[discuss] Re: Short list with Pro's Cons
Chad Smith wrote: SNIPPET * Cross platform. Run it on Windows or Linux. Thanks for not putting Mac on your list. Unless you count NeoOffice, I wouldn't tell people OOo runs on Mac. While I've used a Mac Mouse about three times in my life, Tiger desktop and server have consistently kicked MS operating systems down to No.2. Ref: InfoWorld and others The Intel/Mac connection may make OOo interoperability on Tiger the most important yet. It's one thing to make it run faster, but another not to say anything at all. Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Line types for page border
Are page border line types used in Writer stored in a file type that can be modified or edited? The ability to do this with 'Drawing' would a very nice touch. Thank you in advance Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Sooner or Later
1) There are times in the history of America (with a capital A) that forced public domain on patent holders. It is a question of business interest. I believe the case may be RCA and some sort of television patent. 2) The other possibility, of which some might hope, is that while Microsoft may hold the patent and the key to the city (capitol with a W) there just might be enough sanity in the Supreme Court to put this to rest. 3) Who knows, maybe a politician might find it harmful to the security of our nation that the prime storage means for almost all data (read financial stability) is controlled by a non-government institution is enough to generate appropriate change. Lately, if you mention security, you can get away with anything. This just might be the appropriate moment. Paul Roger Markus wrote: Microsoft continues to acquire patents for things which have no business being patented. The article below from John Oates at the Register mentions Linux and open source, without specifically naming OpenOffice, but - make no mistake - we are in the same boat as Linux. If Linux is destroyed, so to will be OpenOffice. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/11/microsoft_wins_patent_case/ Re: The US Patent Office has upheld Microsoft's claim of patent rights over its File Allocation Table. The decision reverses two earlier judgements and potentially allows Microsoft to go after open-source developers who use the technology. FAT controls how computers store information to hard drives and other storage devices such as Flash cards. The US Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the file system is novel and non-obvious and, therefore, deserving of a patent. The decision is important because it could mean Microsoft could force open-source distributors to pay it a royalty or remove the software from their products. Open-source software must, by definition, be patent-free. Concerns over patents within some Linux distributions have been blamed for hindering wider adoption of the operating system. Florian Mueller, founder of nosoftwarepatents.com, said the decision gave Microsoft the weapons to attack Linux. Mueller said: This is now a situation in which Microsoft could cause major problems to Linux vendors and users. Microsoft may not want to do that yet for other considerations, but the USPTO's decision gives Microsoft the strategic option to do so at a time of its choosing. Also, the USPTO and even the European Patent Office continue to grant new patents to Microsoft daily, and some of them may be equally dangerous to open source as the FAT patents. The example of the FAT patents shows that all those patent quality initiatives and patent pledges have no significant value to open-source developers, vendors and users if Microsoft ever wants to go for Linux's throat. The US patent agency is either corrupt and/or imbecilic. Unfortunately the rot at the top is spreading. Either we stop the rot or it will rot us. The irony of course is that even if the rot wins, it will lose, because - being a parasite - it cannot live without something to feed upon. Let's put it out of its misery sooner rather than later. We could live with or without Microsoft, but they can't live with us - or so they think, correctly perhaps. They have built up their mighty empire through theft of others' ideas and through regularly breaking the law. They are an illegal bunch of scoundrels. Apparently they realize that they cannot win a fair and open fight and so ever more dirty do they become. To save open source, only the force of honest law and people with backbone and courage can... must... force them to stop ravaging and destroying the computer industry and the freedom of the Internet. I'm ranting and raving? You bet. The stakes are high and ranting after your dreams and livelihood have been destroyed is too bloody late! Now is the time to have some backbone and stand up. While I'm on the subject, here's a call for the Microsoft supporters to get off of this list. You cannot support both Microsoft and OpenOffice. If you support Microsoft, you are for the destruction of OpenOffice and do not belong in this group. Many of us are stuck using Microsoft's illegal software through having no choice - but that is no excuse to raise your voices in support of an illegal tyrant! RM - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Idea for document switching
Edward Buck wrote: Dave Barton wrote: Mine is one of the 100+ votes for this issue. Unfortunately, I think it will be some time (if ever) before we see a MDI version of OOo, because the code rewrite to do this is not a simple task and the developers have many other pressing issues to work on. There are few enhancement requests that meet the following criteria: * consensus - everyone wants it * useful - you know it would be * innovative - competing solutions don't offer it * doable - it can be done * marketable - it can bring new users Tabbed document viewing happens to be one of those feature requests that meet all of the above criteria. It should be a high priority feature for OOo 3.x. Regards, Ed Lotus WordPro does offer this. I wonder if the guys at IBM would be willing to share a liitle more code. Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Publisher
Zebri Shaari wrote: Hi, Congrats on your overall success. Is there plans to include a software similar to that of *microsoft publisher* or is there already a feature or software with open office that you could easily create vouchers/brochures etc. Thanks. While Publisher is interesting from an ease-of-use view, it has been horrendous as a none universal format. Even from version to version. Beware! What is lacking that you don't see in OOo Presentation before going that route. Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Upper case problem in OO Calc
Tracey Ambrose wrote: Hi, I've just discovered that I can't start a cell with a lower case letter, I am being forced to have upper case and this can not even be over come in formating, if there is a way to do it that I have missed please let me know, otherwise I would REALLY appreciate having the ability to choose my own case. Thanks Tracey I have noticed this common theme amongst these e-mails. Perhaps the First Letter Uppercase function should be switchable via 'styles'. When you don't want it, it will not be there. When you do, you will not care. Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Gates memo warns of 'disruptive' changes theory
Shawn K. Quinn wrote: On Wed, 2005-11-09 at 11:31 -0500, Chad Smith wrote: . That's not a slam against OOo, merely a suggestion that a online version of OOo (like, perhaps, the one Google is developing) would be a good idea right about now. Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't want everything I do with a word processor to be routed through Google. A little theory. Suppose you make software that uses XML with numerous templates already to go. Millions of users use these templates. Billions of template documents are available. A network software access point is made that allows all these documents to be accessed and used as a resource based on security encryption. What a database, man, what a database. Am I talking about Microsoft or Google or OOo. What do you think? Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Writer 2.0 suggestion (on the side)
B Terramorse wrote: I have been trying to use 2.0, and there is a really big hurdle or missing feature for me (or is it a bug?): When using the sliders to change paragraph indents or margins, they do not snap to a grid or increment and are therefore impossible to use accurately. The only accurate way is to enter values into the dialog boxes. I have turned on Grid and Align to Grid in options to no avail. This is just awful, and I can't imaging committing to the product with the ability to snap to some logical increment, such as 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch, 0.1 inch. Ideally the snap increment would be user-definable, like a CAD program. Doing layout, setting up paragraph styles and arranging documents is just not possible without it IMHO. MS Word 2000, where we stopped, does snap to 1/8 increments, and when you hold down the ALT key it disables the snap function, the slider moves freely and the dimension is graphically shown (like 1.38) - Very nice. I keep thinking this must be a bug - how could you design a graphics program (which most APP's is) without this ability. Can you tell that I am an Architect? Please add in! I'd love to switch, but this is a deal-breaker. Bill I have been using Lotus WordPro for quite a few years and have learned that a well developed paragraph style, either modifying the default or adding a new one, gets rid of this problem. The hard part for me was un-training what I used to click on. This brings me to something that I am much interested in, and am not sure is available in OOo. As I understand it, sometimes 'tabs' are multiple spaces which is different then entering an increment in a style (x,y-axis coordinant system). On When changing ruler functions on a ruler such as tabs stops, a pop-up asks Do you want to change your style?. Yes - Would you Like to make a new style? Yes - Copies this style with change and asks for new name. No - changes all paragraphs of that style definition No - just change highlighted text. If you ask this question, users will quickly understand what is consistent for making less work for themselves. If you are consitant in your writing form you will just about always say Yes and reuse the defined/new style. While I haven't done a study on this, I have done a few 60 page documents. Default setting: Ask pop-up question Do you want to change your style? Yes No - Default setting: Override style in ruler Yes - always changes paragraph style in entire document No - always just change highlighted text. WYSIWYG paragraph by paragraph editing does get the job done, but styles do better if you persevere. Thank you for doing what you do. Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: a more complete office suite (Process Management)
Robbie Darrell Graham wrote: Daniel Kasak wrote: Robbie Darrell Graham wrote: Let me first said I love what is happen in Open office.org. It about time some one took on Microsoft the right way. But there needs to be some more work done. I think for some one who works in an office you need complete office suite with out have the following. Word Processing, Spreadsheets,Drawing,Database,Sideshows,Address book,Email,Scheduling all these program and data need to be easy to go between them. All these applications already exist. I am posting this message from Thunderbird - an open-source email client. If you know about Thunderbird but choose not to use it, how about helping out write an email client for OpenOffice? There are a lot of people like yourself who keep asking for it - get all of them together and it should be child's play :) Yes, I also use Thunderbird. But I would like to use something that was integrated into open office like Outlook is in Microsoft Office. It sounds like all the base packages are there already. The unifying software between them might be called Process Management. The ability to use Send from OOWriter to Thunderbird from the Print Menu while selecting the attached file format. OO or PDF or whatever. This is already being done by some software. The heavy duty cog is the part where all outbound/inbound is controlled and tabled in history format. When did you access something last, how many times, did you print a version and mail it as well as fax it. This version of Big Brother is quite helpful as long as the user remains in control privately and already is a requirement for certain large government/corporations. H, Sarbanes-Oxeley anyone. Organizer software is usually designed for the minimum of these processes and wouldn't complain if was available. Anyway, what 'is' is a pretty amazing. Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: PDF file handling
Theodore Raphan wrote: Hi, Is there any way to read PDF files directly with OpenOffice 2.0. Since it has such nice PDF writing capability, should it not have reading capabilities as well. TR I may be slipping a little here, but what we really need is good small OOo viewer for documents created in same. Let Adobe do what it wants. Is this so? Paul - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
