OpenOffice.org Built with KDE and GNOME Support 299
ks writes "Novell hacker Jan Holesovsky has released a build of OOo 1.1.3 that integrates with either KDE or GNOME depending on the environment it's running in. The build features KDE/GNOME look and feel, KDE/GNOME file dialogs and the Crystal icons. If you're running NLD, you have this already." Update: 11/27 18:13 GMT by T : Also on the OpenOffice.org front, the OO.o front page links to this interview with Debian ARM developer Peter Naulls, who has ported the suite to ARM processors. Hint: they're everywhere.
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Re:First Reply| (Score:2, Funny)
Re:First Reply| (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First Reply| (Score:2)
You're both correct: It's So, you're busy playing Half-Life Two too...
Re:First Reply| (Score:3, Funny)
*imagines all the characters walking around in pink*
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Re:First Reply| (Score:2, Interesting)
In fact, on my machine at least, the Qt GTK+ theme is faster than the native GTK+ themes. The only problem is that it's still a bit buggy.
Re:First Reply| (Score:2, Funny)
I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:3, Interesting)
How does it support things like ppt, doc and xls files? I really wanna impress who I am showing this to.
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2, Informative)
How does it support things like ppt, doc and xls files?
Rather well. I've read success stories of OO.o flawlessly opening corrupted .doc files that crash Microsoft Word.
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2, Informative)
Open Office: your MS Office document repair kit. (Score:5, Informative)
Last year, the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival sent the band Saccharine Trust an elaborate Excel spreadsheet which provided an overview of the schedule for the entire weekend's performances at Camber Sands in the UK.
Joe Baiza had Office 98 for Mac running on his iMac. No joy opening the spreadsheet. He then sent the spreadsheet to Chris Stein, the band's bassist, (No, not the Blondie guitarist! Same name, different guy...) who tried to open it in Office XP. Again, no joy.
I get the spreadsheet sent to me. I open it in OO.o. Success! I saved the document first as an OO.o native format file, then resaved the native OO.o file as an
I'll have you know that NOTHING got screwed up in the formatting. Maybe a few weird calculations used by the ATP folks got messed up, but the guys in ST didn't need them. All they needed was the time that ST needed to go on, and also the times for some of the other bands on the schedule the guys wanted to see. OO.o rules.
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2, Insightful)
You've already picked OO.o, and you don't even know how it performs. What happens when they go with your ideas and switch from MS to Linux and you don't know how to support what you've suggested? They won't be impressed.
Not to be a troll, but stuff like this will only hurt adoptin of Linux. You tell them Linux is the best thing since sliced bread, they have you show them, they switch, stuff breaks, and you can't fix it. In the PHB's mind, you and Linux s
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:3, Insightful)
I've used it in the past, and found file support spotty. It is powerful in its own right.
But thanks for the 'wake up'. Nice to know the community cares enough to ensure the very best. And I mean that.
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:3, Insightful)
It just sounded like you were the most Linux-savvy person at work, and if they decide to make the switch you'd better be ready. Switching to Linux is beneficial, but never easy. Everyone in the office will be asking you questions ALL day. If you don't know your distro of choice inside out as well as gnome or kde and all the dependency issues, advocating Linux isn't the best idea.
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2)
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:3, Informative)
everything is great except for video in presentation. It works somehow [debian.org], but does not even correctly open .ppt [debian.org] with video inside, though.
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2)
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2)
-use evil powerpoint inside stolen vmware (afraid to admit, but I have legal win2000)
-make presentation inside OOo, and switch between desktops to run a video with mplayer, which waits aside
I use both of those methods interchangeably, favoring
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2)
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2)
Actually, support is very solid. There are slight quirkisms (slightly different line-wrappings if fonts arent found, some UI choices are slightly different), but some important elements to your pitch must be:
1- if you need windows and office we can still install it
2- default config should be windows + openoffice
3- some groups can use linux + openoffice + evolution
Re:I've seen it in action, it's pretty sweet (Score:2, Interesting)
My most complex Excel sheet converted easily and I only had to change of couple of functions where the OOo arguments were slightly different than Excel's. Also the file size in that particular Excel document was over 2MB but the OOo native file size was 94k (they use an XML format and then zip compress it - that's why some people claim OOo to be "slower").
I didn't even think abo
Mirrordot Link (Score:2, Informative)
NLD (Score:3, Informative)
It's basically Suse with some tweaks, but it's got a very professional look and feel about it with everything nicely integrated.
n-tierety (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:n-tierety (Score:2)
Been there, done that. Got burned.
Re:n-tierety (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:n-tierety (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone know (Score:2, Interesting)
mirror (Score:3, Informative)
Something similar for Mozilla (Score:4, Informative)
The Mozilla integration project for Linux desktops [polinux.upv.es]
Running NLD (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a good thing. One of the reasons that Java never took off from the desktop was that it didn't integrate with the native GUI. Nice to see OpenOffice not making the same mistake.
Too many linux applications still have horrible, unusable file selectors. It will never take off as long as such monstrosities are present everywhere.
This is one of the reasons why Windows is used by so many people. They do provide a more or less monotone interface. Even if the interface is horrible (like personalized menu's) it's horrible all over the place.
Re:Running NLD (Score:3, Informative)
Why OpenOffice is important (Score:4, Informative)
Having a drop-in replacement for Office is critical to attacking their core replacement parts business.
Kudos by the way to AbiWord and Gnumeric, two excellent programs that are native GNOME apps today.
Re:Why OpenOffice is important (Score:2)
Do abiword and gnumeric read/write
I think all three, OOo, abiword and gnumeric are important, but it would be better still if they all share an open document format.
Just some random thoughts.
Aqua on Mac OS X (Score:5, Interesting)
Only KDE icons (Score:3, Informative)
hmm... (Score:2)
Re:hmm... (Score:2)
What about Qt on MacOS X, then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not use Qt/Aqua on MacOS X instead of the incredibly clumsy X11 interface, then?
Direct Link to Mirrors (Score:3, Informative)
Window Managers (Score:5, Funny)
Developer: OK, put this window here.
KDE/Kwin: Actually it's better over here.
Developer: No! I'll need that space later for another window.
Gnome/MetaCity: I know, I know! How about here?
Developer: Christ! No not there either.
Developer: OK, how about you both put it here? that makes sense.
KDE/Kwin: That's great, but I'll just shift up a bit, and flip your directions horizontally.
Gnome/MetaCity: Ignore KDE, it's perfect! But I think it would be even more perfect over here.
Developer: Jesus Christ!
It's usually possible to get what you want, but often involves hacks, redundant code, and forking.
I realise this is intentional and in the interests of usability and consistency, but more often than not the it's counter productive to the cause, since frequently a human knows better than a computer when it comes to usability.
Re:Window Managers (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Your application has no fucking clue abotu how the user wants their windows displayed
2. Your application has as little clue about what the rest of the display is used for.
The window manager however has a bit of a clue about both, so it IS the proper place for deciding on window placement. All your application should ever try to do is give a suggestion.
Sorry to say, but if you do not udnerstand this then imo you have not understood what a windowsing system is for.
In short, when you develop for a shared gui environment (ie, the gui is also used for other things then your application) you do NOT have control over window placement, deal with it or write your own dedicated gui, it is the nature of the beast.
Re:Window Managers (Score:2)
Re:Window Managers (Score:2)
Re:Window Managers (Score:2)
I prefer XFce, personally.
Re:Window Managers (Score:2)
Mac OSX KDE build? (Score:2)
Re:Mac OSX KDE build? (Score:2)
It *is* the limited number of developers. Refer to the OSX porting pages on OOo site where they state that they are held back by a shortage of developers, and to the several press releases over the past few years where they appeal for OSX devs to join them
What about Suse 9.2? (Score:2)
Re:What about Suse 9.2? (Score:2)
Re:What about Suse 9.2? (Score:2)
OO.o on the ARM? (Score:2, Funny)
Just wait a few more months... (Score:2, Insightful)
Although I applaud the move, this will be somewhat outdone in a few months when openoffice 2.0 is released. 2.0 will support better native integration anyway, including look-and-feel.
Here's what I want! (Score:3, Interesting)
That's all. On one hand, I like the way RPM works and what it does for the user. On the other hand, I can never seem to get the most up-to-date packages. It's terribly unfortunate and is always a balancing act between installing from tarball and maintaining RPM integrity. I suspect there are ways of handling it better and further that someone might even volunteer these better ways right here in response to this.
But if someone out there loves to build useful RPMs and has already built RPMS suitable for FC2 and/or FC3, please let me know where they are! I know I can't be the only one wanting them.
Re:Here's what I want! (Score:2)
What about OS X? (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I'm an OOo advocate, as you can see from this Computerworld article (http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/softw are/apps/story/0,10801,92195,00.html?SKC=software- 92195 [computerworld.com]) that I published last Spring.
I used OOo since the days of StarOffice. I managed to write two books, many presentations, spreadsheets, and countless business documents in it. OOo is probably one of the best office applications and it's cross-platform.
I had quasi undying loyalty to OOo until I decided to go to OS X. While the feature set is almost identical to other versions of OOo, the GUI is one of the ugliest. OOo also lacks compatibility with Exchange servers, which I'm forced to use for work (yuck!). For these two reasons, I had to cave in and return to Office:Mac.
The efforts to tightly couple OOo with KDE or Gnome are important and interesting but far from the marketing win that OOo needs. An OOo version that supports the native OS X look and feel would probably win lots of support from Apple's user base because it would be, in most cases, a drop-in, free replacement for Office:Mac.
I interact now with quite a few Mac users on regular basis; most, if not all, would love to ditch Office:Mac in favour of OOo if the GUI and other system integration issues were resolved. I believe that an OS X/Aqua version of OOo is more strategically important than one for Gnome or KDE because it would generate instant press outside the early-adopter, Linux world.
A strategic marketing win could result in additional funding/participation/donations to OOo to carry on with other projects that, although important, lack the visibility that the Mac has or could bring to OOo.
Cheers,
EugeneRe:What about OS X? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about OS X? (Score:3, Informative)
Quoting the relevent section
I'll be impressed (Score:2)
Re:I'll be impressed (Score:2)
I can't imagine how difficult it must be to build a cross-platform application that a) remains internally consistent with itself and b) remains externally consistent with its environment.
On the other hand, the default OOo
What? (Score:2)
What more do you want this to do?? Java scripting (or your choice of languages) incredible DB support, a great text editor, cool drawing proggie and more, what more do you want?? No really, I would like to know.
screenshots (Score:4, Informative)
Soooo, what does this mean? (Score:2)
I use Abiword because I hate it when OO's writer turns my fairly fast computer into a stuttering idoit everytime I use the spellcheck (except for in Mandrake for some reason). Will this make that stop? I hope so, because I am getting tired of the bug in Abiword that keeps things you deleted
Re:NLD? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:NLD? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nonverbal Learning Disorder (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nonverbal Learning Disorder (Score:2)
Re:Nonverbal Learning Disorder (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, a useful clue. Thanks (Score:2)
^n^l ^l^c -^v is a nifty riff that I'd love to macro into a pair of Mozilla hotkeys. If Slashdot form fields had hotkey "tabstops", I'd be Web Ruth.
Re:My my my... (Score:4, Insightful)
Another flameish troll BS-writing anonymous. Since you already saw and followed your light to the end of the tunnel, why don't you let us poor stupid others find our own ?
Your one pointed to an XP laptop with MS's Office. Thank God, this is not the only way.
Just pack your ignorance and get yourself lost.
As for KDE/GNOME integration of OO.org: I welcome it enthusiastically. Every step to make it slinker, better, faster, more = a good step.
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
OO.o uses its own widget set. Except that in Windows OO.o uses M$ API in *X it uses X11. Now OO.o widget sets are taking its ground on underlaying DE insted of X11.
XP laptop??? Been there, never again. And "never" is a definitive term in this case.
p.s. if you were meaning M$ Office. Yeah right. Just look at the consistancy of XP and Office 2003. It looks like mad cows piloting the space shuttle under water. No consistancy at all.
Re:My my my... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. The entire concept of a 'Word Processor' is stupid - http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html
2. If I need a database, I'll use Mysql (Or PostgresSQL, etc)
3. On the (rare) occasion that I need to arrange numbers in a table, I use Gnumeric.
Re:My my my... (Score:5, Insightful)
The other problem is that many word processors are very useful for those cases when the text composition isn't really important, but formatting is the key point, like a sign for my garage sale. Have you ever tried do something like that in TeX?
Don't get me wrong, I use LaTeX all the time, but only for very specific types of documents. It just doesn't work for the majority of stuff that I need to do.
Re:My my my... (Score:3, Insightful)
interesting idea - COMPOSITION and LAYOUT are different things!
The deficiencies of TeX not being tweakable should not be used to against for the importance of the above idea. That about that.
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
You are wrong (Score:2)
2. You seem to mix up TeX and LaTeX. Plain TeX is the typesetting system with which the expert can do everything. LaTeX is a set of macros and document types and classes which allows less experienced users to get near perfect results
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
If what you are making is esentially a graphic then use something approptiate to the task! In this case a graphics package or indeed a DTP package is what you need, not a word processor.
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
It's actually very easy if you're willing to learn a little TeX. For those that aren't, I'm surprised no solutions have been made available. I'e written a small Gnome app tht lets you do basic drag and drop design for presentation templates and will output a LaTeX documentclass. It isn't quite at release quali
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
In the hands of an amateur, TeX is capable of producing some really hideous stuff too... and I mean bad enough that even people who _don't_ have real typesetting experience would think it was ugly the instant they looked at it (I've seen it happen). To produce beautiful stuff with TeX actually requires considerably more effort on the part of a person who is no
Re:My my my... (Score:2)
I want my
Re:My my my... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, right. I love this comment:
Come on. No one in their right mind would want to type "\section{Text of heading}"! Nothing could be less intuitive!
If this
Re:My my my... (Score:3, Insightful)
Word processors, specificaly WYSIWYG, are stupid and inefficient [wfu.edu], we should all use TeX instead.
But the TeX commands and syntax are too complex, so use a nice program to generate the TeX. A WYSIWYG word processor, opps, I mean, a WYSIWYM document processor, that outputs TeX.
So, word processors are "stupid and inefficient", unless they output TeX and are called document processors?
Re:My my my... (Score:3, Informative)
That entire article was written on the basis of the fact that most people incorrectly use word processors! You can do exactly what the author is describing in Microsoft Word, and it is a hell of a lot easier than Tex. As you are typing your document, you simply mark things with Heading 1, etc (create new styles as you need them). When you're done "composing", then edit the styles such that your document is
Re:My my my... (Score:2, Interesting)
One of the nice things about a markup language compared to a word processor is that the document style is under the control of the user - the person who'll be reading the docume
Re:My my my... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a problem for Microsoft's competitors and for FOSS zealots, but not for the rest of us. I don't communicate with a single person that doesn't have MS Word (or at least WordPad). Let's not forget that if you are running Linux, you have made a choice to use something that has different features and limitations than the software that 90+% of the world uses. It is not the obl
Re:Is this the real thing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this the real thing? (Score:2)
Re:Is this the real thing? yes (Score:2)
Well, it uses GTK and KDELIBS if that's what you mean.
Re:Is this the real thing? (Score:2)
The old openoffice file chooser was terrible, though; having the nice new gtk file chooser is really cool.
Re:Still not native GNOME or KDE (Score:2)
Re:Still not native GNOME or KDE (Score:2)
Re:Still not native GNOME or KDE (Score:2, Interesting)
If you really want a native office suite then I think that KDE + KOffice is the most integrated, complete and promising for the future. Although I think it's not there yet, especially the MS format filters of OOo are still more usable in the real world (and no, using the OOo filters in KOffice is not an option, that has been discussed over and over again).
Re:Still not native GNOME or KDE (Score:2)
And yes, I am willing to do it myself if no-one else will. But if that's what you want, expect a full port of OOo 1.3 some time in 2008. Seriously, is anyone organising a project anything like this? Because I will join and submit anything I can.
Re:Features of interest... (Score:5, Insightful)