KOffice 2.0.0 Now Open For Firefox-Like Extensions 165
jakeb writes "After a massive three-year development effort KOffice 2.0.0 has been released (packages for Kubuntu are available) aiming to be a lightweight, cross-platform office suite that supports third-party apps and extensions. With its new design (everything, including the core components, is a module) and bindings, you don't need to know C++ to hack on KOffice, as extensions can be written in Python or Java, among others. TechWorld has an interview with KOffice marketing coordinator Inge Wallin about the vision for an easy-to-use office suite that supports click-to-install extensions like Firefox. Will this be the key to KOffice rising above all other free office suites? The KOffice devs think so. An online repository of extensions, templates, and content for KOffice? I like the sound of that."
Re:Asking for a Mile (Score:2, Informative)
I refuse t use OO (too much Java)
You can use OO.o just fine without any JRE. The very few parts that are written in Java are features most people don't need. You're must either be a troll or stupid since OO.o is a C++ application.
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, this is wrong. KOffice is *from* KDE (i.e. the KDE community). It's for all major desktops, including Gnome.
But yes, it is a different code base than the others.
Re:Asking for a Mile (Score:3, Informative)
Then, on the other hand, it may take some time because the KDE windows installer is not 100% ready yet. We'll see.
Re:"aiming to be ... cross-platform" (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry to disturb the conversation you're having with yourself. But the Windows stuff is pretty good. There is a special windows installer utility that is like a package manager. The Windows stuff can't be 100% because of things like DBUS are lacking, but there may have been some work done to make it close to work. But it's all based on Qt which does a very good job of maintaining compatibility. It's going to be those platform-specifics that get you.
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:2, Informative)
Bloat? == Functionality.
I will give you a specific example, from among thousands.
Open/Star Office handles - easily - RTL languages and the alternative typefaces and ligatures used with them. It has a fantastic facility for mixed, RTL/LTR documents. The toolbar icons even dynamically swap orientation for indenting, justifying, etc., when switching text direction.
As someone who has struggled with the crap support for this in MS Word on Windows NT through 7, and the NONEXISTANT RTL capability of Word on OS X, I am very happy that OOo can do this handily, with consistant functionality - regardless of OS.
OOo has been a superior tool for at least 3 years. MS has given up polishing the core turd, and is adding business/technology value in collaborative computing and advanced document management, rather than refining core text handling capability. They know where the Enterprise dollar will come from.
So, whinge about bloat as you will, with your Terabyte-sized SATA drive!
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:4, Informative)
Open Office is a large, very feature completeness attempt at replacing MS Office. It does very good import/export and is very cross platform, making it a good general solution if you have lots of RAM (512 MB +). OO.Org has fairly good Gnome integration, not sure on KDE.
KOffice is done by the KDE team, it is designed around the KDE libraries and as such it integrates very well. KOffice2 makes very good use of KDE4 allowing for a very nice interface of docking/floating toolbars and widget manipulation boxes (don't know a better word for it). I actually REALLY like the interface for KWord2.
GNOME Office is simply a collection of applications that use the GNOME libraries (or used to be anyway). It is Gnumeric (my favorite Linux spreadsheet, and Abiword, the best truly lightweight word processor I have used, maybe Dia (diagramming counts as a part too?). It does not feel at all like an Office suite, just some nicely done programs.
I personally use Open Office in GNOME, and KOffice on KDE, occasionally using Gnumeric on either because I like it.
Re:"aiming to be ... cross-platform" (Score:3, Informative)
Everything that relies on Qt4 as the underlying library should work just as well on Windows as on Linux. But over time a lot of Linux-isms have gotten into KDE that they need to get out before it'll be equal on Windows, Mac and Linux. Also you have to use the platform-changing button boxes consistantly to get Win/Mac/Linux button layouts etc. so it's close but not completely there.
Re:Gnome Office?!? What Gnome Office?? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Informative)
Oh. I'm sorry for not RTFA. Seems they already are *very* close to that. Man, *finally* an office suite with an UI that makes sense!
an example of SVG also showing up in office suites (Score:1, Informative)
K Office 2.0 released; more SVG [planetsvg.com]
Re:"aiming to be ... cross-platform" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Color me not impressed (Score:1, Informative)
It doesn't use QT or GTK but that doesn't make it inoperable on a KDE or Gnome desktop.
Umm.... Call me crazy, but Im pretty sure OpenOffice uses GTK as it's GUI toolkit, even if it is it's own "internal" version ( at least on Linux and Windows )