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KOffice 2.0.0 Now Open For Firefox-Like Extensions
jakeb writes "After a massive three-year development effort KOffice 2.0.0 has been released (packages for Kubuntu are available) aiming to be a lightweight, cross-platform office suite that supports third-party apps and extensions. With its new design (everything, including the core components, is a module) and bindings, you don't need to know C++ to hack on KOffice, as extensions can be written in Python or Java, among others. TechWorld has an interview with KOffice marketing coordinator Inge Wallin about the vision for an easy-to-use office suite that supports click-to-install extensions like Firefox. Will this be the key to KOffice rising above all other free office suites? The KOffice devs think so. An online repository of extensions, templates, and content for KOffice? I like the sound of that."
From TFA:
Our goal for now is to release a first preview of what we have accomplished. This release is mainly aimed at developers, testers and early adopters. It is not aimed at end users, and we do not recommend Linux distributions to package it as the default office suite yet.
Why don't they release this version as KOffice 2.0 BETA? Funny that they put the 0.0 number to kind of "inform" that it is the very very first version...
It seems to me that it is official, Open Source .0 versions = beta
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Sweet! Now I can block ads in documents!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
They are all completely different. Gnome Office isn't really even a suite. It's just Abiword and Gnumeric. OpenOffice doesn't need to be "ported" to Gnome or KDE. It doesn't use QT or GTK but that doesn't make it inoperable on a KDE or Gnome desktop.
Time makes more converts than reason
Sorry, this is wrong. KOffice is *from* KDE (i.e. the KDE community). It's for all major desktops, including Gnome.
But yes, it is a different code base than the others.
Then, on the other hand, it may take some time because the KDE windows installer is not 100% ready yet. We'll see.
I don't think anyone is expecting KOffice to take over the world. That's really not the point. What the KOffice team has accomplished is creating a set of tools that some people will use and others will extend, and the extensions will bring more users. Making creating useful extensions easy is critical for an open source application - it's how you allow the community to implement needed features without central planning and control. That the KOffice team gets it doesn't need to be derided, they should be congratulated, and now that I have a word processor & spreadsheet I can extend, I'm going to have some real fun. Oh, and saying there is nothing novel here, well, you need to go read up a little. The KOffice team has done a yeoman's job on this one.
-- $G
Sorry to disturb the conversation you're having with yourself. But the Windows stuff is pretty good. There is a special windows installer utility that is like a package manager. The Windows stuff can't be 100% because of things like DBUS are lacking, but there may have been some work done to make it close to work. But it's all based on Qt which does a very good job of maintaining compatibility. It's going to be those platform-specifics that get you.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Bloat for you and me is a necessary feature for someone else, and vice-versa. The real issue is this: is the interface intuitive enough to not overwhelm the user, and is it spaghetti code or modular enough that unneeded/unused parts do not have to be loaded into RAM at run time?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
What's with this obsession people seem to have with extensions all of a suddenly. I don't want to manage a pile of extensions all the time I want all the core functionality built in. I don't care too much about bloat, memory is dirt cheap and even the lowest spec (desktop) machine I would ever use now is more than a match for a full on office suite. I can't help feeling this is yet another situation where choice and configurability is being touted as a good thing when actually it's a problem because there is simply too much of it.
IMHO the worst feature of Firefox is extensions. It's great that you can tailor it to your own needs but the constant updates (colourful tabs I'm looking at you) drive me round the bend and a fresh install on a machine means half an hour finding and downloading all those extensions again. Perhaps it would be more acceptable if there was a way of just indicating that updates should be automatically installed and providing a simple list of extensions to install on first execution.
The other problem I find with extensions is the way they break package managers. Hopefully as KOffice is a core package there will be some common sense applied. If you look at the Eclipse packages some extensions are packaged but most aren't pretty much defeating the whole point of using the distro package repository (and they are horribly out of date).
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Open Office is a large, very feature completeness attempt at replacing MS Office. It does very good import/export and is very cross platform, making it a good general solution if you have lots of RAM (512 MB +). OO.Org has fairly good Gnome integration, not sure on KDE.
KOffice is done by the KDE team, it is designed around the KDE libraries and as such it integrates very well. KOffice2 makes very good use of KDE4 allowing for a very nice interface of docking/floating toolbars and widget manipulation boxes (don't know a better word for it). I actually REALLY like the interface for KWord2.
GNOME Office is simply a collection of applications that use the GNOME libraries (or used to be anyway). It is Gnumeric (my favorite Linux spreadsheet, and Abiword, the best truly lightweight word processor I have used, maybe Dia (diagramming counts as a part too?). It does not feel at all like an Office suite, just some nicely done programs.
I personally use Open Office in GNOME, and KOffice on KDE, occasionally using Gnumeric on either because I like it.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The KOffice team has done a yeoman's job on this one.
Dammit. Now you've got me thinking about Janice Rand again !
Squirrel!
Right. I can see her now. Short uniform, cut low on top, exposing her cleavage as she leans over her walker.
My experience with cross platform dev so far between KDE and Windows, is that the functionality of widgets works well, but you have a lot more flexibility with KDE to change the look and feel. Its a great solution really, I can make something on my enjoyable-to-use Linux box and then spend as little time as possible getting something to work on Windows for those who don't know what dev is short for.
(Not the GP, but...) I can't argue with your first paragraph. KOffice's implementation of ODF, while improved dramatically in this release, is not fully compatible with OOo, and that's a pain in the ass.
Having said that, though, I'm really glad that KOffice isn't "joining the club with .doc and .xls." OOo seems to concentrate entirely on interoperability, and in a way they suffer for it. Whatever else OOo is, it ain't "cool" or "fun." KOffice, OTOH, has been focusing this development cycle on some pretty radical changes, both in the interface and the codebase itself. You know, actually developing software. I know this is a radical concept wrt office suites, but it's true.
If you haven't used the 2.x branch yet, you should at least have a look. It's unlike any other office suite. I don't like all the changes, it might not be your cup of tea, and it's a work in progress, but for cryin' out loud, at least somebody's trying. God knows it's not OOo.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Allow plugins, and somebody is bound to do it, plunging the FOSS world into a deep and evil darkness.