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Looking Back On a Year of LibreOffice
superapecommando writes "Simon Phipps, former head of open source at Sun and a backer of LibreOffice, looks at a tempestuous year for the OpenOffice fork. 'Once framed as an impetuous fork, LibreOffice has become the standard-bearer for the former OpenOffice community,' he says. 'It's far from perfect, of course. New open source projects never are and volunteer projects lack the corporate resources to make it look otherwise. But I have no doubt that it's working.'"
LibreOffice and OpenOffice both still seem really heavy. Java probably has something to do with it, but they just aren't nice to use. On top of that the UI starts to get kind of old.. I started using Office 2010 just lately and I have to say I love the Ribbon interface. It keeps useless stuff out of the screen and is fast and pleasant to use. It takes some time to get used to, but once you do there's no going back to the old clumsy interfaces.
I agree with the Heavy and the Java bit - But no, I do not want a ribbon!
I use OO
Customisable toolbars = yes but a ribbon and no menu - No thank you.
. .
As much as MS products disgust me in general, I have to agree they didn't fail too hard on Office 2010 (Well, I use Office 2011 for Mac when I use Office, but...). I also agree that LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org feels kinda clunky and gross. I use them all the time on Linux and OpenSolaris, but... damn, does OpenOffice make my old SunBlade 1500 crawl. And they're not that much better on a new Core i5 laptop running Debian. I don't care about the startup lag inherent in JVM bootstrapping, but I feel like they're crushed under the weight of legacy code from the StarOffice days or something. I use Java apps all the time, even god-forsaken Oracle Java apps (SQLDeveloper, anyone?) and it's not this bad. I wish them the best of luck, but I'd really rather use iWork at this point, if I'm going to use a 'productivity suite.'.
Of course, Real Programmers use vim + LaTeX + maybe Slidedown for these purposes.
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
I have to agree about the heft. But I prefer the "old" style interface. I had to install Office 2007 to interact with some clients and I am completely lost. I've been using word processors since the C64 days, but this is the first time I decades that I have stared blankly at a program and had to click on every menu/button/active splotch trying to find out how to turn on Track Changes.
Of course, people can get used to the interface and maybe following the mythical transition, I will be enamored with its interface glory. But it just seems different for difference's sake...like .docx and .xlsx where.
To the LibreOffice folks, you really need to do a top-down performance/memory analysis. I like it and will continue to use it, but I don't see why it needs to be the resource hog it is.
Your user account is getting heavy and old. Cgeys > zget > mig42 > tech4. You astroturfers are disgusting.
I give this fuck you a +1.
Java is only used for the Base database utility and a number of new document wizards plus a few other minor bits. The rest of LibreOffice has no Java components, so Java has nothing to do with normal usage of the word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool or drawing programs. Ribbon use is subjective. Like many others, I hate it. It's clumsy and harder to find what you need.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
The Office 07" onwards transition is hard for a month but it is actually better afterwards, you wouldn't think that prior though I didn't!
As for libre, having several themes would be a good start, at least make it look as good as office 2003. Simple things on ui design could really help e.g. common functions for common activities, such as in calc when you autofill having a MS office style icon pop up allowing you to change it (a common one I need is to fill with weekdays only on a date range, sooo hard in calc, and so basic in MS office).
He's right, though. I use OpenOffice quite a bit, and will probably transition to LibreOffice soon... but it needs a UI revamp. It feels a little clunky and old. It's stable and works well; I use it instead of Word because Word started flakes out when you get 100+ pages of text and charts and graphs.
Strip out the Java, modernize the ui. It doesn't need to have a ribbon, although the ribbon is a perfectly fine ui element. Now... Calc needs a lot of work. While Write is a great replacement for Word, Calc is FAR from a complete replacement for Excel.
What am I doing wrong then that LibreOffice feels positively snappy on my Thinkpad with a T7400 core 2 duo running Ubuntu 11.10? I stick mostly to Calc and Writer. Is the problem elsewhere?
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The org I work for shells out for MSDN subscription for me. I get Office 2010 for FREE and still use LibreOffice. My needs are simple and do not include learning a new interface.
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
I do agree it feels really heavy, and on my old shitty work pc its frankly unusable, though its a old shitty work pc
I agree no ribbon please. Instead, how about being able to print to a printer on 8.5x11 paper without causing the Ricoh printer at my work to think it is a improper paper size (despite all the settings claiming it is: with double checking printer and page-layout settings). At least I can export it to a pdf and print the pdf with any pdf viewer with no problem (I don't even have to tweak the page scaling for it to print properly so it must be some OO.o & LibbreOffice bug) just wish I did not have to do these extra steps for myself, and teach co-workers the work arounds.
After seeing a post on here, Ive switched to Lotus Symphony, which I have been much happier with. It feels like a much better replacement to me, and I now use it full time over Open or Libre Office.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
Why don't you go and say that to a group of, say, a half dozen of these genetically inferior niggers, and then kick all their arses when they come at you? Hell, I'd pay to watch that.
Just make sure your health insurance is paid up, because you'll be on it for the rest of your life.
A mountain lion is genetically inferior to a man. But the mountain lion would win a fair fight against a man. And the ebola virus is genetically inferior to a man, but the ebola virus would destroy the man's health with ease. This proves nothing. It is an appeal to force. It is false "might makes right" non-logic.
See this is the problem with you libs who insist that everybody is completely equal despite the staggering evidence to the contrary. None of you know how to articulate a point. None of you understand the most basic things about logic and reason. You just get all hypersensitive and emotional and you think your venomous passion makes you correct. Like a menstruating woman, you think anything you feel so strongly about must be right. Well go put a tampon in there because you're full of shit and couldn't possibly take me on in any kind of factual debate.
If anything you are proving that the niggers are violent and savage. That doesn't make them evolved and advanced. It makes them primitive and stupid. That was already obvious. Just visit any inner-city American ghetto. They kill each other constantly. Black on black crime is far higher than white on black crime has ever been. Oh by the way. Those same niggers you defend and love so much? Go into their ghettos sometime. You think they will reward your loyalty? Nope. They will be quite hostile to any "cracka" they see. Your liberal love of niggers won't stop them.
Excell 2007 is way better than 2003, what locks people into the ribbon interface. After a bit of using (and changing the default configuration) most people get used to the ribbon and stop being inconvenienced, but I still think it is not better than the old menus in any way (and for other applications - e.g. AutoCad - lack of hierarchy is killer).
Rethinking email
Maybe someone with more real-world experience using Java can clarify this for me.
When I look into Java's performance, I see lots of cases where it's "nearly as fast as compiled C/C++ code" etc. The (narrowly-defined) numbers do look pretty good. Yet I have a similar experience: most applications I use which are partially or wholly written in Java feel slow, particularly in terms of UI responsiveness.
Is this actually a contradiction? Is there anyone who incorporates Java into a major desktop application and (in terms of performance) does it well?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The ribbon is extremely logical. If you want to edit , i.e, REVIEW a document, you click on the review tab, and you get the review ribbon. There is a great BIG button labeled track changes. The ribbon makes some things small if you use a crappy screen, but on a HD screen, all the buttons are quite large and clearly labeled. Spend some money on a 22" or larger screen. They are worth it. I use a 25.5" 1920x1200 LCD and wish I had a second one.
I know, right? I mean, how dare someone have an opinion and then go so far as to utter it in the comments on a weblog. The nerve!
You prefer the ribbon interface? That sort of response is not surprising. Not everyone likes the ribbon - I loathe it and would love for its designers to never have a job in software again - and right now, LibreOffice hasn't been infected with it, and I would like to keep it that way.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Seriously, this is what you answer with when I criticize product honestly and constructively? You honestly think that for example Microsoft would response to my suggestions with a "fuck you"? They would thank me for my input. It's no wonder open source isn't going anywhere if the answer to any criticism is "fuck you".
Sometimes, a decision must be made in terms of which side on which to err. The decision that is made says a lot about the character of the person.
I like the idea of "better for ten guilty men to go free, than for one innocent man to be punished." I really do think the latter is a much greater injustice, particularly since karma (or something like it) is very real. Others have a completely opposite viewpoint. Apparently you have encountered one of those. They would rather hassle you in case you might be an astroturfer/fanboy/etc. They haven't much concern for whether you are a real person expressing a genuine preference.
I'd rather treat you with more civility than that, knowing that you might possibly be dishonest, knowing that you might deserve to receive a hard time that I won't end up giving to you. In the absence of absolute evidence, that's how I like to do things. I'd rather you feel like you pulled one over on me. That doesn't matter to me. But it would bother me to realize that I might have been less-than-courteous to someone who really was honestly representing a real opinion.
When in doubt, I know where I stand. Apparently the other responder does as well.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
It's no wonder open source isn't going anywhere
That's some pretty serious denial you got going on there.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
i was like you, cursing office '07
then, after about 4 months, I realized, much as I hate to admit it, much as it pains me...for most things it is better
however, for my particular needs, which include a lot of graphs in excel, and pasting a lot of pictures into word, there are two features i really miss (well, alot)
in excel, if you want error bars on the data points in a graph, it is impossible to get the x error bars..this used to be easy; i have a great download from one of the mvps that fixes this
second, if you paste a picture into word, and then want to group it with another picture or a textbox, its a nightmare (something to do with half way implemented graphics engines in word that differ from ppt and excell)
the funniest thing tho, is if you go no more then one or two layers deep, you get the same clunky commands that have been there since at least office2000 like the organizer for styles; ugh !!
(and don't even get me started on the need to select all, shift F9 twice to get the auto TOC and TOF to update properly.....double Ug!!
or, worst of all if you need to do a scattergram in excel, where the x axis is (say) numbers 1,2....n if the cells containing the numbers are not properly formatted the graph reverts to a line graph (so, on he x axis, 1 3 9 are spaced at distances 1,2,3 units from teh origina instead of 1,3,9 units from the origin) and excel doesn't tell you this and there is no indication that your cellls are wrong and the only way to fix it is error checking....
triple ugh FUBAR
I switched immediately after the fork and have been really happy. I had to use NeoOffice before because OpenOffice is completely unusable on MacOSX.
over the years, I've downloaded open/libre 3 or 4 times, and each time I come to the same conclusion: it just isn't anywhere near as good as MS office; fewer features, not as well organized, etc. and I just checked, on ebay you can get a office 2003 suite for ~40$ +S&H, which considering you will use it every day for a year or two, ain't much. I admit, sometimes my docs have some formatting, like TOC, TOF, cross refs, paragraph styles, etc, and I do a lot of graphs in excel, so maybe libre just isn't right for me, but I just don't get it. IT just doesn't have the features. am I missing something ?
Your paranoia is showing. You really think those criticisms are out of line? They match up pretty closely with my experience. It's a decent office suite, but there's some aspects that need to be improved. You think anybody that says that is an astroturfer? That's not just weird; that's verging close to actual neurosis.
The criticisms aren't so much out of line. The fact that this poster has a brand new account, gets a regular first post, is almost always critical of open source and praising of Microsoft, and has a pretty much cookie cutter m.o. of the people mentioned in the GP's comment could easily lead a reasonable person to conclude that the entire purpose of the tech4 account is to astroturf. We'll see if this account flames out in a few weeks like the others did only to be followed by a new one with the same 4 or 5 letters and number username combination.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
I still have OOo on my Linux box, and switched my Mac to LibreOffice a month or two ago. I don't spend a huge amount of time in Libre on the Mac, but it worked great for one 250 page spec document and a few smaller pieces.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
How about I don't like it, I don't find it intuitive, and I don't see why you have to kill menus to have a ribbon. What happened to that choice thing? Why do we have to have one or the other?
For years I always installed OpenOffice, but always wound up relying on MS Office because OO was slower, only about 85% compatible in terms of opening and saving files, and just generally wasn't as good. And as good as WINE is, running the MS product on Linux is not always easy or fast.
When I upgraded Ubuntu to natty LibreOffice came with it. I can honestly say that I haven't opened up Excel or Word for weeks. LO opens all of my existing files, with formatting unchanged, and works flawlessly. Plus it has that glorious one button PDF export, which in the past was so good that I would write in Word, save, and then open in OO just to use it.
For most people who use a lot of Word or Excel, but not the more exotic functions, I'd say try LibreOffice. It's fast, and does great job. It's what OO always tried to be, but failed.
Disclaimer: I still miss WordPerfect 5.1 and Reveal Codes.
Three Squirrels
I've often wondered if anyone has ever thought about splitting libre into a personal and a professional version. Honestly, I think you could strip out 60% of it and it would serve most average users quite well for home use. There's menus I've never even looked under personally. It's got a good team, and lots of support. Not sure why they couldn't at least consider it. Sort of like what firefox was to mozilla when it first started, back when it was under a 10mb download, not the near 30mb it is today.
I've use OpenOffice ever since it got good enough to be used. Never missed MS Office (except MS Office 97, the best Office anyone ever made - but it was so good it just HAD to go the way of the Vista). Now on Libre Office, because that's what comes with Ubuntu (I deleted Windows - have Linux on all my computers, yay!, so even if they make Office 97 work with the latest doc formats, it's no longer an option). Also, if MS does something really dumb (which is their mantra anyway, even though they call it "innovation" in their marketspeak) and I can't open a document, I just tell Google to do it for me. Too bad I'm too busy AND stupid to contribute to Libre Office, 'cause I'm sure it could use some optimizations here and there so it rivals Office 97's efficiency and speed.
Java is relatively easy language to get into and it's the language of choice for most colleges around the world. As a result, there are a LOT of Java coders who know enough programming to create something that appears to work but don't know enough software engineering to create efficient and maintainable code. A good Java application can be very fast but there are more crappy coders and thus crappy applications than with most languages.
Also, Java has improved a lot in the recent years which means that there is a lot of legacy code in the APIs and a lot of pitfalls to be aware of. For example: Java APIs contain classes "URL" and "URI" which appear to be very similar in most ways. The newer one is OK, the older one is a horrible piece of crap (it actually uses the IP that the URL resolves to as a part of the equals-method. So comparing two instances is a slow, blocking operation that may produce unexpected results). Many applications use the old and bad APIs either because they're old themselves or because the coder just wasn't aware of this kind of problems and didn't care enough to find out why the program is slow.
The problem is very similar to that with Flash. I've had to work a lot with Flash but I've got a pretty solid software engineering background and I've noticed that one can actually create rather efficient and powerful applications with the latest version of ActionScript. Most people who use Flash tend to be visual/marketing type of people who know just enough to produce something that appears to work... and the result is heavy and buggy crap.
I was a user of OpenOffice for years (since it was StarOffice). The product was of acceptable quality and functionality .... until Oracle took over. Then LibreOffice was spin-off and what came out was actually WORST. So I stop using them.
One know issue is with both of that they suck at supporting MS office files (it did a much better job before 3.2 and actually got a lot worst on 3.3). But the worst part of all is that the latest release of BOTH distribution have a problem displaying documents (even ODF) correctly. You generate a document, save it and come back later to edit or read and the darn thing does not display the same way twice. I don't know what happened to the development team, but who ever took over (at both projects) is doing and amazing job at making the product crappy and unusable.
Terrified of change – no.
To me, the ribbon is an oversized tool taking up too much space, displaying too much information and has been change for change sake.
When it comes to supporting users. The ribbon is seen by many as a drastic change. The people who it took years to get used to the idea of looking in one place for information now need to get used to looking elsewhere.
I like the idea of a customisable toolbar (much like Office 2007+ Quick Access Toolbar) but coupled with Menus. I want less clutter on my screen, not more.
Menus keep relative functions stored in a neat and accessible way until needed. They encourage the learning of keyboard shortcuts through their underlining and display rather than having to rely on pop ups.
Menus keep relative functions stored in a neat and accessable way until needed. They encourage the learning of keyboard shortcuts through their underlining and display rather than having to rely on pop ups.
. .
Why don't you go and say that to a group of, say, a half dozen of these genetically inferior niggers, and then kick all their arses when they come at you? Hell, I'd pay to watch that.
Just make sure your health insurance is paid up, because you'll be on it for the rest of your life.
So, what you're saying is that blacks are genetically inferior and prone to violence. Hmm, great counterpoint!
I've still yet to use it. For Data acquisition I've got MATLAB. For numerical analysis I've got MATLAB and Octave, never mind other options. For Publishing I've got LaTeX/XeTeX. I'm glad i have it and will start leveraging Calc and more sooner rather than later, but it's not like the old days when Borland Quattro Pro for Engineers and AmiPro for word processing were fighting against Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Word 2.0, etc.
Sorry, I have used it for about 2 months intensively and it has lots of issues. It just can't even save in .doc format in a correct way as files get always corrupted.
As long as there isn't a big development on going, it can't compete with MS Office in at least providng basic features.
I would love to see this stuff go further.
I've had LibreOffice installed on my laptop ever since I bought it last year. I typically use MS Office but I really didn't feel like paying for yet ANOTHER licence of it in addition to the one on my desktop. LibreOffice has been pretty solid for me over this past year, though I wish it had better support for DOCX...
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You honestly think that for example Microsoft would response to my suggestions with a "fuck you"?
No, but MS fanboys do that all the time on discussion boards. Just like happened here. It doesn't make sense to equate a random idiot on a discussion board with the actual developers of the software.
LibreOffice and OpenOffice both still seem really heavy. Java probably has something to do with it, but they just aren't nice to use. On top of that the UI starts to get kind of old.. I started using Office 2010 just lately and I have to say I love the Ribbon interface. It keeps useless stuff out of the screen and is fast and pleasant to use. It takes some time to get used to, but once you do there's no going back to the old clumsy interfaces.
Yes I know this is bordering on flame-bait and is ill-informed at best but for those people who don't know and want to counter comments like this:
From the Fedora 15 DVD (size is in kB):
[root@XXXX Packages]# ls libreoffice* | grep -v libreoffice-langpack | xargs du -sk
7548 libreoffice-calc-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
79896 libreoffice-core-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
653 libreoffice-draw-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm>br> 220 libreoffice-graphicfilter-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
996 libreoffice-impress-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
66 libreoffice-kde-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
1074 libreoffice-math-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
167 libreoffice-opensymbol-fonts-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.noarch.rpm
483 libreoffice-pdfimport-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
619 libreoffice-presenter-screen-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
2399 libreoffice-ure-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
5778 libreoffice-writer-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
198 libreoffice-xsltfilter-3.3.2.2-7.fc15.x86_64.rpm
All up approx 101MB. Of course if you are going to add all the language packs then you will get over 600MB.
Doing something similar for "Java" you get about 50MB, so all up baring language packs you would install approx 152MB. To the Microsoft apologist, "Have you looked at the size of Microsoft Office recently and have you or your work paid for it?".
Liking/loving an interface is purely dependent on the person's perception so this is a reasonable comment. As for LibreOffice being clumsy well that's your opinion, many including me would disagree, especially those people who have to fight with 100 plus page documents which has been mangled by a variety of users actually running Microsoft Office.
Another counter to Microsoft apologists is to look at the size of the updates. Most packages in Linux use ether "apt-get" or "yum" and most updates use what is called "delta's" so the total size of an update would most likely be in the order of 20MB to 30MB. MS Windows updates for LibreOffice are much bigger. Also in the majority of cases LibreOffice can read most Microsoft formats and is getting better all the time. And now the clincher - it's legally free and supports ISO standards.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Won't happen. The ribbon is licensed in such a way that it can be used for everything *but* competing Office software. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing)
They'll get their teeth kicked in with prior art if they even try to touch LibreOffice should the respective developers lose their minds and implement a ribbon.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
If you want to edit , i.e, REVIEW a document
Edit != Review.
Spend some money on a 22" or larger screen.
Where do you work that They buy anything you want any time you want?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Disclaimer: I rarely use any office products.
.doc formats by default, the major complaint has been lack of templates. A vanilla install of OO or LO doesn't have nearly the amount of templates that are bundled with MS Office. I tried pointing these users to template downloads at thedocumentfoundation.org, but there are only a handful there as well. Additionally, I just checked the LibreOffice site, and they suggest visiting opentemplate.org, which appears to be down.
I was an OO user, but switched to LibreOffice when Debian made the switch. I've been happy the few times I've used it.
Over the years, while trying to sell the idea of OO or LO to clients and friends, I've not had much success. Other than the ridiculous gripe they've had about not saving new documents as MS
As I said, I don't use any Office programs, but there is the feedback I've gotten from people I referred to OO & LO.
I've had more success with family members, but then again they are all converted to linux and never looked back.
LibreOffice is to MS Office as GIMP is to Photoshop. Which is to say, "a great replacement for the casual user, but 100% inadequate in vital ways to someone who uses the software to get work done.
Which is a dang shame because I'd love to dump anything with M$'s or Adobe's name on it.
Do you have a reason, or are you just terrified of change?
I can't speak for the GP, but I want more screen real estate, as well as consistency without having to do different things depending on what "mode" I'm in. Ribbons defeat both.
Most packages in Linux use ether "apt-get" or "yum" and most updates use what is called "delta's"
Don't know about the RPM world, but there are no DEB deltas.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Link
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I'm almost positive that the GP didn't mean file size when he said heavy. Notice he said that it "feels" heavy, which means he was probably referring to the UI.
Although at least you responded with something more constructive than "fuck you", or calling the GP an astroturfer (with no evidence to support it), or simply modding the post as troll. So I give you credit for that. Some of the other posters in this thread (and the moderators) should be ashamed of themselves.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Because every time you add a choice you double the QA time? Because sometimes the new method is so much more better than the old, that leaving the old in feels like a disservice to your customers?
Comment of the year
Yep, I remember seeing something like the Ribbon in Homesite 1.1 as far back as 1996. (the wikipedia article confirmed it) Speaking of Homesite, that was a damn good HTML editor back in the day and the original version actually used to be freeware. I was still using the original 1.1 release up until around the time Adobe bought them out. It was still a serviceable tool once you got it interfaced with the modern browsers of that day. (IIRC Firefox was still called Firebird back then)
The Ribbon concept is ancient by computing standards. Granted, back then it was called a "tabbed toolbar" but the concept is exactly the same.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
I disagree. I switched from Office 2000 to OpenOffice due to bugs in Excel, and it solved my problems. Granted, OpenOffice is different in silly ways, and that makes it hard to transition. Later, I started having problems with OpenOffice, and I switched to LibreOffice, and I'm very happy with it.
The ODF format is inefficient, and that makes the load/save time pretty long. But in today's software world of "take what you can get", it really works quite nicely.
I agree that the interface is "old", but old works.
To me, the ribbon is an oversized tool taking up too much space, displaying too much information and has been change for change sake.
Menus keep relative functions stored in a neat and accessible way until needed.
Yes.
If I had mod points, you'd be on your way to a +5 Troll. :)
Base is probably the biggest pig. But it's somewhat understandable: more databases have a good JDBC interface than probably anything else. And it's more cross-platform - if you can get the Sybase JDBC type 4 driver on your Mac or Linux box, you can talk to that MS SQL server. Or getting the DB2 JDBC type 4 driver on a Mac. You can't get the MS SQL ODBC driver for Linux, I suspect. And you can't get the DB2 ODBC driver for Mac. (Okay, that last bit is not entirely true anymore, but was for a long time.) Thus, if Base uses Java to interface with the databases, it stands a pretty reasonable chance of just working with most db's.
Yeah, at first the ribbon looked weird and bloated to me, but after awhile I realized that 95% of what I needed to do was on the ribbon; it makes my occasional forays into Office-land quicker and more efficient.
I'm sick and tired of these hip, "ironic" sigs. This is an actual, honest-to-goodness no-nonsense sig!
I am a math teacher and I use Libreoffice to write assignments for my students. Most of my colleagues use Word, and some of them have assembled lots of education material over the years. These files are full of formulas, so I cannot import them in to Libreoffice. I hope that some of the new Libreoffice programmers decide to work on export and import of formulas i LIbreoffice. (doc would be most useful, but docx wouyld also be nice).
I agree, and I'd much rather have old, stable, and not $500 (or whatever Office is priced at now.) :)
My needs for office apps at home are light, but LibreOffice/OpenOffice are hefty programs that don't "get in my way" of doing simple, mundane office-like things.
I much prefer it to the microsoft tax anyway (using OpenOffice on my Mac and LibreOffice on my Fedora machine..) The only thing I would say that needs "spit and polish" is, like you said, the ODF format. It's not a deal-breaker for me either. I am glad it is fully open as well... in the days of "planned obsolescence", it's refreshing to see software not try to pigeonhole you. (Or lasso your documents, keeping them from you because you decided it was best not to upgrade when corporation A said to.)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Terrified of change – no.
To me, the ribbon is an oversized tool taking up too much space, displaying too much information and has been change for change sake.
When it comes to supporting users. The ribbon is seen by many as a drastic change. The people who it took years to get used to the idea of looking in one place for information now need to get used to looking elsewhere.
I like the idea of a customisable toolbar (much like Office 2007+ Quick Access Toolbar) but coupled with Menus. I want less clutter on my screen, not more.
Menus keep relative functions stored in a neat and accessible way until needed. They encourage the learning of keyboard shortcuts through their underlining and display rather than having to rely on pop ups.
Menus keep relative functions stored in a neat and accessable way until needed. They encourage the learning of keyboard shortcuts through their underlining and display rather than having to rely on pop ups.
Yes, agree !! No Ribbon Please !! On the menus, make them more intuitive to allow what is shown on the menus. (Personally configurable).!! Not everyone was everything shown all at the same time. We do not use them all, all of the time. Without causing problems (for example purpose only) with Ipods, where you could have selecting what is shown on menu list. Thoughts anyway...
I use them all the time on Linux and OpenSolaris, but... damn, does OpenOffice make my old SunBlade 1500 crawl.
Was your OpenOffice compiled using gcc and GNU tools or Sun's compiler and tools?
Last time I checked, Sun's compiler and tools generated much faster code for their processors and OS, so it might make a difference.
At the time it was called "Sun One Studio", but they have renamed that product at least 4 times, so it probably has a different name by now.
It's unofficial, only works for Stable and was broken for 3 years.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I find that for 95% of my document needs Google Docs has everything I need (and mysteriously it seems to come pre-installed on every computer I use). The other 5% I write in Google Docs anyway and get somebody else to do the fancy formatting afterwards.
LibreOffice works well enough on OS X Lion as does OpenOffice.org. However, neither of them are a native OS X application with the look and feel and this is a reasonable deal breaker for me. Plus it's not as fast as MS Office running under VMWare Fusion!
DSL
He just meant that his laptop weighs more when LibreOffice is installed
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Of course, it takes some seconds to load, but LO then is fast and snappy (much faster with big docs than MS Office !!)
For the ribbon, I hate it. On computers at work, i either install libre office, when the company IT allows, or I use this : http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/
which is really great for having back my menus in MS office 2007/2010 !!
For me, the ribbon is inconsistent and encombering the screen. I will not spend a 1 month learning curve, just because MS wants me to get locked in to a crappy UI. Many people are like that.
Libreoffice is really great. Calc and writer are surpassing MSOffice 2010.
aaaaaaa
I just hope they have good luck with the modular approach they have been talking about because right now? it really does kinda suck. I don't think its the Java because i don't install Java with LO but it is just....slow, bad slow. i think its just the fact that it is a big old pile of nasty code going back to the days of Star office and Sun really didn't treat the old gal well. they put resources into Writer but the other really got the hind tit, and even writer seemed to be more about adding features than improving performance.
so I wish nothing but luck to the LO guys, I haven't looked at the code since OO.o 2.0 but if it is anything like OO.o 2.0 was they have their work cut out for them. But if they go for a modular approach (and remove all the Java crap) I'm sure they can give it a nice performance boost. While I don't recommend LO for SOHOs/SMBs (still too many flaky conversions between LO and MS Office) for home users it is frankly more than they'll ever need. If they can just bring up the speed i think it'd be a real winner for home users. It is already better IMHO than OO.o ever was, which considering they have only been at it a year is impressive. good job LO guys, good job.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Most of us comb our own neckbeards, you insensitive clod!
What prior art? IIRC the ribbon changes with what you are doing and the only things I've seen labeled as prior art are simply static tabbed toolbars. if you can show one that changes its layout contextually based on function being done by the user i'll be the first one to agree with you, but just having a bunch of icons in a box does not a ribbon make.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It depends on the screen. I've only used the ribbon on a friend's laptop, and it wasted far too much of the screen real estate. On a desktop or a large external screen, it provides bigger targets than the menu bar (and is a little bit more discoverable), so it is probably a net win. On a laptop, to get any work done you end up hiding the ribbon, so you then need more mouse movement to unhide, select, and then hide it again than you would to go to the menu.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Even though Apple’s OpenDoc got shafted when they decided to implement OLE instead, according to your description, I’d say it constitutes prior art.
(Posting anonymously because I’ve already moderated here.)
Fuck you!
-Signed
-The United States
The problem with the ribbon is that it shows only the functionality I used last, not the functionality I need to use next.
It's people like you who are dragging the quality of discussion on Slashdot down through bad moderation. If I were an admin, I would never give you any mod points.
Blender might or might not be applicable.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Shut up, part switcher. Nobody gives a shit what you think.
I love libre office, it's the only office suite I use. What doesn't make any sense to me is that schools and work places don't switch over. Libre office can do every major action MS Office can do and it's free. This is another clear case where the open source world has produced far better software then the closest source world, so far we have Linux as the best all around OS and now Libre Office as the best Office Suite.
That's some pretty serious denial you got going on there.
When it comes to the desktop and desktop software, there's plenty denial going around. Desktop Linux is stable at <1%, Firefox use is in decline and OpenOffice I don't know any good numbers on but in the Steam software survey MS Office is at 57.26% and OpenOffice at 14.63%, no idea if that includes LibreOffice or not. And at all the large companies I've been at as a consultant I've seen thousands of MS Office desktops and not a single place with OpenOffice installed. So there's some popular stuff running on top of a Linux/BSD kernel like Android, OS X and various set top boxes - you can hardly call Android open anymore - but OSS is hardly taking over the world. It's not going away either, but it remains marginal in most areas. Now for all sorts of back-end stuff where you just need a computing box, servers, HPC, supercomputers, rendering farms and so on sure. As long as you can hide it in a closet and users don't need to see it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It is really hard to get enterprise folks jazzed up about OO or LibreOffice when support for DOCX fidelity is lacking. Still begs the question, why move to/blend in OO/LibreOffice installations, when there is a Enterprise Agreement covering Office2010 and Office365. Lord though, I do wish we could do better, and yes...I too miss reveal codes. I still fire Borland Quattro Pro, AmiPro, and WordPerfect 9 from time to time to remind me what is lacking. On the other hand, if Star Office had not been dumped out onto the scene we would not be having these conversations.
You must have me confused with someone else you are having this argument with as I didn't even say the word desktop.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Does it feel like wearing stretchy pants... in your room..., for fun?
Microsoft Bob was change.
Change isn't always progress.
Then you should have made your own printers, if you didn't like ours.
What about VLC ?
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at least calc will. libreoffice calc cell datastructures are not suitable to offloading chunks of operations. once a rewrite is achieved (which is being thought about, should be worked upon soon), you could offload actions to gpu making things a lot faster. About the ui though, I am not happy with the current state of things, since I hate menus. It creates the illusion of organization, even though a single menu has more than 15 items in it. That is crappy design, it is familiar, but crappy nevertheless. I have been a linux user since a long time, but I do not hate everything Microsoft for the heck of it. I think ribbon ui, is a decent (eats screen estate.. bad) solution to organizational problem. Perhaps a Kate-sque approach would be good.
Is that you, Eric Bogle?
I use the command line in Windows XP nearly every day.
I don't even know the GUI equivalent of "ipconfig /all" much less use it.
I'd agree with your general point, that Windows is for people who are not technical (mass market) and linux is for highly technical folks (tiny niche market) and I certainly agree that people should not be quoted out of context... but your anti-linux rant has kind of turned me off to this whole discussion.
Your user account is a disservice to Slashdot.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Your signature has a syntax error at line 10.
Try this:
10 print "We are what we repeatedly do -- Aristottle"
20 GOTO 10
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Provide a skinnable UI, so people can choose between a classic interface, a ribbon interface or anything else that might work for them...
LO feels specially heavy on Mac, it seems somewhat faster on Linux tho...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
But you repeat yourself.
Q: How do they spell "Fuck You" in { Tech Support | Firefox UX development | Redmond }?
A: "Thank you for your input."
"Thank you for your input" can mean anything from an expression of gratitude for having provided a new insight, to an outright dismissal. "Fuck you" is unambiguous. Maybe if people were a little more able to say "Fuck you" to each other, perhaps we'd all understand each other better.
I still miss it! The format catagories actually made sense and you could quickly switch with the function keys. No other word processor has ever been as easy to use as what I had in 1993 (And while I'm at it I miss Eudora 5)
I've been using Openoffice a lot lately. Gnumeric and Abiword just break too many things. Also the slowness of F***ing java is starting to be less relevent, even though I still wish they used python or something less likely to eat my memory and more open.
I want to switch to Libreoffice but reading up on it it seems there are technical hurdles which I just don't have time for cause I use OO for work. Also I like the acronym OO better than LO. Really I never was a hug fan of Sun though I'm told they were better than Oracle is. So I didn't like the owner since it was Sun (also for virtualbox) but I stuck with it due to the lack of alternative.
I'm really glad there is a fork though. In the long term I definately would want to switch. I'll probably do it when I upgrade Ubuntu and I know its already mature and integrated because I just don't have time right now to hack anything.
Stupidity is its own reward.
OSS is pretty much only marginal on the desktop... Everywhere else it's either significant or dominant.
As for firefox usage declining, yes it is but its being replaced by Chrome, which is also open source. OSS is not about a single product being dominant, its about people being able to switch easily if something better comes along.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Also a problem with the ribbon, and many other UI elements introduced by MS recently like the fatter startbar and fatter window borders... They take up a lot more vertical space than their predecessors did, and all this when modern screens are going widescreen and having less vertical space... It defies belief, soon the entire screen height will be taken up by window borders and ribbons and you won't have any space to view your document anymore.
Wider screens should be encouraging toolbars at the side, and anything at the top/bottom to be reduced in size.. Otherwise the extra width is generally wasted (editing portrait mode documents, viewing fixed-width websites etc)
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
ODF is inefficient, but part of that is out of necessity... What makes sense to humans, is inefficient to a computer. Doing a binary dump of the internal memory structures would be fast, but would result in a file thats not human readable, very difficult to interoperate with and very difficult to maintain going forwards.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
But your comment is that NOT EVERYONE likes the ribbon. This implies that some people DO like it.
In any case, what he said was neither offtopic nor flamebait, at least it should not be flamebait, but for the fact that some people take software preferences way too personally.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
You want to know why i'm "anti Linux" as you call it? Lies, bullshit, and hypocrisy, that's why. Take the above retard that insists on quoting me out of context and can't even get the quote correct. he was arguing that windows users use start>run to launch programs and fire up CLI every. single. day and THAT meant that Linux being so damned term heavy you had to have the link on the fucking desktop meant Linux didn't have a CLI problem.
Now I ask you, be honest, have you ever heard such delusional bullshit in your life? do you know ANYBODY that uses start>run to launch programs? hell I bet even YOU don't use start>run to launch programs! And if you are using ipconfig (which I too use daily) then you sir ARE AN ADMIN and we were talking about USERS, the masses which Linux WILL require to gain critical mass.
This is the second lie, that if a server admin does it then users MUST do it as well. For example they will bring up Powershell while ignoring every single whitepaper on MSDN has in giant letters titles like "How to manage YOUR SERVER using Powershell". Not a single thing on there for home users. Why? Because home users don't use Powershell that's why!
That is why I'm the worst nightmare of the FOSSie, which unlike a FOSS user has a moonie like devotion to their OS religion, because after trying to sell Linux and seeing what a fucked up, broken down, fiddly, badly QA'ed little POS it is? I have seen through their lies. out of a half a dozen brand new machines I tried to load Linux on, how many survived the first 6 month deathmarch upgrade? Why that would be NOT A SINGLE ONE. that's right, not one. If I would have let that shit out of my shop I would have burned my customers or had to "repair" the things (which guess what? 2 of which took over TWO WEEKS before a "fix" that was a page and a half of CLI BS I had to tweak to make work, came out) for free for the rest of their lives.
So I'm sorry but Linux is shit, and until they accept they have serious problems they need to correct, such as CLI needs to go, the 6 month deathmarch needs to be replaced or a hardware ABI needs to be implemented so drivers don't shit themselves, and the endless forum dances and CLI fixes need to go the way of the 8 track, then I will continue to point out the truth to FOSSies like MR "can't even quote correctly" above and the truth is this: Linux is equal to, but no better than, windows 98 and that's a fact. like Win 98 one often had to go to CLI because the GUI was nothing but a shell over a CLI core and things often broke and needed tweaking.
But it ain't 1998 anymore, and Linux is against Windows 7 and OSX and frankly compared to those two it is a bad joke. it is too CLI heavy, too fiddly, too dependent on fixes by the community instead of QA, and too much politics and bullshit instead of progress. Until the community accepts this it will stay where it is, which is lower than JavaME, a shitastic cell phone OS, when it comes to users. Sorry but facts don't lie, and I could wallpaper this page with link after link after link backing up everything I've said. Can they?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
My apologies. I will refrain from insulting your mom when I troll in the future.
I've never used Blender so I don't know. Does Blender have an icon bar that changes contextually based on the actions of the user? if so you may have a winner if it came out before MSFT filed on the ribbon which I believe was 2003 or 2004. Did Blender have a contextual icon based UI at that time? Again not a 3D designer so I have NO clue on that. But if it came out after 2006 it won't count as MSFT was passing out developer previews of 2K7 by then.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
[...] Walk up to the next 100 people on the street and ask them dipshit, ask them "How do you get the command line in Windows?" and you know what they'll say? "what's command line?" [...]
That is correct. But the next thing they usually say is "Hey, my internet is broken, can you, like, fix it or something?". Which usually means that the dipshit has to resort to the term from the 70s era to see which part of Microsoft's latest shiny fucked up this time. Quality work, my friend. Quality work.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
I prefer a CLI, myself. GUIs are too slow for me, I type very fast.
But no, I certainly don't use start>run to launch programs in windows.
I know that's the argument for it. But you could define an efficient binary format, and any machine could implement that format. I wouldn't do a memory dump, but some kind of concise, structured file.
And those fools can use Office, and leave the sensible interface for the rest of us. And I never said that what he said was offtopic or flamebait, although some people are arguing that he is a shill, which could be the case.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
It generally doesn't use icons for its buttons (but that's just cosmetics), but otherwise it used to have a horizontal bar (the new version uses vertical bars) with button panels that appear and disappear based on what you are doing. I'm not entirely sure when the interface became what it is, but it certainly was like that when Blender was released as FLOSS in 2002. I haven't used the ribbon so I don't know if it is actually similar, here's a video that shows it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ow9ftNlnbo
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
But see that's my point. In Windows you can choose to use CLI if you'd like, in Linux it is strictly have to use CLI just to get the damned thing to work. Go to ANY forum and ask for a GUI fix to a common problem, like say you are having a driver issue. just try it, and watch how they curse you, insult you, and treat you like dogshit for daring to ask for a single answer that isn't "open up bash and type".
And until THAT attitude changes and they accept the fact that terminals for non admins are as dead as disco and bell bottoms then Linux will stay right where it is at dead last, and rightly so. Instead they will delude themselves into thinking users run everything by going start>run, that every Windows user uses CLI daily, that all Windows machine BSOD and are infected, honestly its kinda sad.
That is why I call them FOSSies to separate them from FOSS users because FOSSies are like Moonies in their total delusional state of mind. Any post that isn't "gee Biff, isn't Linux perfect? why it sure is Skip, and RMS' farts smell like flowers and cured the ozone hole!" will be automatically downmodded, any person who doesn't say the above, no matter how delusional in the face of facts, will be labeled the FOSSie equivalent of nigger, that is of course troll, and anyone that has a different opinion HAS to be a "M$ Ninja Spy!" intent on destroying their vital essence.
You know what the definition of insanity is? its doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Linux was dead last 20 years ago, it was dead last 10 years ago, wanna guess where it will be in 10 years if they refuse to change and instead insist the world go back to the days of punch cards and terminals? Hell even in servers the numbers are dropping, with the last I saw had Linux at 35% and falling, why? Because as a Linux admin friend told me "if you place a Linux and Windows admin side by side, and give them a task the Linux admin has done repeatedly? the Linux guy will win. if you give them a task that the Linux guy has never done? before he is done dealing with man pages and searching Google the Windows guy will already be at lunch, having finished AGES ago."
And THAT my friend is why terminals are NEVER coming back. GUIs reward exploration and learning of new tasks, CLI is strictly for repetition and copypasta. And the vast majority of consumers, those people that Linux desperately needs if it is EVER gonna get above dead last? They don't sit around reading man pages and doing copypasta and furthermore they NEVER will. When you point this out? suddenly it'll be "well...uh uh... We don't wanna win anyway Mr M$ Ninja Shill dirty man!" while of course ignoring every page on /. cheering when anybody actually uses Linux for anything. Just sad really, how delusional these fanbois get.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm not going to defend people being rude and unhelpful in forums; I've seen too much of that myself. I always wonder why those people don't find something better to do with their time.
Hmm. To me, GUIs are just menus. They let you select from things other people created. CLIs, on the other hand, are where creativity is focused into the act of creation - it is not possible to create a new computing paradigm without typing characters in a text editor or near equivalent. True innovation in computer science comes from programming, which is a fundamentally character-based, non-graphical activity. The only way to "program" without typing code is not really programming, it's just gluing together code other people created.
I like to be able to do these kinds of commands:
omshowu -n local-network-id |gawk -F/ '/^SIS/{print $4}'
or this: /var/lib/ldap/replica/slurpd.status
gawk 'BEGIN{FS=":";Ct=0;getline;Ts=$3};{if ($3!=Ts){print $3;Ts=$3;Ct++}}'
I occasionally type out commands that line-wrap three or four times, but would not be possible at all in any GUI.
That said, for every programmer there are probably a thousand users. So focusing on the needs of the larger group is not stupid. And as you say, GUIs are very useful for flattening a learning curve, because they directly and immediately reward exploration. GUIs are also very good for graphic arts and similar non-character based end-user activities.
But you just proved my point since you already know those commands it is simply repetition. there is no way in hell you just sat down at a CLI of an unfamiliar OS and said "Hmmm...how do I do this task I've never done before? I know its BEGIN{FS=":";Ct=0;getline;Ts=$3};{if ($3!=Ts){print $3;Ts=$3;Ct++}}' /var/lib/ldap/replica/slurpd.status!!"
In fact if you didn't sit down before you EVER did a single thing and spend hours pouring over man pages or programming books, so you understood not only the command itself, but how each of those commands actually work and tie into each other? Well I might as well give you an OS in Russian for all the good it would do you.
And while what you aid is true that the GUI only has what the developer thought of computers have been around for decades so ALL of the tasks that a good 90% will need? Should already have a GUI up and running. if not its a giant FAIL which sadly is where Linux is right now. Linux is still at its core a CLI OS that has a thin GUI shell, like Win9X was back in its day. And like Win9x often the ONLY way to get anything done is bypass the GUI completely because frankly it doesn't work. Is there a GUI to find and install drivers? How about a GUI for video errors similar to windows safe mode? Hell even with the wireless network GUI I found that often the damned thing wouldn't work or the settings wouldn't stick, guess what I got told when asking for help? "Oh you shouldn't use THAT thing, you should use " followed by 3 pages of CLI crapola. could I, with over 30 years of computer experience, do it? yes but why would I want to? Could my customers? Not a chance in hell.
And THIS is why Linux is stuck. You are right that for every programmer there is a 1000 users but they will NOT listen.Currently they already have all the "fight the power!" types, the only other ones that could pick up the needed CLI experience left would be the Windows power users and frankly they don't have any problems with Windows, so why should they switch? The vast majority of PC users are just like my dad. they know how to point and click, if you are lucky they know how to call up a help screen, that's it. Do you HONESTLY think those people would EVER have a prayer in Linux? Of course not, but those like the FOSSie that runs around here misquoting me will argue up and down those people are just dying to learn forum dances and CLI horseshit, when reality couldn't be farther from the truth.
I sell PCs for a living, so I deal with them 6 days a week. in its current form Linux is NOWHERE near ready for the masses. it is simply too CLI heavy, too little GUI. But sadly instead of having focus groups and user tests and seeing this is the case and working to make things easier for them, instead you get those like the one above you that insult if you are point out that you will NEVER get the world to go back to 70s terminals and reading man pages. this isn't 1975 and the average user isn't a programmer anymore. But instead they hang onto this delusion, like RMS does. Have you seen him at talks? He calls everyone "hackers" like it is 75 and he is at a computer club meeting. Sad really, but its that kind of delusional thinking that has guaranteed Linux a dead last position. And I think its just a damned shame, as there are plenty that could use its ability to run on older hardware and free upgrades.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Nope, not prior art. the ribbon is contextual, that is changing based on the user picking a function. for example if you start typing a doc the font function becomes front and center, use the shortcut on the keyboard to add headers and footers and the bibliography tools come to the forefront.
So you see what the ribbon is doing is basically guessing what you are doing in the actual program area and then trying to make the controls that you are most likely to need become the main area controls. There is actually a video on MSDN (sorry I couldn't find the link ATM I'm trying to do 6 things at once here at the shop) where they explain how they took thousands of videos and screencaps of people using the products and then put all that data into a spreadsheet to find out what the most used tools for any particular task was. They are using the same approach for the Win 8 explorer ribbon and for example they found more than 90% of folks in explorer use cut/copy/paste when in explorer so those will be up front unless you do a lot of another function, lets say move. then move will be the function in the center area.
While I preferred the menu simply because I've used Office enough i know where everything is, I can see what they are going for and its pretty damned smart. simply find out what folks use the most, make those controls the largest and easiest to hit, then pay attention to what the user does and further customize the controls based on their most used tools. For all folks talk of prior art I frankly have never seen a "learning menu" based on icons before the ribbon, especially not one that learned and adapted with the user.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I grabbed that specific command out of the shell history file on one of the linux systems where I have root, so you're right about this particular instance; it was not an unfamiliar OS. I originally composed it because no tool (GUI or otherwise) existed that would find replica disynchrony in a massively redundant multi-host multi-OS OpenLDAP installation that was designed and built before syncrepl existed. So I wrote one on the fly, out of my head, which is the raw power of CLI at work - it's not simple replication or "copypasta", it's a conduit for creativity.
And I've done the same sort of thing on OS/390, OS/400, and Apollo Domain operating systems without any training whatsoever from anyone. It is what I do, it is the special skill set that earns my daily bread. It the case of the Apollo system, I actually had to hack the entire OS from a cold start - no passwords, no manuals, no prior experience, no Internet, just hardware console access and the power of the scientific method. It took three weeks, so roughly 120 hours. I got root on the third day, as I recall, but it was a long time ago. I must have rebooted that system a thousand times, trying to find a keyboard interrupt that would stop bootstrap before a password prompt came up.
Now, in the case of the command we quoted, I have internalized the entire syntax of the gawk language, yes, certainly, just as an author internalizes the structure of a natural language. You are right about that too; it is mostly just rote memorization, no different from learning how to unmount a disk drive in the MacOS GUI. But when a poet makes a poem (or a coder writes code) he creates something new - when a person learns to unmount a disk, he hasn't created anything, he just learned a trick.
There's a level beyond mere memorization (that is not reachable from a GUI) that involves building new things. The composite recurve bow is not a trivial restatement of a bent tree branch, it's a creative work. Yes, the bowyer needed to memorize lots of tricks, like how to select wood for a task and how to bend horn and how to clean sinew, but that doesn't reduce the thing he created to a mere set of selections from a mental menu.
Yes, some versions of Ubuntu at least have this.
Most distros use the CLI for "safe mode" but yes this exists too.
I have never seen a linux networking GUI that wasn't an abomination that should be staked through the heart and buried at a crossroads, but I think there will eventually be one. Someday. It might even end up being a high version of NM but I truly doubt it.
I use linux as a tool to do other things, and have no interest in selling anything to a mass market. So while your opinion of linux is clearly valid from your point of view as a retail systems provider, I personally don't care if nobody but me finds it useful. And I think that's what you are running into - people like RMS (and to a lesser extent, me) aren't interested in achieving your goals, because we don't share them.
Your dislike of rude and inconsiderate people in forums is understandable. I got turned off to *nix in general in the 1970s because of the attitude and behaviour of people who I'd asked for help. That turned out to be a good thing in the end, since now I don't care about OSes any more, I just use whatever is in front of me at the moment.
Blenders interface is most certainly contextual, it isn't guessing, but it is only presenting the relevant functions depending on what you pick (that's the icon bar above the tools) and what you do. You didn't mention learning before though, Blender doesn't do that. OTOH does that mean that a non-learning contextual ribbon would be clear to implement?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
A non learning ribbon would just be a pile of icons that change based on what task you are doing so I'm thinking yes, that wouldn't be covered. if you have to pick a button before the icons change? that is just calling another MDE so that has plenty of prior art. It is the learning aspect that would bite you in the ass, so if it is strictly a bunch of icons in a bar? i don't see how that could be covered.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You act just like a little kid.