Interesting! That 26 million is about the difference between the number PS2's and Xbox's sold. However has 40 billion in reserve so they're prepared to lose 10% of that to get in the game with Sony.
Hi everyone,
I'd just like to reitterate the "Valgrind rox" sentiment flowing through here. We've used valgrind extensively on AbiWord with excellent effect.
This is a great program. BTW the $0 price really helps us as where 100% volenteer.
The author is great too. He is very quick to respond to issues.
For a start, Look at the screenshot at: http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~msevior/abiword /evol ution-abi2.png
See the multiple columns/single columns on the same page (embedded in evolution of course)?
In addtion normal different columns per page we also allow fixed column height to allows easy generation of labels and posters (on A0 paper for example)
Then remember abiword does do multiple pages types A0 -A6, letter, legal, 20 million evolope sizes, custom page sizes) Landscape/Portrait, ruler control of tabs, left,right,center, bar -tabs, tab leaders, paragraph control, infinitely nested lists,numerous different list types, non-modal list control, an advanced thesaurus,full justification, drag and drop toolbar controls, auto-updating word count, auto-updating fields, hyperlinks, bookmarks, print preview, print to pdf, non-modal insert symbol (OO can't do that even now), simultaneous multi-lingual on-the-fly spell check, online encylopedia, on-line dictionary, image editing, drag and drop of yperlinks and images from web browsers, headers, footers, different header/footer types for first, facing and last pages, Directly editable header/footers, multiple views per document in seperate frames (we had this before MS Word 2000 copied it), fully editable styles, normal, print and web views, full control over ruler and toolbar viewing and positioning, export to HTML, XHTML and about 15 other formats, can read about 10 different document formats plus of course embedding and full external scripting.
I perfer the merging/scripting support we provide over MS Word because it's all external to the document so there is no possibility for viruses living in documents to propagate. Having a command-line interface to a word processor where can optionally pop up a graphical view is an extremely powerful way to easily generate sophisticated automation. You can single step through scripts written in your favourite language (perl, python, tcl, C, Java whatever) and see the effect on the document.
Now all these features not in wordpad and some aren't in MS Word (especially the scripting!).
Now look at the document at: http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~msevior/abiword /next _generation.zabw
That outlines in detail how we will do tables, frames, positioned objects, text wrapped around objects etc.
We should be done in 6 months.
I wouldn't have been able to write that document without the experience of developing the current framework. Having done that, these more sophisticated layout possibilities are straight forward.
What will have then? A genuine competitor to MS Word, faster, cheaper, more extensible and free. More over we can integrate Word Processing into any bonobo aware application that wants it. Now that is something MS can't do without significant loss of revenue.
In the meantime, I and many, many, other people find abiword a useful desktop tool. It is currently ideal for schools, church secretaries, on PDA's and for people in server rooms. Why not make a stable release before launcing on the next phase.
Martin Sevior.
PS. I don't even know of another cross platform Word Pad.
Hey! Great idea! We'll make sure we implement right away:-)
Re:This Isn't Free Software For Windows
on
AbiWord 1.0.1 Released
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The regular tarball will work. We would love more windows developers. Look at the website under developers to see how to get/use the source to develop for windows.
http://www.abisource.com/developers/download.pht ml
AbiWord is 100% pure GPL (except for LGPL libraries and other bits stolen from BSD and other strange licenses.)
Martin Sevior
Re:is there anything like this coming out??
on
AbiWord 1.0.1 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Checkout linkgrammar.
http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/
We plan to work with them for a grammar checker.
Re:I'll be writing my final paper on this (tonight
on
AbiWord 1.0.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
It's got a thesearus. Plus an online dictionary.Plus an online encylopedia.
It needs a virtual window manager and focus-follows mouse. Ineed at least 8 virtual desktops and focus follows mouse just rules. Oh and that toolbar across the top just takes up screen real-estate.
My new dual XEON P4 from Dell just arrived. I'm about to install linux on it.
Cost? about 3k$ AUD. dual 1.6 Ghz Xeon, 18 GB SCSI, 512 MB ram, CDROM , CD burner and ATI rdeaon graphics.
I need CPU power. For bang/back it's hard to beat x86. Alpha's used to win but no more.
Anyway, the graphics doo look nice but I don't need that high end graphics.
Re:will these other "word" programs join OpenOffic
on
Linux Office Suites
·
· Score: 2, Informative
No. Kword and AbiWord are cooperating to produce state of the art MS Word filters. We can do this because we're producing GPL'd code to match our GPL'd application. OO can't accept pure GPL code coz they need to able to integrate proprietry code.
After you've worked on a large project for a while you realize that the amount of time actually spent in the GUI is tiny. Especially with tools like glade and libglade.
BTW congratulations on KOffice 1.1. Looks really good. Lots of competition for us Abiword hackers.
Gnome was started because the Free Software Foundation ("information wants to be free") got itself in high moral dudgeon over the fact
that an independently developed (meaning, no one kissed Richard M. Stallman's, uh, ring) desktop, KDE, was being produced under terms
that no user could find objectionable but that the Free Software Foundation found insufficiently "free," based upon its made-up
definition of the word.
Fine. Good. OK why are there now > 350 people all hacking away on gnome. Why is it that Mandrake says 50% of its user prefer GNOME when it offers something else as the default. Clearly a lot of smart people in the community believe in the ideals enshrined in the GPL. Hundreds of manyears of very talented devlopers have been spent on GNOME. The FSF did not hold a gun to their heads and very few of them have been paid at all.
The community spoke when GNOME was developed. Powel should realize that.
Powel should also ask himself if FSF and GPL is so evil why is it that NOW KDE 100% pure GPL?
Martin Sevior.
We are very well aware of the limitations of Abi. It is by no means a replacement for serious WP needs. It is great for quick letters to and fron Grandma and to read and reply to your Boss's MS Word email. My wife and I regularly do just that.
I am very well versed in Latex which I regularly use it to write long and sophisticated documents included footnotes, bibilography, MUCH MUCH better math support than any WYSIWYG word processor.
We have a foundation upon which we are building a powerful state of the art GUI app. Each itteration of Abi has more features and fewer bugs.
There are a number of ways Abi is very useful right now (for example reading and writing your Palm/Psion docs and sending them to your boss). Or for a fast launching viewer for quick docs. Or for people who need to need Word Docs but don't have >$100 Or for people who need basic BiDirectional docs but don't have $1000.
As the feature set of Abi improves the number of people for which Abiis interesting will increase.
I personally want to use Abi write Scientific Papers. I hope to be able to in one years time but whether it takes one year or two I will keep working on it. No one can stop me and it is real fun along the way:-) It is hard to describe the joy of turning ideas in your head into reality on the screen and to know that another 10^6 people will use that feature after the next release. Talk about enabling technology!
We are not daunted by the enormous challenge of surpassing MS Word in usefulness. This is what makes working on Abi and interesting and fun thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
This absolutely vital for doing presentation graphics with your laptop. Video project resolutions hardly ever match your laptops.
This is absolutely critical for Linx to be a useful desktop/laptop OS.
Scientists the world over have to use windows for presentations because of this limitation.
Cheers
Martin
You want to try Enlightenment 0.17.
Interesting! That 26 million is about the difference between the number PS2's and Xbox's sold. However has 40 billion in reserve so they're prepared to lose 10% of that to get in the game with Sony.
For tables see:
http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~msevior/abiword/merg eCells.png
Martin Sevior
AbiWord Developer
He He :-) Spellecking is one reason I use AbiWord at work everyday.
Hi everyone,
I'd just like to reitterate the "Valgrind rox" sentiment flowing through here. We've used valgrind extensively on AbiWord with excellent effect.
This is a great program. BTW the $0 price really helps us as where 100% volenteer.
The author is great too. He is very quick to respond to issues.
Cheers
Martin Sevior
AbiWord Eveloper
Yes!
AbiWord has great Chinese support because of the guys at.
http://www.thizlinux.com/.
Click on the link and check them out. They're very cool and have a great Chinese versions of Linux and AbiWord.
Cheers
Martin Sevior
AbiWord Developer
A proof point from Abiword. A just ran the program over our abi-unstable directory. About 300,000 LOC estimated cost to produce about $10,000,000.
I also ran the program over the abiword plugins directory. Estimated cost to produce, $1,200,000.
Now I know from direct experience that building the main code base of the AbiWord Word Processor took about 100 times more effort than the plugins.
Cheers
Martin Sevior
AbiWord Developer
For a start, Look at the screenshot at:d /evol ution-abi2.png
d /next _generation.zabw
http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~msevior/abiwor
See the multiple columns/single columns on the same page (embedded in evolution of course)?
In addtion normal different columns per page we also allow fixed column height to allows easy generation of labels and posters (on A0 paper for example)
Then remember abiword does do multiple pages types A0 -A6, letter, legal, 20 million evolope sizes, custom page sizes) Landscape/Portrait, ruler control of tabs, left,right,center, bar -tabs, tab leaders, paragraph control, infinitely nested lists,numerous different list types, non-modal list control, an advanced thesaurus,full justification, drag and drop toolbar controls, auto-updating word count, auto-updating fields, hyperlinks, bookmarks, print preview, print to pdf, non-modal insert symbol (OO can't do that even now), simultaneous multi-lingual on-the-fly spell check, online encylopedia, on-line dictionary, image editing, drag and drop of yperlinks and images from web browsers, headers, footers, different header/footer types for first, facing and last pages, Directly editable header/footers, multiple views per document in seperate frames (we had this before MS Word 2000 copied it), fully editable styles, normal, print and web views, full control over ruler and toolbar viewing and positioning, export to HTML, XHTML and about 15 other formats, can read about 10 different document formats plus of course embedding and full external scripting.
I perfer the merging/scripting support we provide over MS Word because it's all external to the document so there is no possibility for viruses living in documents to propagate. Having a command-line interface to a word processor where can optionally pop up a graphical view is an extremely powerful way to easily generate sophisticated automation. You can single step through scripts written in your favourite language (perl, python, tcl, C, Java whatever) and see the effect on the document.
Now all these features not in wordpad and some aren't in MS Word (especially the scripting!).
Now look at the document at:
http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~msevior/abiwor
That outlines in detail how we will do tables, frames, positioned objects, text wrapped around objects etc.
We should be done in 6 months.
I wouldn't have been able to write that document
without the experience of developing the current framework. Having done that, these more sophisticated layout possibilities are straight forward.
What will have then? A genuine competitor to MS Word, faster, cheaper, more extensible and free. More over we can integrate Word Processing into any bonobo aware application that wants it. Now that is something MS can't do without significant loss of revenue.
In the meantime, I and many, many, other people find abiword a useful desktop tool. It is currently ideal for schools, church secretaries, on PDA's and for people in server rooms. Why not make a stable release before launcing on the next phase.
Martin Sevior.
PS. I don't even know of another cross platform Word Pad.
See:
http://www.abisource.com/download/plugins
The thesaurus (AikSaurus) is the best I know of, no matter how much you'd pay.
Hey! Great idea! We'll make sure we implement right away :-)
http://www.abisource.com/developers/download.ph
AbiWord is 100% pure GPL (except for LGPL libraries and other bits stolen from BSD and other strange licenses.)
Martin Sevior
http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/
We plan to work with them for a grammar checker.
Look in the plugins.
http://www.abisource.com/download/plugins.phtml
See: http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/
We've already discussed collaboration and have the beginnings of a plugin.
We have exactly that issue here too. However this is great news for us. Now we can run MS Office on a linux server and connect to it via X11.
This really eases the burden on our sys admins and we have a friendly local PC maker who will happily supply PC's sans windows.
All in all we get major cost savings from this.
Cheers
Martin
Cheers
Martin Sevior
My new dual XEON P4 from Dell just arrived. I'm about to install linux on it.
Cost? about 3k$ AUD. dual 1.6 Ghz Xeon, 18 GB SCSI, 512 MB ram, CDROM , CD burner and ATI rdeaon graphics.
I need CPU power. For bang/back it's hard to beat x86. Alpha's used to win but no more.
Anyway, the graphics doo look nice but I don't need that high end graphics.
No. Kword and AbiWord are cooperating to produce state of the art MS Word filters. We can do this because we're producing GPL'd code to match our GPL'd application. OO can't accept pure GPL code coz they need to able to integrate proprietry code.
Cheers
Martin Sevior
AbiWord, Word Processing for everyone.
That is total crap! RTF does support Tables, headers, footer, TOC, index. I should know. I'm implementing these for abiword.
Don't believe me. Put those features in an MS Word document, save it as an RTF.
Read it back. See your document perfectly again.
You can find full specs for RTf at www.whatisit.com.
Martin Sevior
AbiWord - Word Processing for everyone.
After you've worked on a large project for a while you realize that the amount of time actually spent in the GUI is tiny. Especially with tools like glade and libglade.
:-)
BTW congratulations on KOffice 1.1. Looks really good. Lots of competition for us Abiword hackers.
Keep up the great work on KDE
Martin Sevior
AbiWord - Word Processing for everyone.
You are so far wrong it'snot even funny.
I think we'll have it in AbiWord by the of the year. Mozilla -> AbiWord.
Cheers
Martin Sevior
AbiWord - WordProcessing for Everyone
PS. The Windows version should do it too.
Gnome was started because the Free Software Foundation ("information wants to be free") got itself in high moral dudgeon over the fact that an independently developed (meaning, no one kissed Richard M. Stallman's, uh, ring) desktop, KDE, was being produced under terms that no user could find objectionable but that the Free Software Foundation found insufficiently "free," based upon its made-up definition of the word. Fine. Good. OK why are there now > 350 people all hacking away on gnome. Why is it that Mandrake says 50% of its user prefer GNOME when it offers something else as the default. Clearly a lot of smart people in the community believe in the ideals enshrined in the GPL. Hundreds of manyears of very talented devlopers have been spent on GNOME. The FSF did not hold a gun to their heads and very few of them have been paid at all. The community spoke when GNOME was developed. Powel should realize that. Powel should also ask himself if FSF and GPL is so evil why is it that NOW KDE 100% pure GPL? Martin Sevior.
We are very well aware of the limitations of Abi. It is by no means a replacement for serious WP needs. It is great for quick letters to and fron Grandma and to read and reply to your Boss's MS Word email. My wife and I regularly do just that.
I am very well versed in Latex which I regularly use it to write long and sophisticated documents included footnotes, bibilography, MUCH MUCH better math support than any WYSIWYG word processor.
We have a foundation upon which we are building a powerful state of the art GUI app. Each itteration of Abi has more features and fewer bugs.
There are a number of ways Abi is very useful right now (for example reading and writing your Palm/Psion docs and sending them to your boss). Or for a fast launching viewer for quick docs. Or for people who need to need Word Docs but don't have >$100 Or for people who need basic BiDirectional docs but don't have $1000.
As the feature set of Abi improves the number of people for which Abiis interesting will increase.
I personally want to use Abi write Scientific Papers. I hope to be able to in one years time but whether it takes one year or two I will keep working on it. No one can stop me and it is real fun along the way:-) It is hard to describe the joy of turning ideas in your head into reality on the screen and to know that another 10^6 people will use that feature after the next release. Talk about enabling technology!
We are not daunted by the enormous challenge of surpassing MS Word in usefulness. This is what makes working on Abi and interesting and fun thing to do.
Cheers
Martin Sevior