Open Office Plans To Party Like It's Version 3.0 396
penguin_dance writes "The Register reports that 'OpenOffice.org is throwing a launch party in Paris on 13 October' to celebrate eight years, and hopefully announce the release of version 3.0. Some notes: [OpenOffice.org 3.0] will support the OpenDocument Format 1.2 standard, and be able to open files created by MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac OS X." As maj_id10t notes, though the OO.o site does not yet carry an announcement, "Lifehacker has posted an entry stating the final release of OpenOffice 3.0 is available for download via their distribution mirrors."
Openoffice? no thanks. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is such a huge difference in features and usability that there is no way that OpenOffice would gain any ground over Microsoft, in my opinion.
OpenOffice was an absolute torture. I had originally expected that after moving to OpenOffice, I would be able to convince everyone else in my office to make a move as well (eventually).
I guess that takes care of that.
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What exactly were you missing? My two major gripes with OpenOffice were poor implementations of comments and tracking changes in Writer, and those are fixed now.
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Actually I'm not entirely happy with what MS Word outline view - I wish you could view numbered lists that way, not just headings.
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I don't think so. However, there is good news. On the forums on the OO site, the developers finally acknowledged that it's "navigator" mode (or whatever it's called--the thing they kept telling people to use who said they wanted something like Word's outline mode) is not an adequate substitute, and said that a proper outline mode is a high priority.
Unfortunately, they also said that implementing this will be a lot of work, so will take a while to get in.
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You can use PowerPoint templates from within Impress and you can download many more from oooextras [smalldataproblem.org] and OO.o does have animations.
OO.o Calc has had some pitfalls, but version 3 is much improved. With several well-documented numerical errors that have survived in each new version of Excel, I don't know if that is the paragon to strive for.
Re:Openoffice? no thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, i just popped open OO.org to verfy your claims. here's what i found:
unless you're just trolling, you might make a more convincing case if you actually listed specific complaints instead of, oh i dunno, pulling things out of your ass? honestly, there are a lot of things to get used to when switching from MS Office to OO.org (i spent most of my life using MS Office), and that transition can be pretty frustrating. but don't blame your own inability to adapt (or to even try to adapt) on the software.
neither MS Office, nor OO.org are perfect. personally, i've had problems with both of them. but so far i haven't heard a single legitimate complaint leveled against OO.org. so i have to conclude that these groundless criticisms are just knee-jerk reactions to having to adapt to a new office suite application.
the only problem i've had to OO.org is trying to make PDF documents with complex layouts using tables with varying column/row spans. but i've had the exact same problem in Word. all WYSIWYG editors have quirks like these, and i can't say that one is better than the other.
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Same with hardware. That's why Dvorak keyboards are worse then QWERTY ones. Despite the fact they're not, you know, actually worse but are in fact better.
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No, it's not. Some times, you just have to recognise that some people are full of shit, and fullgandoo is definitely one of them.
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It's not that simple. If you have a general method for interpreting arbitrary web content for screenreaders, I urge you for the sake of the visually impaired, and for the webdevs currently spending time on accessibility, and for the sake of your wallet, to go develop such screenreader software.
Blind people don't have to carry around scanners that interpret & speak out the arabic numerals on elevators and bank machines. The machines get braille.
A content provider interested in providing content to the
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Re:Openoffice? no thanks. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is such a huge difference in features and usability that there is no way that OpenOffice would gain any ground over Microsoft, in my opinion.
I'm not a big fan of OpenOffice myself and I can't really say anything about features, but to praise MS Office's usability seems utterly absurd to me.
I am reasonably computer-savy, but if I have to do anything more complicated than typing a really simple letter, Word drives me up the wall. It constantly feels like I have to work against it, instead of having it do work for me.
Same thing in Excel: I'd rather use pencil & paper or write my own scripts instead for every calculation I have to do, than trying to get Excel to do anything that even remotely resembles what I want it to do
Mind you, I'm not saying OO is any better in that respect. I'm just saying it can hardly be any worse
Re:Openoffice? no thanks. (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple's got some intereting ideas in terms of Office Applications. They don't highly tout iWork, or even promote it that much, despite the fact that it shows quite a bit of promise.
Keynote is hands-down the best presentation app out there.
Numbers is considerably more intuitive than Excel, with its vastly superior UI. A few minor features are missing, though it's really a joy to work with.
Pages is the enigma of the bunch. Apple seems to want to combine the roles of the layout app with the word processor (Publisher vs. Word). They seem to have done a pretty remarkable job at the layout part, though the word-processing bits could still use some work. It's "different" enough that users might have a tough time getting used to it.
More importantly.... none of the apps are trying to mimic Office, OoO, or AppleWorks. If OoO tried to be daring for once, and adopted a completely new set of paradigms, rather than mimicking MS Office, they might actually have a compelling product. For now, though, it's a second-rate knockoff of an already mediocre product.
Re:Openoffice? no thanks. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do yourself a favor and learn LaTeX. Yes, it has a learning curve and you need lots of documentation and/or an internet connection to know which packages you need but at least it provides consistent results, doesn't reformat half of your text on a whim and isn't nearly as frustratingly annoying as any Word-like program.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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However, in many cases, Latex is the better form to write articles, books, etc. Text can be input first, and then formats added later. Sure one does not have the ability to put 10 different fonts on every page, but, again, this is where content rules. Version control and revising is trivially handled though
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I don't know man.. as of 2.4, I finally took my work over to OO.
And these are 200 page documents with many tables, lots of cross references, and many graphics.
After about a month, I started noticing things *missing* in word (like the crop picture feature in OO is intuitive while it is painful and "trial and error" in word) ( like the illogical formatting menus in word ) (and a few other things).
But hey, it's okay if you like Word. Some people like tomatoes, and some don't.
But with Word, you will pay the re
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When you stand there and hold up MS Office as 'the' standard, you are asking for ridicule. Remember that one size does NOT fit all. To say that MS Office is that one size fits all is ridiculous. It's quite probable that for any given conversation about office productivity software you'll be holding the rotten sea bass that nobody likes. Sure, in some conversations you'll be holding the golden calf, but it is likely that more often you will not be. This is true of any software package that you hold up as the
Re:Openoffice? no thanks. (Score:4, Insightful)
I largely agree, but every couple of months I check it out again. It's made tremendous strides since that abomination that was StarOffice.
To draw an analogy -- I remember using early versions of the Mozilla suite. It was hideous. Now I can't imagine a web without Firefox.
Give it time. This *is* a major version release, after all. Might be worthy of another go-around.
Using OpenOffice with no problems?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm always sceptical when people talk about using OO seriously with "no problems".
It's strange that so many people on Slashdot make claims like this, yet for me and various people I know in real life, basic things like sorting in OO Calc seem to fail on any non-trivial spreadsheet. Heck, I even got the Undo command not to undo simple find-and-replace changes properly the other day.
And have they fixed the font embedding that kills PDF export from Writer yet? It's only been a bug since forever, with more votes than almost anything else in the bug tracker.
As long as this sort of thing is going on, usability isn't even an issue: OO isn't even useful for more than throwaway work, and it actually seems to be getting worse in the 2.x series to the point that it's not even useful for much throwaway work either.
Font Embedding in PDFs (Score:2)
Can you elaborate (perhaps with a link to the issue), please? OO.o has embedded all non-standard fonts in PDFs for a while now...
Re:Font Embedding in PDFs (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at issue 43029.
Notice that it is classified as a feature request rather than a bug and its target milestone is only 3.2, despite being first created more than three years ago, having over 200 votes, and numerous comments on this issue and its various duplicates showing how it's a complete showstopper for using most professional grade fonts with PDF export.
This bug has become the standard counter-example in on-line discussions to all the OSS advocacy that claims many eyes make all bugs shallow, products will naturally develop according to users' needs because people can contribute their own patches, etc.
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I waited for rectangular cut and paste for about 3 years.
Version 3.2 isn't far away.
It will happen.
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I waited for rectangular cut and paste for about 3 years.
Version 3.2 isn't far away.
It will happen.
Do you mean block selection mode?
In OO 2.4 you can find it under Edit -> Selection Mode -> Block Area
Or you can use Alt + Shift + F8
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Look at issue 43029.[...] it's a complete showstopper for using most professional grade fonts with PDF export.
Why obscure the situation, why not mention that this is only with "CFF-flavour OpenType fonts (*.otf)". How many people, not using DTP packages, are that fussy about the font they use that they won't accept a near analogue TTF font. Does it real make that much difference if people reading your text do so in Times.otf versus Times.ttf - like I said for professional print jobs you can be fussy but OOo is not a professional print production application (though it can be used as one).
This bug has become the standard counter-example in on-line discussions to all the OSS advocacy [...]
Such an important bug only
Re:Using OpenOffice with no problems?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I represent over 150 business users that use ONLY OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheet, etc, and I can attest that we do use it seriously with very few problems. Your comment is way-over-the-top wrong.
Are there some missing things that we would like to see? Sure. But that hardly justifies "isn't even useful for more than throwaway work".
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I represent over 150 business users that use ONLY OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheet, etc, and I can attest that we do use it seriously with very few problems.
Do you? "Seriously"? Or just for quick letters that any old text editor could cope with and trivial data tables in a spreadsheet without any real calculation or data processing?
Your comment is way-over-the-top wrong.
Or your particular users have been very lucky, depending on your point of view. Have you tried sorting spreadsheet data where some affected cells contain formulae? Have you tried undoing a search and replace that used the options beyond plain text? These are data corruption bugs, not some minor UI tweak. These are the sort of crazy b
Re:Using OpenOffice with no problems?! (Score:5, Interesting)
We do everything that a typical business would tend to do with it. Our company newsletter (8 pages, with lots of graphics, columns, frames), wiring diagrams, signs, letters, budgets, expense analysis, small databases, manuals, pdf exports, data parsing, inservice presentations, flowcharts, labels, dealing with lots of Emailed .doc, .xls, and .ppt's, etc.
Are there some bugs? Yes. Although we have not hit any that have prevented normal use or to cause us to not trust OO. But having conversed with MS-Office users- they have bugs also. There are bugs in just about every huge/complex program on any platform.
And I have reported some of those bugs and (as you also said) watched some of those bugs not get corrected over years. However, they don't prevent us from using the software, "seriously", for many years.
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I'm always sceptical when people talk about using OO seriously with "no problems".
I'm always sceptical when people talk about using software seriously with "no problems". -->There, fixed it for you.
Re:Using OpenOffice with no problems?! (Score:4, Informative)
PowerPC? (Score:2)
No support for PPC OSX any more, or is it just delayed?
Re:PowerPC? (Score:5, Informative)
The PPC version is hidden away with one of the openoffice "Projects" -- click on the projects tab, and then you're on your own, but eventually you get to an ftp site. I've found it to be very stable in light use (I mostly use the Linux version).
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Dude, give us money or Intel based.
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And then?
I would like to see a feature list. (Score:4, Insightful)
OO.org works pretty well me but I am not really a big user.
I would love to see a feature list.
Also I would really like to see Base fleshed out. Or at least better documented.
I have tired to play with it but it just makes me nuts.
Re:I would like to see a feature list. (Score:5, Informative)
I would love to see a feature list.
Took all of three seconds to go to the website and get it.
http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html [openoffice.org]
Re:I would like to see a feature list. (Score:4, Informative)
Feature list is available here [openoffice.org]
Release notes are here [openoffice.org]
Mac OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
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It looks good, runs fast enough for my porpoises.
Always felt a bit clunky to me oh and a question (Score:2)
Like MS Office of a couple of revisions ago.
And as a couple of other users said its not documented terribly well.
For the folks who use it day to day - do you actually get used to it or is it something you simply work around?
Re:Always felt a bit clunky to me oh and a questio (Score:3, Interesting)
I use OO.o daily. 3.0 has some major improvements, and you should check it out.
I largely prefer OO.o Writer to MS Word now that OO.o Writer has better commenting and revision control. I can rely on it for 99% of my work, but I find I still sometimes switch to Word under Wine if I get a manuscript that uses EndNote (rather than Zotero) or very complex embedded equations.
I have grown used to Impress. PowerPoint users might still have grips. I prefer LaTeX Beamer, but sometimes need to make or read PowerPo
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Does it have an equivalent to Word's Normal View, and are the outlining features on-par with Word's?
Last time I tried OpenOffice (about a year and a half ago), there was no Normal View, and the outline mode was simply pathetic. I seem to also vaguely recall that you couldn't split the scrollbar, but that might have been an earlier OpenOffice problem...
Re:Always felt a bit clunky to me oh and a questio (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any other piece of software, there are things you feel like you couldn't live without and things you have to get used to. I remember it felt clunky when I first started using it, but that went away very quickly. Some things are more elegant than in MSOffice, some less. I've been using v3.0 for a while now (beta and fc releases), and I like it quite a bit. One of the big clunkinesses, the graphical depiction of comments/notes, is now very nice. There are still some screen rendering oddities that don't get in my way but do contribute to the impression of clunkiness. On the whole, I imagine it's still clunkier than its commercial counterpart, but the gap is narrowing. However, I rarely edit documents that are more than a few hundred pages long, and I know many of OO's critics say that its shortcomings are especially obvious if you work on long documents. So I can't comment on that.
How has MSOffice come along in the same time? Is pdf writing integrated now? Do files still bloat to ridiculous sizes on repeated editing?
MS Word PDF support (Score:2)
There is a gratis download from microsoft to allow this feature. Adobe did not want them to ship it built-in to MS Word (arguing that MS's near-monopoly would do damage to sales of Acrobat). I think MS is pushing their own XPS format more heavily, to some success (at least I seem to get them from PHBs).
The new version of OO.o has a plugin that can import PDFs for editing. So it still has Word beat in the area of PDF handling.
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Yeah, but that aside, it's super poor-form for Adobe to crow about how open and standardized PDF is, then sue a competitor for implementing it. If you didn't want PDF in Word, you shouldn't have opened up the format idiots. Adobe's trying to have it both ways, and shame on Microsoft for backing-down.
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...and shame on Microsoft for backing-down.
Why? It's a winner for those pricks. They do not support an open standard (pdf), and their "open" formats get the benefit of the network effects. Meanwhile they point the finger at Adobe. Just the regular fuck-your-customers, fuck-your-competitors, fuck-your-partners, and fuck-justice day at microsoft.
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Check out Scribus [scribus.net] -- it's a F/OSS desktop publishing program. From the Scribus web site:
However, a major essential
This time... (Score:2)
Looking forward to 3.0 (Score:2, Interesting)
I cofounded a company last year and we decided to use Office 2007 since we're consulting with clients.
Wow it's been bad. Office 2007 has been a nightmare (endless bugs--crashing when accepting revisions, randomly moving to the top of the document as I'm paging through it, etc.), and interoperability with clients hasn't been as important as we thought.
I can't wait to use 3.0 in the office.
RC4 is the final version? (Score:3, Interesting)
I tried the PDF import plugin, but it doesn't give me any options and imports it directly as a slideshow with messed up text.
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Perhaps they're using the classical definition of "release candidate" (this is a candidate for being tagged as the release) instead of the newer usage equating to "late beta".
Sounds like the PDF import plugin is still beta regardless.
Locale (Score:2, Interesting)
OK, so I give it a try for the first time since I switched back to non-free OS world (many, many years ago).
The good: it is about 1 million times faster and more polished than 1.x iterations.
The yummy: the perspective of writing macros in Python instead of craptacular VBA
The puzzling... and maybe the ugly: I have yet to find a way to set OOo locale to "system locale".
Microsoft did a pretty good job with the regional settings, allowing for a lot of customization. Very useful for people who juggle with around
OpenType Fonts (Score:4, Informative)
As a Mac user, I'm excited to finally be dumping NeoOffice. I hate the system-deep installer. With OO.o v3, it's a proper single-directory bundle. Installation is just drag-and-drop. And no more random boat - the OO.o icon is slick and looks great in the dock.
My biggest complaint with OO.o (and I use it exclusively now, and have moved over my parents from MS Office with no issues) is a frustrating bug with OpenType fonts. They always render fine, but exporting to PDF (something I do often) converts them to some other random font.
Looks like it will be fixed, but not until 3.2 — which feels like forever, since this has been an issue for a very long time. It's especially frustrating since some of the best free fonts out there are OTF fonts.
If you to help increase the visibility of this bug, please vote for Bug #43029 [openoffice.org].
Re:3.0? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I recently tried the release candidate for the OS X Aqua version. It's horribly ugly (just like on other platforms), but it does seem to work.
Yup. And since Microsoft has dropped the only compelling feature that set Office for Mac apart from other office suites (VBA macros) and STILL hasn't made Entourage into a first-class Exchange client, OpenOffice 3 is now just as good (though not quite as good looking). Grats, OO.o team; adios, billg.
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I believe they're adding VBA back next version. And if you want something native, Apple has iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
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And if you want something native, Apple has iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote)
Meh. I use Keynote as my main presentation software, but I am thinking of switching back to PPT. It is very easy to use, and looks great, but when you're going to a conference, you end up exporting to PPT anyway, and then you have to edit that PPT in Powerpoint to fix all the things that didn't make the jump. It's wonderful if you're sure that your laptop is going to work perfectly.
BUT
Pages is useless. No, I don't really mean that... It has a lot of nice features. I love the layout of the way it h
Re:3.0? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing does tables with the power and flexibility of Word....worse still, it follows that evil design philosophy that says spreadsheets are a way to make pretty tables.
I'm confused -- your complaint is that the word processor won't let you build pretty tables, but also that the spreadsheet does?
It just plain makes no sense to use these products in any context where someone else might need to work on them.
If you can, it absolutely makes sense.
There was a time when there were some competing products, and they had some compelling features, but it just plain made no sense to use anything other than Internet Explorer.
Firefox changed all that. And the Web is a lot more interoperable because of it.
That said:
YMMV.
Indeed. In fact, some people are still tied to IE -- even just an IETab in Firefox -- because of that one last website that won't work.
Re:3.0? (Score:5, Informative)
Meh. I use Keynote as my main presentation software, but I am thinking of switching back to PPT. It is very easy to use, and looks great, but when you're going to a conference, you end up exporting to PPT anyway, and then you have to edit that PPT in Powerpoint to fix all the things that didn't make the jump. It's wonderful if you're sure that your laptop is going to work perfectly.
Have you tried exporting to PDF? Unless you have some fancy animations is the best way to have a portable persentation. Almost every pdf viewer has a full screen mode for presentations.
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If your CD is damaged, you could install the Keynote Demo (http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/) and just type in your license key...
This assumes that you where using the latest Keynote, but it is probably possible to get a demo for an old release somewhere.
Re:3.0? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's true that the world runs MS Office, however that's the corporate world. Small companies rarely have the need to export their internal documents to the outside world. So, OO.o is fine in that case.
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and STILL hasn't made Entourage into a first-class Exchange client
Anyone find it funny that the iPhone got ActiveSync/Exchange support before Entourage did? Maybe the MBU [microsoft.com] wasn't willing to pay the licensing fees?
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Yes, because God forbid things should be pleasing or enjoyable.
Do you root for the Borg?
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Seven of Nine is very pleasing to the eye and I'm sure many would find her quite enjoyable.
Re:3.0? (Score:4, Insightful)
Know what I enjoy when I'm using a piece of productivity software like OpenOffice? Getting my work done so I can go do something else.
The computer is a tool. Especially when using something like office productivity software. I don't sit around pondering the color scheme of my screw drivers, or whether or not my wrenches "go with" my hammer. Likewise, I don't spend time contemplating the visual attractiveness of OpenOffice. It lets me get my work done, that's good enough as far as I'm concerned.
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I don't sit around pondering the color scheme of my screw drivers, or whether or not my wrenches "go with" my hammer.
So you are in Home Depot and they have two identical hammers. One is god-aweful looking, like all hot-pink and looks like a professional designer never touched the thing. Yeah... let's pick up that one.
If OO.org was compellingly better than MS Office, then I'd be inclined to agree with you. But it has fewer features and is generally lacking in more areas than it has strengths.
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So you are in Home Depot and they have two identical hammers. One is god-aweful looking, like all hot-pink and looks like a professional designer never touched the thing. Yeah... let's pick up that one.
You know, I would. A hot pink hammer? Hell yes!
Tastes vary. I'm not going to attempt to defend OO.org's UI, as I haven't touched it in awhile, but there are plenty of cases where I've seen a UI make the right choices -- better choices -- yet be shunned because it is different than what you're used to.
Oldest, best example I know of: How many people use the dvorak keyboard layout? Even among a generation which has never had to touch a real typewriter in their lives, and for whom qwerty is completely pointless
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Hey, even Gay handymen need tools too, eh?
Screwdriver color schemes (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't sit around pondering the color scheme of my screw drivers
Unless you want to be able to find the right screwdriver in your set. In that case, you might want to label the handles like Craftsman does for its precision screwdrivers: one color for standard, one for Torx, and one for Phillips. Feel free to draw your own analogies to being able to find things in a GUI.
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We are Borg, you insensitive clod!
Oh, and: Resistance is futile. Form follows function!
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Yup. Funny what happens when you stretch an analogy to its breaking point.
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.
When you live within an office suite for nine hours out of twenty-four, six days out of seven, the UI matters.
Re:3.0? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you live within an office suite for nine hours out of twenty-four, six days out of seven, you should find a new job.
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It's like the difference between The Gimp [gimp.org] and Pixelmator [pixelmator.com].
Both do image editing (and in this case The Gimp is a more powerful tool) but Pixelmator fits in with the look and feel of OS X and works extremely well with other Mac apps. In fact look at the two websites - The Gimp's site looks like crap. Having used both to some degree and not needing the full power of The Gimp, I dumped it for Pixelmator a long time back. The UI is unbelievably far ahead of The Gimp.
If you're going to use an app for any length of
Re:3.0? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:3.0? (Score:5, Funny)
These numbers speak tones.
That's fucking awesome! How do they make them do that?
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Yes because Campbell's gives away all their products for free and Microsoft's Chicken Noodle 7 has a $400 license.... Ever heard of a non sequitur ?
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...stockmarkets into freefall. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down by 7%, and suffered its biggest-ever points loss. Perhaps fittingly in an economy that is in danger of sliding into depression, the only stock among the 500 in the S&P index that finished higher was Campbell's Soup. The S&P closed 29% below its peak. Reflecting fears that consumer demand will wilt, shares of Apple Computer, creator of the iPhone, fell by 18%.
And here's The Economist, part (ii) [economist.com]:
A 90-year-old woman about to be evicted in Ohio shot herself last week. (She survived, and the mortgage firm forgave her debt.)
FOSS is a little easier on the wallet than Microsoft. A recession is cost-cutting. OO.org is one nail in the coffin of Microsoft Office. And that is my argument, and it's no non-sequitu
Re:3.0? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, as a pretty sharp Unix programmer, why don't you make a better looking interface? I think his point still holds water.
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You must be a project manager.
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Communications Directory in a company that has no IT Manager.
Same thing, in the short view.
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Err... What I meant to say was...
Mod parent insightful.
So, mod GP insightful.
Re:3.0? (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way, the outcome is the same: They actively drive users away, in FOSS's case back into the comforting arms of Microsoft. It creates a rift between reality and the developer's perception of reality, which results in the project not moving towards progress but orthogonally to it, or worse away.
And here enlies the problem with the "write a patch" types: I gaurantee you I can find an aspect of your computer you aren't an expert at, and you'd be pissed at me if I threw it in your face when you asked for help. Your accountant doesn't tell you to fix your own damn tax problem, the mechanic doesn't derisively laugh because you don't know how to re-gap your own spark plugs, and as a user of FOSS I'd prefer not being snidely mocked just because I don't dedicate hours a day learning your little corner of it. For all the egalitarianism of FOSS, there is still fundamentally a business relationship between the programmers and the users. Until we learn that and put a lid on the "write your own patch" people, it will never equal proprietary software except for a handful of diamonds in the rough.
Why so thorny? Because I've been a recipient of that attitude a few times. And not even my hardcore nerd's reverse tact filter could stop it from getting under my skin.
Re:3.0? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree that the grandparent is engaged in some first-rate asshattery, I'd just like to make one comment. You say:
Your accountant doesn't tell you to fix your own damn tax problem, the mechanic doesn't derisively laugh because you don't know how to re-gap your own spark plugs
The difference here is that you are paying your accountant and your mechanic for their expertise. Most of the people who receive comments along the lines of 'write a patch' have not contributed anything. On the Free Software project I co-run, we have a designer on the core team. He provides a lot of really high-quality artwork and some good UI ideas. If he comes to me with a feature request, then it goes quite high on my TODO list. Why? Because he's contributed to the project in ways that I am incapable of replacing with my own effort. I recently refactored a big chunk of my code to make it more reusable for someone else. Why? Because at the same time as asking me to, he sent me a diff fixing a few of my bugs.
Free Software is about cooperation. I only benefit from sharing my improvements if other people do as well. We both benefit from not having to reproduce the other's work, and so can get on with things we want to do much faster. If you want something done, then you have to convince me that it's in my interest to do it for you, usually by offering something in return. Whether this is code, artwork, documentation, or money is up to you. If you don't offer anything then the reply will be 'patches welcome' which means either offer me something of value in exchange for my time, or offer someone else something and get them to send me the patch.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
'If we're content with small closed communities that play only to themselves, that's a perfectly valid goal. It's a lot easier, certainly. You get it the way you want and basically enter stasis.'
No, that is the result of refusing to accept patches. Suggest that someone take the initiative for something they want is simply choosing not to be someone elses bitch.
If I get myself some tea and offer to fill your glass while I'm at it and you tell me you want milk instead I'll tell you fetch it yourself. The same
Kerning by default (Score:4, Informative)
Doesn't Word have kerning disabled by default? [wikipedia.org] What do you recommend to people now? LaTeX?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the hell are you talking about? i'm still running OO.org 2.3.1 and it supports kerning just as Word does.
maybe you should stop using a fixed-width font like Courier/Fixedsys?
Re:Sure. (Score:4, Informative)
Miscellaneous Features
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
NeoOffice bases itself from Novell's go-oo semi-fork so it inherits the extra features of that version. They are working on NeoOffice 3 which will employ the 3.0 codebase but it is unclear to me whether or not they are still going to use Java to implement the UI. In any case, losing the need for X11 isn't the only reason for NeoOffice. If you want the solver, various import filters that the Sun branch doesn't include, or bugfixes the NeoOffice team have had trouble getting Sun to include then NeoOffice w
Re: (Score:2)
The real speed killer with at least previous versions of openoffice is it does a huge amount of disk access on startup so systems with slow disks (eg. DMA is disabled) take a very long time to start up. On MS Windows you would also get very slow startup times of openoffice on a highly fragment
Re:It was just too slow for me. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am very grateful that Sun released OpenOffice, having a FOSS way to interact with
KOffice2 will be coming soon (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
We want a lean, mean, FAST, lightweight wordprocessor, just like FF is a FAST, lightweight browser.
Firefox used to be a fast, lightweight browser. They seem to have been looking for the plot since some time in the FF2 era, though, and FF3 is such a monster that despite the Mozilla gang's irritating efforts to convince me, I still haven't upgraded any other machines beyond the first one I used to try it out.
Re:pdf saving and editing (Score:4, Informative)
Version 3 has the ability to edit pdf - that could be a killer feature.
Why? PDFs are useful for distributing material in a reliable way. They have never been designed to be an easily editable format, other than for forms and the like perhaps, and it would be crazy to start treating them as such.
Also, in case you didn't realise, PDF export from Word is available as a freebie plug-in from MS in Word 2007, and it doesn't have all the font bugs OO Writer has! (See my earlier posts in this discussion for details.)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
[PDFs] have never been designed to be an easily editable format, other than for forms and the like perhaps, and it would be crazy to start treating them as such.
Forms are exactly what I had in mind. In the last week I've used Openoffice to fill in a pdf criminal records check form and an thirteen (!!) page professional license application form.
Re: (Score:2)
It is also Thanksgiving up here in Canada.
So I will be raising a glass to the launch of OO.org 3.0, your birthday and giving thanks!