OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta Released

Sean0michael writes "OpenOffice.org has announced their 3.0 Beta is ready for testing. The new version includes some great enhancements, including MS Office 2007 import filters, an improved notes feature, a built-in Solver component, and an Aqua interface for Macs. The site has a complete list of Beta features. Download your beta release from their site."

Aqua

Congratulations to the OOo team on (finally) getting an Aqua interface running on Mac OS X. This is a great leap forward for the project and I predict will grow the project significantly in both user base and contributors.

Re:Aqua

User base, yes. Contributions, unlikely. The OS X community is renowned for its exclusive commitment to Apple. I can't name a single significant open source project that originated as an OS X-only application but now runs on Linux, for example.

Re:Aqua

Right, and a huge portion of OS X was lifted wholesale from FreeBSD, so what? Pointing out clones or copies of applications is not what I was asking.

So I'll ask again: Name a single significant open source application that originated on OS X and now runs on other platforms. You can't, because OS X is designed specifically to prevent cross-platform development, and the Apple development community likes it that way.

Your inability to honestly answer this question proves my point that Mac users will certainly enjoy downloading and using OpenOffice for free, but very very few will contribute anything back: because OS X developers simply don't care about other platforms. This is also proven by the existence of things like Darwin ports, where the contributions are all one way. Again, an absolutely MASSIVE use of open source by the Apple community, with almost nothing given back.

Of course, you all have the right to do this since it is open source, just don't expect the rest of us to give you guys any respect as true members of the community.

Re:Aqua

It reminds me of Appleworks. Which is to say it feels like a Mac application, but not a very good one.

(Kidding. A brief fiddle about with it makes me very hopeful.)

Re:Aqua

Yeah, but how long is it going to take before some douche bag starts whining about how it doesn't "feel like a 'real' Mac application?" Probably in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . .

Ooooh! I want to be that douche bag!

Seriously, this is a great step forwards, but like most ports it is still seriously lacking in real functionality, especially when it comes to features that OS X offers, but other OS's do not. These include:

• - spell checking - OO.org claims to support OS X's built in spell checker, but as of the beta still flags words as misspelled that every other application knows are not because I added them. Training two, separate spell checkers to know all the technical terms I use daily are not misspellings is a hassle and is "not native." Hopefully this will be fixed by the time the final version ships.
• - system services - OO.org cannot use any OS X system services including the built in, universal grammar checker, language translation services, or any of the dozen or so services I use in MS Word, Pages, InDesign, TextEdit, mail.app, etc., etc.
• - responsiveness - whether it is because it is a port, or just because it is bloated, OO.org is still a dog for performance. I sometimes see visible lag when tying in word processing documents and it really, really hogs resources. MS Word is slow and a hog, but OO.org is really the only application I use regularly that is worse in that regard.
• - keyboard shortcuts - OO.org does not use the standardized keyboard shortcuts for all functions, but does use them for some. For example, copy and paste uses the standard (cmd-c, and cmd-v) but increasing the font size does not use the same (cmd+) that native apps do. Sticking with one set across all platforms makes sense as a standard. Using the standards on a platform makes sense. Going halfway in between, however, means I have to guess if a given feature will be like a "real Mac application" or like OO.org on Windows or something else entirely.

Please note. These don't mean OO.org sucks or the developers are lazy or anything else. It just means that there is a real usability and functionality concern when comparing a not quite polished port to a native application. One of the drawbacks of cross-platform applications (especially when they are not designed as cross-platform initially, but try to port to new platforms) is they tend to miss things and also tend to become a least common denominator when it comes to features. Windows and Linux don't have a universal grammar checker, so if you use OO.org on OS X (which does) it is ignored, despite being implemented by default in all native applications.

Re:Aqua

There *are* PPC builds so far:
http://ooopackages.good-day.net/pub/OpenOffice.org/MacOSX/Dev_BEA300_m2/

Don't Hate!

I will probably get crucified for this, but one of the new features seems to be support for VBA! While this may not appeal to folks creating NEW solutions, at least we got a stepping stone for supporting old solutions on a non-windows/office platform.

Re:Don't Hate!

I will probably get crucified for this, but one of the new features seems to be support for VBA! While this may not appeal to folks creating NEW solutions, at least we got a stepping stone for supporting old viruses on a non-windows/office platform.

Fixed.

Clones needed, references checked

Windows is the reason we want something else, so why are you copying it?

Speak for yourself there, cowboy. The pricing is the biggest reason that I use open source instead of proprietary, everything else is just icing on the cake. The biggest problem with open source that most people have with it is user friendliness, something that their proprietary competitors either nail or create (since they're the de facto user friendly program). In the case of OOO, at the very least they need to be able to replicate the functionality of the Office version to replace usage for complex documents.

I'm DMing a D&D game right now, and most people are trying to use HeroForge spreadsheets to build their characters and show them to me. Without MS Office, I can't read them. If there's a problem with character sheets for D&D, I can only imagine how many businesses and other groups have problems with OOO not recognizing MS scripts.

Until OpenOffice, and a lot of other Open Source Software projects, understand this [that they need to be different], they aren't much better than what they emulate.

In the areas that matter, they're very much inferior. Apple has been able to create UIs that are much superior to anything anyone else offers. Open source has failed to do so for 90% of their attempts. Unless the project is in that 10%, they could do better by moving towards the MS version rather than continuing what they're doing.

Re:Clones needed, references checked

The biggest problem with open source that most people have with it is user friendliness, something that their proprietary competitors either nail or create

Maybe that's why I love Linux and hate Windows. I don't need "user friendly". I need user obedient. I don't care if it sneers at me and insults me so long as it does what I want it to do the way I want it to.

Microsoft programs do what they allow you to have them do, the way they want or no way at all.

As an added bonus with Linux, it doesn't unsult me, while my intelligence is often insulted with Microsoft's "user friendliness".

I don't need my hammer to be user friendly, either. I just want to drive a nail and no backtalk from the damned hammer. Like Linux, it is user-obediant.

Re:Don't Hate!

I don't understand why people think that OpenOffice gets better the more it's like MS Office.

It depends on what the goals of the project are. If they want to go after users of Office, then they will need to import - more or less flawlessly - from Office formats. Since there are 10-15 years worth of VBA macros out there, it is reasonable that you should support that part of the file format.

I know that I personally have a few GB worth of data in Excel and Word formats, and much of the Excel stuff is macro-enabled/enhanced. If OpenOffice did not support the Macros, I'd have to keep a copy of Office... at which point, why download and use OpenOffice?

Now, please note that I am playing somewhat the devil's advocate here. I'm a user of NeoOffice (even paid for the early access thing) and do in fact use both Office and OpenOffice together on the same machine - in part because I don't want to be locked in to a specific package again in the future. I was just trying to convey the vantage point that I think typifies the office market.

Re:Don't Hate!

The feature bloat in both Office and OpenOffice is gross.

Yep, in my day programs had no features and that's the way we liked them!

Re:Don't Hate!

The more like MS Office it is, the easier it is for corporations to switch to OO. The more compatible with MS Office it is, the easier it is for people to use OO.

I use MS Office 2007 at work. I don't have a choice in the matter. If we start delivering documents in any other format, our clients will have a conniption fit. If we can't open a Word file because our office suite isn't perfectly compatible with the file, we have a major problem.

Unfortunately, I sometimes have to take my work home with me, where I don't want to pay the MS tax. The more easily I can work with Word and Excel files with OO on my home computer, the happier I am. The more OO screws up my cell formatting and causes things to print incorrectly, the more likely I am to turn to the dark side at home.

Before anybody brings it up, no, it's not an option to explain to our clients that open source and implementing open standards is the way to go. We get files from governments at all levels and work for dozens of different clients. Most of them are a hell of a lot bigger than us and won't care if some engineering consulting company thinks an open program is better. Changing office suites is a big deal to some companies. Just look at the feedback MS got for changing to ribbons in Office 2007. People bitched and moaned that they couldn't find anything and it took a whole click more to do a something they had done in three clicks before.

Re:Don't Hate!

I'm getting tired of this blatant lie. OO is released under the LGPL. There, end of story - it's open source.

And while sun does have the copyright, the community plays a role in the development process.
Furthermore, some other projects do use OO code, eg neooffice [wikipedia.org]

Missing change items

I'm missing the "complete rewrite of rendering API and functionality", as well as proper SVG handling (or EPS, or PDF, hell native support for any proper vector graphics format!), and other things that would keep Impress presentations from looking like ass. What about uniform lines, circles that look at least remotely like circles, etc.? What about proper inline (and display) math typesetting? Instead of trying to remain bug-compatible with MS Office at all cost, they should perhaps think about, well, not sucking as bad.

*STILL* no outline mode.

Ugh. I sound like a broken record: Every OOo update, I hope that the OOo developers will add an outline mode to Writer. And every release I'm disappointed. I really like OOo, but this one missing feature keeps me from using it for serious work becuase it makes large document planning and writing production in Writer sloooooow. It's been requested of the OOo team quite a few times over the past 4-5 years. ODF intuitively matches this concept, but implementing it apparently requires some nontrivial change to the Writer codebase. And a little more enthusiasm by those who could code it (wish I could). If I could direct my OOo donation to this one feature, I'd give $XXX instead of my paltry $XX donation. There's some background available here: http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/category/writing

And to quote myself (http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=322381&cid=20912291): "...before some n00b who's never written a 200-page document jumps all over me: No, the OOo "Navigator" does not provide an outline mode. It provides something akin to a re-organizable TOC in a floating window, but it doesn't provide the productivity enhancements afforded by inline hierarchical control within the editing window. This is one function that MS Word got right. For example, in Word I can start typing and make a list in normal text, click into "outline mode" and either use a key shortcut or a single click-drag to promote/demote some text to headings (while leaving other items as content), or re-order paragraphs of text or headings. To do the same thing in OOo's Navigator, I need to switch to a different window to reorganize headings, but switch back to the editing window to resume editing content. I also need to switch between two windows to split a heading into two sections, switch back to move it, and switch again to resume composing content -- something I can do with a CR and single mouse-drag in Word.

Word: type, type, drag, type, type, [enter], key-combo, type.
OOo: type, type, switch-window, drag, switch-window, type, type, re-style, switch-window, drag, switch-window, type.

Come on guys, suck up the Not-Invented-Here pride and adopt this one feature that MS got right! Or do it one-better and improve on the similar inline hierarchical editing from FrameMaker+SGML. Or innovate some collapsible tag interface from something like the old HotMeTaL from SoftQuad. (But don't trash the Navigator; it *is* useful for final proofing, just not composition)

Re:*STILL* no outline mode.

Lack of outline mode is bug nÂ3959 [openoffice.org] and if you had as much as skimmed its content you would know why it is taking longer to develop than you think it should.

Everyone agrees it is important, everyone is impatient, the developers know all about it, but it is not a trivial hack, so it will take resources and therefore time.

Still low limit on Calc rows?

From what I've seen, this release still has the absurd 65535 row limit on Calc—the only reason such a limit was acceptable in previous versions was because MS Office didn't yet support more, but now that Office 2007 supports up to 4 million-some-odd rows, there is absolutely no excuse for putting that many or more into OpenOffice.

More than 65K rows is the killer feature that has gotten parts of my company to upgrade to 2007. Until and unless OOo supports it, there's no way we'll be able to use it as a full replacement for MS Office, as much as we'd like to.

Dan Aris

Re:Still low limit on Calc rows?

...what does your company do that they need that many rows on a spreadsheet?

We're querying data out of a database and trying to do simple processing on it (the type that Excel does very well) in the simplest ways we can, and present it to the bosses. Yes, I could write a Java program to subtotal all our payments by type and spit it out in some kind of elegant format, or we could spring for a dozen more Crystal Reports licenses, but the fact is that Excel does this just fine, and now we don't even have to use 6 worksheets within a workbook to hold it all.

I hate Microsoft, but I just have no way of recommending replacing Office with OpenOffice while this is an issue.

Oh, and by the way (not directed at you, but at the stuck-up git who wrote that quote, which I read, too): when someone says they have a reason to use more than X of something in your product, and all it would cost you to give it to them is (I think) changing the types of a bunch of variables, and maybe adding a couple of extra converter methods, you don't tell them, "No one should ever need that many! Only an idiot would even ask for that!" You either say, "Well, we don't currently have enough demand for that feature to be worth the trouble," or you just darn well do it!

Dan Aris

Re:Still no Reveal codes feature?

Maybe a bunch of users should get together and form a bounty on it. I'd gladly throw in $10 to have reveal codes.

Re:Hang in there guys

You got that backwards there, son. Even though I know you're either trolling or (more likely) astroturfing, I'm going to bite.

I can open a word document with OO. I cannot open an OO document with Word.
I can open a Word Perfect document with OO. I cannot open a WP document with Word.
OO has the cool cachet of the GPL, while Word is just another boring corporate moneymaker.
OO has fewer bugs and faster bug fixes.
OO costs nothing, while stupid people pay good cash for Word that could otherwise be spent on more important things like beer, games, and more beer.

The only thing Word has going for it is that the Uncyclopedia parodies Bill Gates [uncyclopedia.org] (and even includes a real criminal justice system mug shot [uncyclopedia.org] of him) but not Scott McNealy [uncyclopedia.org]. I mean, if Uncyclopedia doesn't make fun of you your software must really suck, right?

Re:Hang in there guys

Despite my being a huge "fan" and user of Open Source software, I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion.

While OpenOoffice.org has many features that are more than enough for the average user (e.g. Me), Microsoft Office has more and many that many users can't do without.

And Microsoft Office 2007 (once you get used to the "ribbon") is even better than Office 2003, which is better than anything from OpenOffice.org.

Personally, I'm happy with OpenOffice.org in Linux but I'm also open-minded enough to know that it's inferior to Microsoft Office 2003/2007.

It's pretty much a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 (which is 9 years old).

You get what you pay for...

When was the last time you used Microsoft Office and what version was it?

Re:Hang in there guys

No, it's just that for most people compatibility no longer an issue.

I can't recall the last time I sent a Word/Excel doc to somebody who couldn't open it.

Nor can I recall having a WP file sent to me in the last decade or so. Besides, Word CAN open up WP docs saved in the WP5 or WP6 formats.

Now.. as a developer, I have done some pretty great things with Office. Not so much using Office as the platform (although everyones done a bit of that at some point), but moreso just automating it in C#/Visual C++ using its COM wrapper.

A good example is an MRP we wrote in C# that uses Excel as a reporting platform.

Many here just can't get past the idea that it's closed-source, a MSFT product, etc. Me? I just want to deliver the best software I can. We're a small company. Top Line growth is important. And I don't have the luxury of indulging personal preferences.

Re:Hang in there guys

OOo has about the same functionality now that Office had 10 years ago.

We have Word (and Word Perfect) at work, and I don't use anything in it I didn't use ten years ago.

At its best, an unused feature is bloat. At its worst it's a security risk.

If OO lacks a feature you need that Word has, you should buy Word. If not and you still buy Word IMO you're either not thinking clearly or you're spending someone else's money.

Re:Taking too long!

No, no, no. You have it all wrong. In Unix, everything's a file. In open source, everything's a beta! It seems to be creeping into some proprietary software [microsoft.com] as well. [slashdot.org] Actually, I have this theory that the entire universe is just a beta project; it would explain a whole lot about these people around me...