StarOffice 7, GNOME-Office 1.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "Abiword 2.0 has been released. Finally the Linux desktop has a quality word processor that is faster to load than OpenOffice.org and includes proper footnotes. It also no longer uses its own font directory. At the same time Enchant 1.0.0 has been released, a cross-platform abstract layer to spellchecking. Enchant has been proposed to be a Freedesktop.org standard." That's not the only news, though: Abiword 2.0 is part of the just-released GNOME-Office 1.0, which, as riggwelter writes "coordinates GNOME2 versions of AbiWord, Gnumeric, and GNOME-DB, the database interface." Sun's StarOffice has just reached version 7, as well: read on below for some more information on that, including a first-look review.

Jim Hall writes "I just noticed that Sun Microsystems has released StarOffice 7. I've been using the StarOffice betas for a while now, so I have been eagerly awaiting this release! StarOffice is, of course, based on the ever-popular OpenOffice.org. StarOffice 7 software adds functionality to enable export to PDF, and to the Macromedia Flash format. It also introduces the new StarOffice Configuration Manager, the StarOffice Software Development Kit, a macro recorder, and support for assistive technologies, as well as for complex text layouts. Multi-platform running on Linux, Solaris OS and Windows. Only US$79.95 to buy your copy for home (free for edu, plus cost of media+shipping.) Now is a great time to show this to your boss and pitch that 'MS Office to StarOffice' conversion project."

An anonymous reader writes "NewsForge has a 'drive-by' 'quick-peek' look at the new StarOffice up on their site."

One suggestion on office software for the Free Software desktop: Casually re-start a friend or co-worker's Windows computer with Knoppix and show them you can open their Word files with OpenOffice.org. Mention their machine is moderately safe from Word-borne viruses until they reboot into Windows.

Casual mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Openoffice is based off of Star, not the other way around.

So, what's the version of Gnome Office again?

[dzym]

2.0, as specified in the article title, or 1.0, as specified in the article text?

Re:So, what's the version of Gnome Office again?

[Anonymous Coward]

abiword is at 2.0. Gnome Office is at 1.0. Gnome Office includes abiword 2.0

I don't think I can clarify more than that

Re:Relationship to Mad Hatter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Madhatter is a integrated desktop focused OS. First release will be based on SUSE Linux. Staroffice, Mozilla, Evolution, Gnome, tightly integrated. Target market is call centers and the like.

Re:Problems with gnome.

[Jody Goldberg]

I don't see any problems with gnome-office listed in your discussion of gnome's failings. Can you elaborate on any issues you've had with recent versions of Gnumeric, AbiWord, or GNOME-DB ? We're quite interested in constructive feedback.

Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes?

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume that the standard C library exists, but once I try to do any windowing, I am faced with half-documented APIs from a multitude of sources. Gnome, KDE, etc., it's all very confusing.

Try Qt. It has superb documentation, examples and tutorials. And once you pick it up, the KDE API documentation (which assumes you know Qt) will make much more sense.

If I run KDE, will I be able to run Abiword?

You'll need to install some Gnome libraries to get it to install, but yeah, there's no problem running any app in any window manager or desktop.

Re:Lazy Questions

[jimmy_dean]

Abiword 2.0 will handle all of that except for the auto table of contents which will be a new feature for the next version, 2.2.

Re:Got it wrong!

[big.ears]

Sorry, it is you who are wrong; the original statement is correct. Although the original codebase was StarOffice, the main tree is now OpenOffice, which StarOffice is now just a branded child of (there are others, like Ximian's OpenOffice). StarOffice includes some other things as well, which can't or won't be open-sourced.

Re:The old debate...

[Jody Goldberg]

Yes is would be very nice if we could stop replicating each others work. However, its difficult to do that in practice because we're all operating on what are in effect completely different platforms. KDE uses entirely different data structures than GNOME, which is in turn different from OO, which is different from mozilla ... and MS sits on the sidelines and smiles.

Adding to the technical challenges are the politcal bits. I've writting elements of gnome-office (libgsf) with the specific intent that it be sharable between the different platforms. Why bother rewriting OLE import/export 3 times ? Unfortunatly, that teeny little 'g' is a big problem. The kword folk have accepted the library, but the kspread team seems intent on writing their own. The OO people can't even look at it because 'the mac people would scream when they saw a glib depend'. Its depressing.

For the time being we're stuck. Each of us feels our project can produce the best result in the shortest time. At best the projects can share test suites and documentation. Which is where Mitch Kapor's grant to Gnumeric comes in handy. We're using it to commission a set of tests in xls format (so that we can all read it, even Ms Excel). The other projects are welcome to use it along with all of our other interoperability tests.

Re:Problems with gnome.

[Dr_LHA]

You using the NVIDIA drivers for XFree86? I've heard that for some reason Gnome/GTK2 has in the past (and maybe still has) problems with those drivers making it run slow.

There is no AbiWord 2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

1.99 is latest version, this is a blatant lie.

Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes?

[caseih]

On another note, I've been trying to pick up some Linux programming in my spare time and am completely confused. I come from a Win/Apple background where the system APIs are fairly straightforward and well documented. In contrast, Linux APIs are pretty much non-existent.

When I first read that I thought you were joking, but as I read the rest of your comments, I understand where you misunderstandings lie. I don't know anything about Apple's APIs, but I imagine that they are very clean. Win32, on the other had, is a mess. Linux *does* have very clean and well-defined system APIs. You are mistakenly thinking that windowing and GUIs have something to with system APIs. They don't. And they shouldn't. Instead, userland libraries supply this functionality. The windows gui is quite a hack, api-wise. And it has many, many security problems because of it's being put into the kernel as a system api.

I assume that the standard C library exists, but once I try to do any windowing, I am faced with half-documented APIs from a multitude of sources. Gnome, KDE, etc., it's all very confusing. The worst part of it all is that the documentation is virtually nonexistent. Sure, there are blurbs here and there, but you'd be lucky to find a documentation system that links together related APIs, clearly enumerates all parameters and their meanings, and displays the data in a readable manner.

Windowing has nothing to do with the standard C library (which all c compilers link against, even on windows -- that's what msvcrt.dll is for). This library, combined with the system apis (chapter 2 of the man pages) provides lowlevel access to the operating system. User interaction on linux comes through other higher-level apis from libraries such as gtk [gtk.org]. This may seem backwards to a Windows developer to separate it this way, but this gives a great amount of development flexibility and increased application security.

It makes me wonder how anyone gets anything done with this proramming environment.

It's quite funny, actually, that experienced unix programmers wonder the same thing about win32 developers. I recommend checking out some books on linux development. I think you'll be slowly impressed as you discover the unix model of development and the simplicity and power of the posix-style api, and the tremendous availability of programming libraries to do things like gui programming, you'll be impressed.

If I run KDE, will I be able to run Abiword?

Yes, of course. You just need the gnome libraries installed (but not the full environment.

My setup

[Anonymous Coward]

AbiWord for viewing
OpenOffice.org as my office suite
Vim as text editor
MiKTeX / LyX for Research Paper, Fancy Documents, etc.

Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes?

[harikiri]

The difference between Window/Apple GUI environments and the GUI environments in Linux/Unix is this:

• There is a "standard" API, but it's using the old, limited feature Xlib [pconline.com] API.
• Today, there exists two very popular alternative Desktop environments, which in turn are based on two different Widget-toolkits. These are Gnome [gnome.org] (uses GTK+ [gtk.org]) and KDE [kde.org] (uses Qt [trolltech.com]).
• Developers wishing to develop on Linux will usually pick one of these two Toolkits, as almost all Distributions offer both environments (and associated development libraries).

So the problem isn't a lack of API details (GTK API's [gtk.org] and Qt API [trolltech.com] documentation), but moreso an issue of choice.

Re:Pointless switch?

[Kunta Kinte]

You're just going from one pay-for product, to another (albiet less cost). If you REALLY want to show your boss the beauty of alternative software. Show him something thats great, FOR FREE! (that will get any bosses attention).

Of course you can also pay for StarOffice because...

(i) The money going into StarOffice is being used to continue the development OpenOffice, as Sun still pays for a lot of the Development of OpenOffice.

(ii) You can get product support, and training from Sun. Important for even small business, or any overstressed IT department.

Not all of the cost of software is in the purchase of that software.

Re:Lazy Questions

[jimlintott]

LyX. If she spends thirty minutes with the LyX tutorial she'll never use a word processor again. LyX acts like a front end for latex. It is WYSIWYM (what you se is what you mean) and excellent for large documents.

Best little piece of software I've seen. Ever.
www.lyx.org

Re:vs. Office

[Deusy]

It's a shame that the parent comment is a blatant troll because it does harbour a truth or two.

Gnome Office and OpenOffice.org (I couldn't comment on Star Office as I have not used it) are many features behind Microsoft's latest incarnations of it's Office suite.

However, Microsoft Office has had a head start. It's been going for a great deal longer than any of OpenOffice.org, AbiWord and Gnumeric. It also has many more developers.

Yet the Free Software Office programs seem to be catching up. AbiWord has matured massively between 1.0.x and 2.0 - they're almost unrecognisable from each other.

Gnumeric is the one exception to the 'fewer features' since it actually boasts more functions that Excel. A little bit of polish, tweaking, and a few subtle feature additions and Gnumeric will be superior to Excel - some argue that it already is.

OpenOffice.org is also making great strides. 1.1 is far better than 1.0 in all areas - features, speed, and general polish. The plans for 2.0 are promising - there is a detailed roadmap [openoffice.org] that makes for interesting reading. Version 2.0 of OpenOffice.org will be a major milestone for the project. 1.0 was the initial release, 1.1 was the produce of a bit of spit and polish, 2.0 will be the first to feel like a true individual project as opposed to a bastard-brother of Star Office.

How is it that these Free Software programs are gaining on the software developed by the software giant?

Since Free Software developers develop for free, I think there's a pride assosciated with their work that inspires them to overcome obstacles insurmountable to a payrolled team. It could also be that we have a superior development platform, but that's just flamebait.

Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes?

[Eponymous Coward]

I found the manpages quite difficult to use because sometimes I don't know what an API is called, so I would have to do a grep on the entire doc tree

Try 'man -k KEYWORD'. I don't use linux very much, but this has helped me a great deal.

Re:Casual mistake

[shellbeach]

Openoffice is based off of Star, not the other way around.

I don't think so ...

OpenOffice was based on StarOffice ...

StarOffice is now based on OpenOffice.

From the OpenOffice.org Unofficial FAQ [bytebot.net]:

1. 1.3. How does it differ from StarOffice?

   OpenOffice.org is an open-source project, which means that it is a piece of software (an office suite in this case) developed under a set of very liberal licenses (the LGPL and SISSL - more on this later).

   One of the freedoms provided is that one can take OpenOffice.org and package it as his/her own distribution. Then, this distribution can be sold to make a revenue. Such a distribution is StarOffice, from Sun Microsystems.

   Therefore, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice have exactly the same core applications, except that it misses out on certain fonts (like Asian language ones and a few for improved Microsoft file format compatibility), a database component (AdabasD), certain file filters, templates & a clip art gallery, and some sorting functionality. However, most of what OpenOffice.org lacks can be made up with the help of third-party applications...

What you're saying is rather like saying Mozilla is based on Netscape ...

Abiword 2.0

[mbrubeck]

Abiword 2.0 [abiword.org] was released today.

Re:It

[jimmy_dean]

Actually, I agree. And it's just MIME-type games. But here's how it works. You save your file in Abiword 2.0 as a Microsoft Word .doc. What Abiword does is it is actually RTF but with the extension .doc. If you do want a true RTF with the proper extension, that option is there too. How's that work for you?

Re:Pointless switch?

[phraktyl]

StarOffice happens to fall under our existing contract for Sun anyway. But it is excellent support.

We are still, unfortunately, stuck with SO5.2 (I know, and I'm working on it...), but we have gotten custom patches from Sun 3 times in the last 6 months for SO dealing with MS Word documents. I'd like to see MS provide patches for Word because it's not bringing up a Word Perfect file up correctly...

I do

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Don't these people actually work in an office?

And I use Word. Only Word. Despite this, I recommended the use of rtf as standard because the .doc format did make us lose documents.

OOo does Flash already

[TrentC]

Perhaps OO will see Flash support in the future?

OpenOffice does export as Flash, according to tho OpenOffice.org 1.1beta2 Features Page [openoffice.org].

You won't be throwing out Macromedia's product any time soon, I gather, but it's probably a good option for those Impress presentations...

Jay (=

Re:Presentation application?

[ambrosius27]

An astute observation. No, there is no GNOME Office PPT equivalent as yet. However, there is good news on the horizon: the Abiword folks are working with Sven Herzberg in creating just such an application, using the Abiword and GNOME libraries. See Criawips. Yes, the name is a bit odd, but some prominent hackers, including Martin Sevior of Abiword fame, are keen to work on this program to round out the core of GNOME office (see the Footnotes story, comment by Martin, for example).

Re:Presentation application?

[ambrosius27]

Hey, what happened to my hyperlinks?

Fine, here it is in plain text:

*The first link (Criawips):
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/c riawips/

*The second link (Martin's comment):
http://www.gnomedesktop.com/comments.ph p?op=showre ply&tid=17276&sid=1353&pid=17268&mode=thread&order =0&thold=#17276

Cheers!

Re:Just one question...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right.
Here is the file format:

http://xml.openoffice.org/

Now all we need is people to use it!

Re:Just one question...

[pointwood]

KOffice will switch to Open Office fileformats - you can read more about it in the Kastle 2003: KOffice Developers' Meeting Report [kde.org].

Re:Pointless switch?

[Lumpy]

For most large companies, it's not about free or not free, it's about dedicated support.

oh bull crap. several PHB's tried trotting out that lie the LAST time we went around with Open source.

Fortunatley we called them on the carpet. Made them gather the call data to microsoft from the help center. and show us the number of important support calls to Microsoft on Office.

Oh guess what... ZEREO calls were made and billed to us No support was needed for Microsoft Office and therefore we wasted money on a support contract with them (that was pay per incident anyways... go figure)

If making dishonest statements like the one above that "It's about dedicated support" make you feel better in the conference room them by all means continue that stance. There are more of us out here that are more than willing to deliver the full amount of information to the decision makers, or go above the heads of those that resist us.

Open office, if you don't need the special import filters that Star office has. and yes, if you look hard enough you can get support for Open office.... even pay support if you want to pay for something.

Re:Why I can't switch to Abiword yet

[msevior]

For the numbered outline, simply define a new style based on "Numbered Headings" and change Auto numbering style from simple Numeric to Alphabetic, roman, whatever you like.

For the cut+and select and delete bugs, I'm stumped. They work great on my box. Please submit a bug along the offending document in a bug report to our bugzilla.

Web layout! I'm impressed that someone actually uses that :-) Please post a bug report and we'll that fixed.

Regarding the scrolling causing text distortion, this bug was fixed right before the 2.0 release.

I think must have played with a pre-2.0 beta. Look at the hint for auto numbered styles. They work much the same as MS Word. We could include more by default I guess but it's just as easy for the user to create their own and save them to a template file.

So go ahead and switch :-)

PS. We take good bug reports with easy to reproduce examples very seriously.

Re:The Cooperative Bug Isolation Project

[Benoni]

Any chance of making the Gnumeric GUI a little less, um, sluggish?

That depends on where the sluggishness is coming from. If the Bug Isolation Project builds are sluggish but standard Gnumeric binaries are not, then that is something I need to look at. Our instrumentation may be taking up more than its fair share of your time. On the other hand, if you see the same problems in regular Gnumeric, then your best option would be to file bug reports [gnome.org] or contact the developers [gnome.org] directly. They will be able to help you out more directly than I can.

When entering data the toolbars enable/disable with an annoying lag (instantaneous with Excel).

This may be intentional, or at least an intentional temporary hack. See this message [gnome.org] from the Gnumeric mailing list archives, where Jody says "We're talking with [the gtk developers] to improve performance here, but in the mean time we've put the desensitisation on a delay to avoid pointless flicker when doing data entry quickly."

And F9-ing a (sub)formula in the formula bar is a big missing item

Sounds like a perfect item to suggest in either a bug report [gnome.org] or on the mailing list [gnome.org]. The Gnumeric developers (of whom I am not one) are generally pretty responsive to MS Excel feature parity requests.