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LibreOffice Gets a Streamlined Makeover With 4.4 Release
TechCurmudgeon sends word that LibreOffice 4.4 has been released. "The Document foundation announced availability of the latest version of LibreOffice on Thursday, which it says is the most beautiful version of the open source productivity suite yet. LibreOffice 4.4 also fixes some compatibility issues with files that are saved in Microsoft's OOXML formats. LibreOffice 4.4 has got a lot of UX and design love," Jan "Kendy" Holesovsky, who leads the design team for Libreoffice, said in a statement. LibreOffice 4.4 is currently available for Windows."
I hate Java, for much the same reasons as you. Unfortunately, not having it installed leaves me with no database in OOo and the rest of it is fairly crippled. Pisses me off, but I found a workaround solution that works just fine for me at least as far as a database is concerned: I installed a WAMP stack. Specifically, the Bitnami Docuwiki and Mediawiki stacks. Side by side. One runs on localhost 8000 the other on localhost 8001. I can even access them (hence all the documents) via my virtual machines on the thin clients. Bonus!
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
...if I can still make it crash within ten seconds, like all the previous versions. :-p
Ezekiel 23:20
One of my problems with LibreOffice (and OpenOffice, and some other FOSS apps) is that it doesn't fit with native UI conventions. It doesn't look like a native application, it doesn't feel like a native application, and it doesn't behave like a native application. Although it may seem like a very superficial thing, it makes it much harder to sell in a business setting. First, because a lot of business users (including "decision makers") are pretty superficial, and using a non-native UI makes it look cheap and unfinished. Second, because if it doesn't feel or behave like the applications that users are familiar with, then it's going to be jarring and confusing, requiring more training and resulting in more help desk trouble calls.
So when I read that LibreOffice "has got a lot of UX and design love", I was hoping that some of the incongruences were fixed. Looking at the OSX version, it seems that it's gotten worse. It looks distinctly like an application written for Linux that was hastily ported to OSX.
Having used both, I think LibreOffice Calc sucks compared to Excel. Every time I use it, I come across at least one limitation it has, that Excel does not. Sometimes it's usability-related, but frequently it's just because it doesn't implement a particular feature. It's a death by a thousand paper cuts. I don't think anybody who works on the project realises quite how bad it is, otherwise they would surely have rewritten the whole thing by now, rather than persevering with what's clearly a dead-end codebase.
I used to use Excel very heavily for work. Not only is Excel (2007 or later) easier and quicker to use (and not just because of the ribbons), but there are also things in Excel that are either a pain or simply impossible to achieve in a sensible way in Calc. Using Calc is like if I was used to using Photoshop and then somebody came along and gave me Paint.NET and said it could do everything Photoshop does. It might technically be feasible to achieve all the same outcomes, but it sure as hell isn't going to be as easy, and you're going to be fighting against the software and doing things extra manually half the time. (Not that I have anything against Paint.NET; it's a great bit of software if you're not trying to do everything that Photoshop does. Maybe this was a bad metaphor.)
So, for all Excel's flaws, if I was using spreadsheets for anything remotely serious on anything like a regular basis, I would buy a copy of Excel. But not the 2013 version; what the hell were they thinking with that UI?
we had a hooker and blow party at my store.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
This post was modded funny but I am not sure whether the poster was joking or not. The Slashdot groupthink mandates that everybody hate the ribbon interface, but you do realize that there are some people in the world who do not automagically subscribe to it, don't you?