back to MSOffice.
There is such a huge difference in features and usability that there is no way that OpenOffice would gain any ground over Microsoft, in my opinion.
OpenOffice was an absolute torture. I had originally expected that after moving to OpenOffice, I would be able to convince everyone else in my office to make a move as well (eventually).
I guess that takes care of that.
OO.org works pretty well me but I am not really a big user.
I would love to see a feature list.
Also I would really like to see Base fleshed out. Or at least better documented.
I have tired to play with it but it just makes me nuts.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Like any other piece of software, there are things you feel like you couldn't live without and things you have to get used to. I remember it felt clunky when I first started using it, but that went away very quickly. Some things are more elegant than in MSOffice, some less. I've been using v3.0 for a while now (beta and fc releases), and I like it quite a bit. One of the big clunkinesses, the graphical depiction of comments/notes, is now very nice. There are still some screen rendering oddities that don't get in my way but do contribute to the impression of clunkiness. On the whole, I imagine it's still clunkier than its commercial counterpart, but the gap is narrowing. However, I rarely edit documents that are more than a few hundred pages long, and I know many of OO's critics say that its shortcomings are especially obvious if you work on long documents. So I can't comment on that.
How has MSOffice come along in the same time? Is pdf writing integrated now? Do files still bloat to ridiculous sizes on repeated editing?
I'm tired of Mac users saying open source programs look ugly. Instead of whining why not open up photoshop and design something better?
You're obviously some kind of designer since you use a Mac so why not make a mock up and get someone to make it into an interface?
Correct me if I'm wrong,but doesn't Open office have a VBA converter? I remember awhile back when I was using Star Office that they had one and since Star Office is based on Open Office I figured they both had it.
That said I never really got the whole embedding code in a document bit. It seems like if your users got used to having code running in a document that it would be a lot easier to pass them a .doc filled with nasty exploits,and why not just,you know,build a damned app to do the job? We've had VB6 and VB.NET for years and both can whip off an app pretty damned quick. And then you aren't tied to a document reader/writer simply to run your code.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm sure they invited all those open source contributors, right?
interface diversity is much less like the borg than the interface consistency of os x, is it not?
Look at issue 43029.
Notice that it is classified as a feature request rather than a bug and its target milestone is only 3.2, despite being first created more than three years ago, having over 200 votes, and numerous comments on this issue and its various duplicates showing how it's a complete showstopper for using most professional grade fonts with PDF export.
This bug has become the standard counter-example in on-line discussions to all the OSS advocacy that claims many eyes make all bugs shallow, products will naturally develop according to users' needs because people can contribute their own patches, etc.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Then, as a pretty sharp Unix programmer, why don't you make a better looking interface? I think his point still holds water.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Know what I enjoy when I'm using a piece of productivity software like OpenOffice? Getting my work done so I can go do something else.
The computer is a tool. Especially when using something like office productivity software. I don't sit around pondering the color scheme of my screw drivers, or whether or not my wrenches "go with" my hammer. Likewise, I don't spend time contemplating the visual attractiveness of OpenOffice. It lets me get my work done, that's good enough as far as I'm concerned.
Maybe not
And if you want something native, Apple has iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
Meh. I use Keynote as my main presentation software, but I am thinking of switching back to PPT. It is very easy to use, and looks great, but when you're going to a conference, you end up exporting to PPT anyway, and then you have to edit that PPT in Powerpoint to fix all the things that didn't make the jump. It's wonderful if you're sure that your laptop is going to work perfectly.
BUT
Pages is useless. No, I don't really mean that... It has a lot of nice features. I love the layout of the way it handles comments and changes for collaborative document creation. I like its styles sidebar (unlike the tiny little shitty "Inspector" in Word). It has a very nice, non-obtrusive-but-powerful UI (as one would expect, from Apple). But it just plain can't do tables for shit. This, actually, is also why I didn't use OO.o on Windows, and why I couldn't switch to Linux when I got off Windows. Nothing does tables with the power and flexibility of Word.
And Numbers? Seriously, now. It's a toy. And, worse still, it follows that evil design philosophy that says spreadsheets are a way to make pretty tables. They aren't. They're calculating and information manipulation machines. When I'm in Excel, there's no mistaking the fact that I'm working with information. I only engage the formatting tools to keep information straight. They should never be fronted.
Finally, however, what prevents iWork from being a viable alternative to MS Office is the same thing that stymies OO.o: It isn't MS Office. It just plain makes no sense to use these products in any context where someone else might need to work on them. Unless you ran a company and could set the standard, neither are a real option. I get away with using Keynote, but that's it.
Both iWork and OO.o have some really compelling features that I miss in MS Office, but ultimately, MS Office runs the world. And I, at least, am forced to live in the world.
YMMV.
It should be noted that OO.o is not especially OSS-ish in terms of its history and evolution. OpenOffice is Sun's FOSS release of code(starting in 2000) from Staroffice, which Sun acquired with its purchase of StarDivision in 1999. In StarDivision's hands, the StarOffice line goes as far back as a word processor running on a Z80 with CP/M.
.doc and friends is quite nice to have; but my hopes are greater for the OpenDocument format that OpenOffice helped bring about than for OpenOffice itself. Unlike the case of FF vs. IE, were IE sucked horribly and encouraged nonstandard web development, OO.o vs. Word is important because .doc is a proprietary mass of lockin, and standards are needed; but Word is a much more competent product than IE ever was.
I am very grateful that Sun released OpenOffice, having a FOSS way to interact with
You must be a project manager.
Perhaps they're using the classical definition of "release candidate" (this is a candidate for being tagged as the release) instead of the newer usage equating to "late beta".
Sounds like the PDF import plugin is still beta regardless.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
When you live within an office suite for nine hours out of twenty-four, six days out of seven, you should find a new job.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Nothing does tables with the power and flexibility of Word....worse still, it follows that evil design philosophy that says spreadsheets are a way to make pretty tables.
I'm confused -- your complaint is that the word processor won't let you build pretty tables, but also that the spreadsheet does?
It just plain makes no sense to use these products in any context where someone else might need to work on them.
If you can, it absolutely makes sense.
There was a time when there were some competing products, and they had some compelling features, but it just plain made no sense to use anything other than Internet Explorer.
Firefox changed all that. And the Web is a lot more interoperable because of it.
That said:
YMMV.
Indeed. In fact, some people are still tied to IE -- even just an IETab in Firefox -- because of that one last website that won't work.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It's true that the world runs MS Office, however that's the corporate world. Small companies rarely have the need to export their internal documents to the outside world. So, OO.o is fine in that case.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I've come to a conclusion about those who say "write a patch" if you say there's a problem with something. Either they truly don't understand just how powerfully it turns people off from using their software, or they do know and it's an intentional "fuck you" to those they decide are "outsiders."
Either way, the outcome is the same: They actively drive users away, in FOSS's case back into the comforting arms of Microsoft. It creates a rift between reality and the developer's perception of reality, which results in the project not moving towards progress but orthogonally to it, or worse away.
And here enlies the problem with the "write a patch" types: I gaurantee you I can find an aspect of your computer you aren't an expert at, and you'd be pissed at me if I threw it in your face when you asked for help. Your accountant doesn't tell you to fix your own damn tax problem, the mechanic doesn't derisively laugh because you don't know how to re-gap your own spark plugs, and as a user of FOSS I'd prefer not being snidely mocked just because I don't dedicate hours a day learning your little corner of it. For all the egalitarianism of FOSS, there is still fundamentally a business relationship between the programmers and the users. Until we learn that and put a lid on the "write your own patch" people, it will never equal proprietary software except for a handful of diamonds in the rough.
Why so thorny? Because I've been a recipient of that attitude a few times. And not even my hardcore nerd's reverse tact filter could stop it from getting under my skin.
I don't sit around pondering the color scheme of my screw drivers
Unless you want to be able to find the right screwdriver in your set. In that case, you might want to label the handles like Craftsman does for its precision screwdrivers: one color for standard, one for Torx, and one for Phillips. Feel free to draw your own analogies to being able to find things in a GUI.
While I agree that the grandparent is engaged in some first-rate asshattery, I'd just like to make one comment. You say:
Your accountant doesn't tell you to fix your own damn tax problem, the mechanic doesn't derisively laugh because you don't know how to re-gap your own spark plugs
The difference here is that you are paying your accountant and your mechanic for their expertise. Most of the people who receive comments along the lines of 'write a patch' have not contributed anything. On the Free Software project I co-run, we have a designer on the core team. He provides a lot of really high-quality artwork and some good UI ideas. If he comes to me with a feature request, then it goes quite high on my TODO list. Why? Because he's contributed to the project in ways that I am incapable of replacing with my own effort. I recently refactored a big chunk of my code to make it more reusable for someone else. Why? Because at the same time as asking me to, he sent me a diff fixing a few of my bugs.
Free Software is about cooperation. I only benefit from sharing my improvements if other people do as well. We both benefit from not having to reproduce the other's work, and so can get on with things we want to do much faster. If you want something done, then you have to convince me that it's in my interest to do it for you, usually by offering something in return. Whether this is code, artwork, documentation, or money is up to you. If you don't offer anything then the reply will be 'patches welcome' which means either offer me something of value in exchange for my time, or offer someone else something and get them to send me the patch.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News