1. this is fine as long as you think that 'status quo' is neverending. in practice, new versions of msword break complatibility and bring little added value - but most poeple still upgrade. it's not that they have some reason to besides the pressure by compatibility issues with other software/hardware and other world. so you would think that upgrading would force them to evaluate the market - but no:). "let's just buy now a couple of mso... ok, we bought a couple of thode, we're not going to throw them out, it's such a valuable investment, let's just buy a couple more..." and so on.
2. this is one of the arguments that's extremly overrated. recently a manager from pretty big company (and you would think that at least some cooperation would be shown to bigger companies) expressed his feelengs about ms "support" : "has anybody received any support from microsoft even when they had paid for it ?". when everybody started smiling, he continued : ", no, never, nothing ! it's bullshit. it's a waste of money. i'd better buy support for linux from some local company that will be interested in keepeing their clients".
so, the question : have you received a _real_ support that you feel was worth the money from any of the big proprietary vendors ?
3. ff was easier to adopt - little to no learning curve, smaller feature set etc. although i fully agree with you - there should be more advertising for oo.org. or even better - for open data formats. because that's what this is all about - our data, our information. having it in closed data formats is pretty shortsighted.
2.0 will support native widgets (scrollbars etc). i'm using it on linux (and mostly with generic widgets), so you should ptobably check out this in beta yourself
strange, because a friend of mine was trying to create a couple of pages in word where he wanted to put object precisely on page. he had stumbled for a couple of days (and he's really good with word and a bunch of other software for publishing, graphics etc). i suggested oo.org. he did the job in 10 minutes. so i guess, it depends.
about the problems you encountered - have you tried 2.0 beta ? are they solved ? if not, you could file issues in www.openoffice.org (you have to register) - if developers don't know about a problem, they can't fix it.
autocorrect information is stored in ~/.openoffice.org/user/autocorr there is one file (per language ?) that can be easily copied over to other machines.
i'm not sure about preserving customized autocorrect configurations. there is a tool named 'configimport' that supposedly combines imported information with existing, but i haven't tried it yet.
word completion unfortunately works only in your current session (as you close oo.org, all information is lost). a workaround would be opening a document that contains a 'dictionary' as a first document - not exactly user friendly:)
i can see two possible solutions that exist in oo.org right now.
1. word completion - oo.org remembers words that are longer than x symbols (customizeable) and when you start typing next word, it displays possible completion. if you hit enter (can be changed to end/space/right) the word is completed. helps if words have different endings so that you can see wether the correct one has been chosen;
2. auto correct - simply put abd/abdomen in, now when you type abd followed by a space it's expanded to abdomen
there are users who use pre-2 builds in production for some time. i have stumbled upon small bugs and crashes now and then, so i would suggest you try it out - but save often, save different copies/versions (i do that anyway, and anybody should;) ). i use 1.1 for everyday work, but now and then some documents are made in pre-2. had a data loss a couple of times, so unless you're adventurous type, don't do anything too important to avoid negative experience.
overall i think it depends on functionality you need. basic things are pretty polished and for several builds i haven't seen big problems with basic text usage. when you go into 3d objects and new things... well, it's beta candidate, so if you see some nasty problem, please, report it:)
i believe i've seen a discussion about this - according to some bizzarre microsoft systray usage guidelines oo.org has removed this funcitonality from it's windows quickstarter.
maybe you should try to express your opinion in mailing lists (users@openoffice.org, for example)
is xlt excel template ? i believe calc should be able to open them (of course, no vb macros etc) - but you should probably check that out yourself - just grab this beta candidate, it has improves ms document compatibility over 1.1.
you've got something extremely wrong. don't you think nobody would be using it ?:)
my experience with sm is limited, only approx 20 concurrent users on a 233mhz/256mb system, but i haven't seen any noticeable load on that box.
the biggest problem i have with sm - upgrading. it's a pia. basically, you have to reinstall & reconfigure every plugin manually if you want to make sure everything will work ok (and having 10 of them isn't the best situation).
i've used to installing squid myself from sources in case i need it. i don't use socks server that much and i have never set up an ircd server, so - no.
additional packages would also make install size bigger.
if i exclude gnome, f/k/t dirs, slackware-current fits in one cd - bootable, installable, single cd for servers and workstations. sweet. (of course, there's a second cd that contains selected set of packages like squid, apache/php sources, openoffice etc - but still it's two cds for almost everything i ever need)
recently i've bought two graphics adapters for myself and given advice to 3 people who were trying to choose between nvidia and ati.
guess who got those 5 sales... it's not only about market share for opensource, it's also about geeks suggesting things they feel are better - in this case ati lost 5 sales - but they will lose more. and i believe they have lost a lot more, because i know other people who have been suggesting hardware purchases based on their support for linux - even if the person isn't running linux at the moment.
additionally, in last 6 months several of my friends have got dualboot - so choosing a product that works in several operating systems is a good thing.
10 minutes ago a user asked me what could be the problem when a document has problems with diacritical symbols when opened by other msword versions. and it's not the first time - these things happen _very_ often - pictures, tables, styles, formatting, fields. these problems happen very often, but people are used to them and in most cases don't notice them. and from my experience - most users have thes problems on a regular basis. unless you are working with very simple documents in english-only, you'll stumble upon them. and if you really work only with very simple docs, rtf/txt will be better...
Powerpoint... check Access... isn't somebody working on it?
again, check out openoffice.org base (in 1.9 developer builds) - it aims at something like that.
Outlook... doubly forthcoming
sunbird and evolution now both are going at it. though i'm using thunderbird, i really welcome another crossplatform app that undoubtly will give some boost to sunbird, i believe.
there is a solution that might be pretty interesting (at least for some developers).
bootable cds (or dvds...) that contain basic linux system with good hw detection (think knoppix) and the game itself.
this creates perfectly predictable software environment eliminating all windows problems with "os detoriation", dll hell, driver hunting, spyware, viruses/antiviruses hitting performance etc, also linux glibc/configuration problems.
you exactly know what software will be running under the hood and you can tailor it whatever way you wish (well, except videocard drivers, but that's anyway not exactly the most common thing game developers tackle inhouse:) )
additionally, drivers for usb flashdrives, ntfs captive, fat32/ext3 and some other popular filesystems for saving games/configuration.
there are examples of this (americas army, unreal tournament), so this is pretty much possible.
possible problems include some exotic hardware, probably ati videocards (nvidias drivers for linux are ok). people might dislike rebooting just to play game and then again to go back to their workspace. also space restrictions, though it should be easy to create multi-cd/dvd game.
then there's patch distribution - how would you upgrade the game (and still keep some copy-protection code in place) ?
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1. this is fine as long as you think that 'status quo' is neverending. in practice, new versions of msword break complatibility and bring little added value - but most poeple still upgrade. it's not that they have some reason to besides the pressure by compatibility issues with other software/hardware and other world. so you would think that upgrading would force them to evaluate the market - but no :). "let's just buy now a couple of mso... ok, we bought a couple of thode, we're not going to throw them out, it's such a valuable investment, let's just buy a couple more..." and so on.
2. this is one of the arguments that's extremly overrated. recently a manager from pretty big company (and you would think that at least some cooperation would be shown to bigger companies) expressed his feelengs about ms "support" : "has anybody received any support from microsoft even when they had paid for it ?". when everybody started smiling, he continued : ", no, never, nothing ! it's bullshit. it's a waste of money. i'd better buy support for linux from some local company that will be interested in keepeing their clients".
so, the question : have you received a _real_ support that you feel was worth the money from any of the big proprietary vendors ?
3. ff was easier to adopt - little to no learning curve, smaller feature set etc. although i fully agree with you - there should be more advertising for oo.org. or even better - for open data formats. because that's what this is all about - our data, our information. having it in closed data formats is pretty shortsighted.
2.0 will support native widgets (scrollbars etc). i'm using it on linux (and mostly with generic widgets), so you should ptobably check out this in beta yourself
strange, because a friend of mine was trying to create a couple of pages in word where he wanted to put object precisely on page. he had stumbled for a couple of days (and he's really good with word and a bunch of other software for publishing, graphics etc). i suggested oo.org. he did the job in 10 minutes. so i guess, it depends.
about the problems you encountered - have you tried 2.0 beta ? are they solved ? if not, you could file issues in www.openoffice.org (you have to register) - if developers don't know about a problem, they can't fix it.
autocorrect information is stored in
:)
~/.openoffice.org/user/autocorr
there is one file (per language ?) that can be easily copied over to other machines.
i'm not sure about preserving customized autocorrect configurations. there is a tool named 'configimport' that supposedly combines imported information with existing, but i haven't tried it yet.
word completion unfortunately works only in your current session (as you close oo.org, all information is lost). a workaround would be opening a document that contains a 'dictionary' as a first document - not exactly user friendly
i can see two possible solutions that exist in oo.org right now.
1. word completion - oo.org remembers words that are longer than x symbols (customizeable) and when you start typing next word, it displays possible completion. if you hit enter (can be changed to end/space/right) the word is completed. helps if words have different endings so that you can see wether the correct one has been chosen;
2. auto correct - simply put abd/abdomen in, now when you type abd followed by a space it's expanded to abdomen
there's word count in tools->word count which counts also selected text.
;)
about autocorrect features... check out help, it's faster than finding that option on your own
about 2. ;) )
it's almost impossible to find out what the problem was if it's not reproducible (and especially if you do not report it
so if you have any mor eproblems that you can reproduce - file them in www.openoffice.org
although oo.org now supports 65k, maybe you should try it's database interface, if it is possible. might be easier and faster.
oo.org 2.0 will start faster than previous versions, though there still is some delay.
it is supposed to open password protected msoffice documents, too, but i don't have any to test it right now.
there are users who use pre-2 builds in production for some time. i have stumbled upon small bugs and crashes now and then, so i would suggest you try it out - but save often, save different copies/versions (i do that anyway, and anybody should ;) ). i use 1.1 for everyday work, but now and then some documents are made in pre-2. had a data loss a couple of times, so unless you're adventurous type, don't do anything too important to avoid negative experience.
:)
overall i think it depends on functionality you need. basic things are pretty polished and for several builds i haven't seen big problems with basic text usage. when you go into 3d objects and new things... well, it's beta candidate, so if you see some nasty problem, please, report it
hmm. oo.org doesn't have kde widget support, it has gtk widget support, if ia hevn't misunderstood something :)
about your problems with import - have you tried registering in www.openoffice.org and filing issues ?
i believe i've seen a discussion about this - according to some bizzarre microsoft systray usage guidelines oo.org has removed this funcitonality from it's windows quickstarter.
maybe you should try to express your opinion in mailing lists (users@openoffice.org, for example)
"On supported systems OpenOffice.org will always adopt the theme of the system and cannot choose not to do so."
i'm not sure i got this one right, but i believe this is wrong.
at least on my slackware box gtk widgets look ugly, everything flickers etc, so i'm using generic widgets by exporting SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen
is xlt excel template ?
i believe calc should be able to open them (of course, no vb macros etc) - but you should probably check that out yourself - just grab this beta candidate, it has improves ms document compatibility over 1.1.
you've got something extremely wrong. don't you think nobody would be using it ? :)
my experience with sm is limited, only approx 20 concurrent users on a 233mhz/256mb system, but i haven't seen any noticeable load on that box.
the biggest problem i have with sm - upgrading. it's a pia. basically, you have to reinstall & reconfigure every plugin manually if you want to make sure everything will work ok (and having 10 of them isn't the best situation).
additionally, question was 'which of those two you like better' - so in this case cuch an answer might mean that they both are equally good (or bad).
75x2=150
that's only slightly less than low-level techies get in here... for a full month.
environment like that would be a dream for most people...
"includes some nifty features like tear-off tabs and zooming."
it's like. er. something very cool/new ?
opera has this for ages - isn't this a standard feature in browsers ?
i've used to installing squid myself from sources in case i need it. i don't use socks server that much and i have never set up an ircd server, so - no.
additional packages would also make install size bigger.
if i exclude gnome, f/k/t dirs, slackware-current fits in one cd - bootable, installable, single cd for servers and workstations. sweet. (of course, there's a second cd that contains selected set of packages like squid, apache/php sources, openoffice etc - but still it's two cds for almost everything i ever need)
recently i've bought two graphics adapters for myself and given advice to 3 people who were trying to choose between nvidia and ati.
guess who got those 5 sales...
it's not only about market share for opensource, it's also about geeks suggesting things they feel are better - in this case ati lost 5 sales - but they will lose more. and i believe they have lost a lot more, because i know other people who have been suggesting hardware purchases based on their support for linux - even if the person isn't running linux at the moment.
additionally, in last 6 months several of my friends have got dualboot - so choosing a product that works in several operating systems is a good thing.
10 minutes ago a user asked me what could be the problem when a document has problems with diacritical symbols when opened by other msword versions.
and it's not the first time - these things happen _very_ often - pictures, tables, styles, formatting, fields. these problems happen very often, but people are used to them and in most cases don't notice them.
and from my experience - most users have thes problems on a regular basis. unless you are working with very simple documents in english-only, you'll stumble upon them. and if you really work only with very simple docs, rtf/txt will be better...
1. i don't quite follow here, could you give some xample ? (maybe even file an issue at oo.org...)
;) )
2. this probably won't be a problem (it seems that help for each component is in it's package, at least in official builds)
3. tools->autocorrect->word completion
(if you had installed help you could search for autocompletion
Word... check
Excel... a few complaints
bring them up for oo.org
Powerpoint... check
Access... isn't somebody working on it?
again, check out openoffice.org base (in 1.9 developer builds) - it aims at something like that.
Outlook... doubly forthcoming
sunbird and evolution now both are going at it.
though i'm using thunderbird, i really welcome another crossplatform app that undoubtly will give some boost to sunbird, i believe.
there is a solution that might be pretty interesting (at least for some developers). bootable cds (or dvds...) that contain basic linux system with good hw detection (think knoppix) and the game itself. this creates perfectly predictable software environment eliminating all windows problems with "os detoriation", dll hell, driver hunting, spyware, viruses/antiviruses hitting performance etc, also linux glibc/configuration problems. you exactly know what software will be running under the hood and you can tailor it whatever way you wish (well, except videocard drivers, but that's anyway not exactly the most common thing game developers tackle inhouse :) )
additionally, drivers for usb flashdrives, ntfs captive, fat32/ext3 and some other popular filesystems for saving games/configuration.
there are examples of this (americas army, unreal tournament), so this is pretty much possible.
possible problems include some exotic hardware, probably ati videocards (nvidias drivers for linux are ok). people might dislike rebooting just to play game and then again to go back to their workspace. also space restrictions, though it should be easy to create multi-cd/dvd game.
then there's patch distribution - how would you upgrade the game (and still keep some copy-protection code in place) ?
it works just fine for me on local accounts. maybe you should try it with some simple filter on local messages ?