[discuss] Re: Integrating Grammar Checker into OpenOffice
jonathon wrote: drow wrote: I propose a joint development with abisource to create a "standard" Grammar Checker for the open source community. a) A grammar checking API within OOo is being developed. b) Roughly half a dozen grammar checkers for OOo are being developed. One size fits all does not work for grammar checking. Look at the difference between evidentairy grammars and noun-class grammars. Point taken (different languages not only have different grammar rules, but different ...paradigms?), but I seriously doubt if 1 out of 500 readers here have a damn clue what you're talking about. or between the grammar of Ancient Chinese, Koine Greek, and Latin. ... and who really gives a rats rear end about grammar checking DEAD LANGUAGES anyway??!! Seriously, Jonathon... in the world of niche users of OOo you stand alone. So alone that you are barely with yourself. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: PDF Viewer/Editor for OpenOffice?
Robert Derman wrote: IMHO all that is really needed is a program to convert PDFs to ODF files. Once they are in the ODF form, OOo can then edit them. Yeah, but "all that" can be quite a tall order depending on the document. The main problem is that a lot of information is discarded in converting to PDF. The only thing the format is concerned with is the appearance of the finished page. So stuff like multiple columnar text, headers, footers, page numbers, captions, etc. all require some level of AI to reconstruct properly. If you have ever tried to cut/paste from a PDF that has magazine/newspaper columns you will see what I mean. You normally have to do this column by column because the information that the text flows from the bottom of one column to the top of the next has been lost. In the end, the problem is only marginally easier than trying to do the same thing with input from a scanner. The only thing you don't have to do is actually recognize the characters. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Quirks in Open Office Spread Sheet
Cor Nouws wrote: 2. Changing and existing Cell's Number Formatting to Text. Would be better if the result was that what ever was visible previously was now in the cell. e.g. if I have a date displayed in a cell, changing the format to Text results in a number in the cell, whilst for the purposes of calculatulation having a date stored as a number is useful, it serves no useful purpose to display this number to the user. Also the Undo feature dould not reverse this. Fortuanlty I had a saved version. You mean: a cell has letts say 30-04-07 and you change format to text, and the cell stil shows 30-04-07? What then would be the use of changing format to text? No. What he means is if the cell shows 30-04-07 formatted as a date and you change the cell format to text it now shows "39202", which is the internal integer Calc uses for that date. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Styles Handling
André Wyrwa wrote: Hei, I would treat character styling as a resource or reference style that would be chosen to apply to higher levels. IOW, instead of directly specifying character properties in the paragraph style you would choose the character style (primarily font and size) that you wished to apply to the paragraph from a drop box. Precisely. OOo follows this paradigm in some places (i.e. assignment of numbering styles to paragraph styles) but then breaks it (direct character attributs in paragraph styles) and also simply lacks simple UI shortcuts to managing assigned styles. I.e. the paragraph style dialog should have a character style combo with a "manage" button that directly opens a character styles dialo, so that a new character style can be created without leaving the paragraph style dialog first. In other matters, i see your points but i'm not quite sure if adding a whole bunch of style levels helps the user. André. The primary one I would advocate for is the Word Style level. It would add convenience and solve some problems. Try creating a run-on heading, for example. There is an outstanding RFE on it. The problem is that Headings are species of Paragraph styles so therefore headings must always be delineated by CR-LF pairs. To fix this you need to either create a way to have a paragraph that doesn't end with a LF or... something. In my world headings would be species of Word Styles and you could designate a word or continuous sequence of words to be a heading (with the restriction that they must start a paragraph). Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Styles Handling
Johnny Andersson wrote:
So yes, I use styles all the time and I just love it, but there are a
lot of
things about them to improve. However, just a few improvements (the most
important ones) would probably mean a huge improvement to the intuitiveness
of the product.
I, too, use styles extensively when I write but I find myself being
frustrated and confounded at times. I believe the proximate cause of the
problem is that the styles paradigm in Writer conflates different
concepts which are in fact orthogonal and should be handled through
separate, parallel, mechanisms.
1. Document Organization -- Lists, Numbering, Outlines, Sections,
Headings, etc.
2. Language selection.
3. Semantic Markup -- Designating portions of text as having some
meaning beyond the actual words. Think of a Linux textbook with
commands, user input, program output, and explanatory text having
different appearances.
4. Presentation -- Font, Size, Color, Margins, Indentation, etc.
Of the above categories, number 4 and, to a certain extent, number 1 are
the only ones which, in my mind, fall under the paradigm of a "Style".
Maybe it's just the word (or maybe it has something to do with having
just watched "The Devil Wears Prada"), but when I hear the word "Style"
I think of appearance and presentation. Semantic mark-up affects
appearance only indirectly--and not at all if you so choose--but it's
lumped in under the same mechanism for making things pretty.
Mr. Blake often mentions having a template with over a 1,000 named
styles. Well, how much of that amounts to populating a matrix with the
above categories as the dimensions? Most of it I would guess. And in the
final analysis, how much better is that than direct formatting? Choosing
styles from that list would be like typing in Chinese for me; I would
find it very confusing just trying to name all those styles and keep
them straight.
When you dig down deep enough into this issue, it seems to me that the
root cause is that we have a program feature that's designed from the
programmer's perspective rather than the user's perspective. AFAICT, the
"things" you can apply a style to are just those objects that are
manipulated internally -- characters, paragraph objects, page objects,
etc. -- solely because the properties of those objects are available
rather than because those objects are the "correct" place to specify the
property.
That's why I would like to see more style categories: Word styles
certainly, and perhaps Sentence/Phrase styles, Section Styles, and
Document Styles. With style categories at every logical hierarchy level,
the application of the above four styling concepts could be applied in a
more logical fashion.
Document Styles would be akin to switching templates but more intuitive
perhaps.
Section Styles would take over a lot of the work currently performed at
the Page Style level and allow you to create named styling for sections
where currently you only have direct formatting.
Word Styles would assume a lot of the work currently performed at the
character level, particularly language setting. Does it really make much
sense to specify a different language for a particular character?
Granted, when you get into languages that use non-Latin character sets
it makes more sense but then it's the properties of the words that are
dictating the character rather than the other way around. For that
matter how often do you format a single character differently than the
word in _any_ way?
I would treat character styling as a resource or reference style that
would be chosen to apply to higher levels. IOW, instead of directly
specifying character properties in the paragraph style you would choose
the character style (primarily font and size) that you wished to apply
to the paragraph from a drop box.
Sentence/Phrase styling is a bit more speculative. The main purpose I
see at that level would be language specification and perhaps a grammar
style (formal, informal, military, etc.) to be used in grammar checking.
While I'm on the subject, semantic markup could be useful in
spell/grammar checking to designate, for instance, proper nouns and such
("New York City", "John Hurt", "Debra Messing") to lighten the load on
the AI required for that kind of work.
I'm truly sorry for using so many words. The reason for it is that my
English sucks. There are so many words I don't know, so I have to use the
few words I know, which cause this overflow of words. Once again, I'm sorry
for that.
Johnny Andersson
Please, don't apologize. Your English is certainly far superior to my
(totally non-existent) Swedish (or whatever your native tongue is, I'm
just guessing from your name).
Rod
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[discuss] Re: Styles Handling
jonathon wrote: Chris Monahan wrote: Styles do lead something to be desired in OO... A style for tables is one of the missing features. More useful would be word styles. Not the technical or the logical aspect of it, just the interface is slightly broken The first step would be removing all formatting commands fromt ehUI, except to specify which style is to be applied to the text/page/object. I've thought about that, but I don't think it's really practical--or desirable--to force the use of styles. Better would be an easy way to assign styles to keyboard shortcuts and/or toolbar buttons. The Organizer tab would be the place for that. while OOo will block any inheritance of styling as soon as you touch any attribute in a style It blocks the inheritance of the attribute that was changed. It does not block the inheritence of ather, unchanged attributes. That behavior isn't entirely obvious. It should be made explicit with the use of "Don't Change" options or something similar. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Microsoft Office 2007
Mathias Bauer wrote: We are indeed supporting the Lightning project. Once this will have reached a "final" state we can work on possible integrations between Thunderbird/Lightning and OOo. As both projects (OOo and Mozilla) have suitable technologies and we are able to bridge between them I'm sure that we will find ways to integrate them. These integration components should be developed and deployed as extensions for OOo and Thunderbird as well. In the meantime people can think about possible integrations and specify them. Could be an interesting project. Ciao, Mathias Fantastic! FWIW, I'm very pleased with that direction. My short list of integrations: 1. Shared dictionaries. Particularly useful for those in jargon-rich professions. 2. The address book needs to be expanded somewhat and it needs to be editable from within OOo. 3. "Insert Calendar Object" in the OOo "Edit" menu. The object could use data that's either linked to a central server or embedded data like you can currently do with images or a spreadsheet. 3. OOo files should be among the items managed by the PIM. E.g., documents should be linked to contacts, meetings, todo items, etc. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Microsoft Office 2007
Mathias Bauer wrote: jonathon wrote: The original code for OOo included a PIM. A PIM was available as an add on for OOo 1.0. Really? Not if an add on is more than just another application that you can install beneath OOo or a playground for some interested developers. Or what are you talking about? [Guess what, it even works with 2.0!] What has changed is that instead of the user havingto add the line in the menu to access the PIM, it will be included in the codebase. No, not even now are we adding any PIM functionality to the code base. At least if "code base" is what you can get via cvs from the Collab.Net servers. Ciao, Mathias Could you clarify this? I've been seeing statements that a PIM will be integrated/included in release 3.0. But then I see that Sun has committed some resources to Lightning with no planned integration. Are we talking about just helping Lightning along and then offering it alongside or as part of the download or what? Because there _are_ some real opportunities for useful integration if one looks for them (discussed in another thread). Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Microsoft Office 2007
jonathon wrote: Chad Smith wrote: *PRE-2.0 "We don't need a database program! It's useless bloat that takes away choice from the end user!" Considering that OOo 1.0.x and above contained a databse, adding a second one can be equated to adding bloat to the program. If you mean the built-in, flat-file, dBase thing That wasn't a database, that was a toy. BTW, that had nothing to do with the dbase file format. I used Borland dBase for DOS versions 4 and 5 in the 90's and it was a full-fledged, SQL92 compliant relational database system. You could even construct complete applications with it that included menus, forms, tables, reports, etc., that you could compile into a self-standing executable. *POST 2.0 "The latest addition of our new Database program is far superior to the *ahem* other guy. It makes our free, open source, cross-platform office Actually, OOo 2.x contains _two_ database programs, and can be a frontend to umpteen others. [At least one of the customized versions of OOo contains three database programs.] One database program, one toy program, and approximately the same ability to connect to outside systems as Access. We're even in the midst of a contradiction shift as we speak. Check out the PIM discussion in the "[discuss] Regarding OpenOffice Suite" thread. The original code for OOo included a PIM. So far, so good. A PIM was available as an add on for OOo 1.0. [Guess what, it even works with 2.0!] Prove this last statement. I think you're just making crap up out of whole cloth. What has changed is that instead of the user havingto add the line in the menu to access the PIM, it will be included in the codebase. Your statement makes no sense. In order for "add the line in the menu to access the PIM" to work in would already have to be "included in the codebase." The pattern is: 1) (When functionality X is absent.) "The way it is now is PERFECT. Its Most of the requested functionality for Ooo either is present, or can be done by adding a third party utility/addon. For the rest, the user might have to write their own macro, or source code. Do you understand the meaning of the word "include"? Now I will grant that most users never comprehended how to use the PIM that was an add on for OOo 1.x, or is part of OOo 2.0. In that respect the learning curve might be described as being "too steep" for non-geeks. Please provide a reference to this Add-on, a link would be nice. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: extract font of document
Fabian Braennstroem wrote: Hi, I would like to extract a certain font from a word document, which I read and edit in openoffice 2. I would like to put the font into my user config directory on a linux machine... Is this somehow possible? Greetings! Fabian No. Fonts are installed on a system, they are not (normally) part of a document. The document /refers/ to a particular font, but it doesn't contain the actual font files. The only possible exception to this that I am aware of is the option to include the font files with a pdf. What's happening when you open the Word doc in OO2 on your Linux machine is that OO reads the font name and substitutes the closest available match. Depending on how close the match, the difference may be imperceptible. Have you tried running the font installer macro? It's set up to retrieve a number of fonts that you can download for free from Microsoft. The font you want may be in that list. For legal reasons OO can't include those fonts with the release, but it's perfectly legal for you to download and install them yourself. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Requested addition
André Wyrwa wrote: Hi, Since I have been forced to use Exchange server, my productivity had taken a nose dive. such as? This is a serious question. I strongly believe that OOo can be more tightly integrated with Mozilla products. Given the both have quite good extension APIs I even doubt core changes need to be done. Instead of reoccuring requests for "just another" PIM suite, I'd actually like to get a list of things sorted, that would make integration between an Office Suite and a PIM suite plausible. To start with, i can think of... - addressbook integration (to my understanding present in OOo) - integrating appointments in documents (calendar integration) What else? André. Dictionaries would be good. Especially for specialized contexts like medical and law as well as your own personal additions (proper nouns). BTW, the Lightning extension for TB is usable (0.31 release). I hadn't checked for a while and I'm gratified that they actually have a product now. One degree of integration that MSO offers with Outlook is the option / ability to use Word to compose e-mails. I know a lot of folks here would consider that to be of dubious utility -- kind of a heavy-handed way to compose text -- but I suppose some people appreciate having a consistent interface for doing similar things and many also like "pretty" email. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: OpenDocument Format = ISO 26300
Christian Einfeldtextra wrote: Although there are a few procedural red-tape type things left to do - OpenDocument is guarteeneed ISO standard status as ISO 26300. This likely means Microsoft's so-called Open XML format will be rejected. This is huge news for open standards and for anyone who wants to actually own their data.. I agree that it's huge news. A very fine development indeed! However... I'm not sure if ISO standards are exclusive. I know IETF will often have more than one standard for doing basically the same thing. Think POP3 vs IMAP for email. The other caveat is that being declared a standard does not automatically imply success. For instance, the ISO has a set of standards for networking called the OSI model. It divides the network stack into layers of functionality; physical, data link, network, etc. up to the application layer (like an email program or a browser). The competing standard is the Internet Protocol developed by the US DOD. Despite the fact that the OSI model is complete, has actual working implementations of the protocols, and is widely taught as a reference model, basically only one of the protocols is actually used much. The Internet Protocol won out simply by actually being used in industry. So while I applaud the achievement of standard status, there's still a lot of work ahead. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Funding for Evolution Win32 Installer
Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Open-source is an industry when there are people paid to participate in
the process, including people paid to listen to user tantrums.
It's my understanding that the vast majority, like 90+%, of the
programming effort for OOo is performed by paid employees of
corporations like Sun, IBM, RedHat, etc. Probably much more of the stuff
like documentation and localizations is done by volunteers.
What interests me is what you consider a "user tantrum".
Open-source is a hobby when people contribute gratis pro deo and have
little time and inclinaison to do the same kind of user knowtowing they
do at work.
So which is it for this project? And since your name doesn't come up on
the contributors list, what does it matter to you?
BTW, it sounds to me like you really hate your job. You should consider
getting a different one.
When you buy StarOffice, or Red Hat Entreprise Linux, you do not get the
same service than when you download OpenOffice.org or Fedora Linux for
nothing. Nevertheless they are essentially the same technical FOSS
products. The main difference is only suits paid to listen to consumers
and bark "yes sir" at the right time no matter how they are addressed.
I've seen very few OPs exhibit a really bad attitude. Maybe one or two a
week. But those are on the user question list, which I've never seen you on.
Current western societies have little patience for politeness. You pay
for a product, and buy the right to yell at the call center ("customer
is king" and such crapola. Difficult to address one another as decent
persons in this ideological context)
Is THAT your job? No wonder you hate people. Retail will do the same
thing to you.
However if you think any normally constituted human being is ready to do
call center duty for free ("satisfy the consumer demand" as you
euphimisticaly write it) particularly on FOSS mailing lists where the
average technical level and income is light-years from call-center
level, you are sadly mistaken.
I'm talking about consumer demand in the economic sense as in "demand
and supply", not the getting in your face and yelling at you sort of demand.
But unlike you, I actually volunteer some effort (not nearly as much as
some people) on the user list answering questions. I just ignore the
ones that yell. And I guess I take an open-source attitude about it,
because I tend to answer the questions that I find interesting and
ignore the rest, rather than doing the hard lifting of answering all the
"I can't get this to install" type of stuff.
--
Rod
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[discuss] Re: Funding for Evolution Win32 Installer
Alexandro Colorado wrote: I take your point that you don't like my attitude towards those in question. Fair enough. Similarly, I don't like the attitudes of those who choose to use OpenOffice not because it's open-source, but because they don't have to pay for it, and then have the audacity to demand features or they'll " ... go back to MS Office, so help me God!". I'm not sure who you are talking about here, but I for one have never "demanded", not even close. I think it would be a Good Thing(tm) if OOo had an Outlook/Evolution style PIM, because there is a fair amount of user demand/interest and it would speed adoption in many circles, particularly the corporate/government markets where I thought we were trying to push ODF. That's not the same thing as demanding that the developers drop everything and write the thing from scratch next week. Hell, I don't even use a PIM that much. Nice quip about me going to work for Microsoft though. Caught me off-guard! This discussions sounds like a patient arguing with a doctor, while the doctor tell them what they have inside and reasons of what they have inside. The patient will argue with arguments such as it hurt me on the lower part of my arm without understanding much of what the doctor say. This is the same issue with developers and end users triying to come to reason. There's a more fundamental problem here. I don't think the open-source "community" has really figured out how to deal effectively with end users. This isn't like the good old days that ESR describes in CATB where you had programmers producing code for consumption by fellow programmers and the primary recompense was prestige among their fellows. Your comparison with the doctor-patient relationship is particularly apt. There is a very real power relationship at work here. As a non-programmer consumer of open-source you are basically reduced to humbly pleading, and if your request annoys the programmer god then you get put in your place like a puppy getting smacked with a newspaper for peeing on the carpet. I've seen some pretty big egos among O/S developers. In comparison, just going out and buying software can seem positively dignified, even empowering. Because in the proprietary marketplace you normally have a number of vendors competing for your business. If a demand (in the economic sense) exists for a particular feature or functionality then someone *will* step up to supply that demand, and it will happen with a sense of industry and urgency because supplying that demand means more customers which means more profit$. With O/S it seems more like, When we feel like it, when we get around to it, if it interests us. But what really gets my goat is when people want to inject a moral component into it, like you're some sort of sinner for using closed source software. To those folks I want to say, "Where the hell were you when we needed you?" When IBM introduced the PC back about 20 years ago, the *nix crowd was too busy playing with their big iron to be bothered to port a Unix to that architecture. And when they finally did, it was proprietary and cost something like $10K per copy. When Linus started his project in '91 the world was already using Windows 3.1. Finally, some twenty years after the 8088 came out, we now have an open source operating system that ordinary folks can begin to think about using. *If* they can get their hardware to work right, and *if* they're willing to use apps that are mostly 5-10 years behind the proprietary competition. So is this problem just too hard for open-source to deal with? I mean there have been proprietary PIMs forever. Outlook/Exchange, Lotus Notes, and probably a dozen or more smaller entries. I was using a shareware product called Time and Chaos over ten years ago and I still haven't seen an open source product that can match it even now. In case you haven't caught on yet, I'm getting a bit disillusioned with the whole deal. I'm getting tired of waiting years for something that's "just around the corner". I'm getting tired of being scolded for daring to ask a question or challenging an answer that clearly doesn't make any sense. I'm getting tired of the ridiculous concept that something is simultaneously superior and "good enough". I have a hard time lending credence to the claim that the O/S development process is so superior while at the same time observing that most of the products of that process are themselves inferior. End users see the blinking lights and developers see the actual processes. That is why we haven't come and will never come to an understandment. However this is where the Marketing project need to step forward since is the bridge for translating the message to end users. I think this is what they ought to be doing and come with a solution once and for all. Once said that this is the discuss list where this discussions happen everyday without loo
[discuss] Re: Mail Client
Nicolas Mailhot wrote: Le dimanche 30 avril 2006 à 10:08 -0500, Rod Engelsman a écrit : All I'm saying is that a lot of the pieces for this thing already exist in the OOo code base. In fact, you could prototype a fair amount of this thing right now just using macros. Heck, OOo even already has half of an email client; it can send emails directly without calling an external MUA for email-merge. So it wouldn't be trivial, but it wouldn't be anything like starting completely from scratch to create an application. There are worlds of difference between being able to send a few mails (in your own semi-broken syntax, provided the MTA does not throw some exotic auth at you) and having a full-featured pim. Nowadays a good PIM requires : - being able to manage all the kinds of mail auth which exist (unlike the sending bit, receive auth is always mandatory) - have a good HTML engine (you do want to be able to read mail other people sent you, right ?) - have a robust read/write LDAP backend - have a robust read/write webcal backend - signing/crypting support (x500 and PGP) - spam/phishing filtering - incoming mail filters - smart quote euristics - IM bridges - attachement handling (no you can't just pass them to the OS, you have to check they're trusted before) - read/write support of common mail store backends (mailbox, maildir, pst...) - searching - groupware sharing functions etc Any shell script can send mails, that does not make them "half a PIM". Sending is *easy* Then all hope is lost. Can any PIM measure up to all that? I assume you wouldn't put Outlook in that category. T-bird isn't even close. Chandler is vapor-ware. I'm just really *tired* of waiting on Evolution. Screw it. May as well use M$. At least it all works together (sort of). -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Mail Client
Nicolas Mailhot wrote: Le samedi 29 avril 2006 à 18:29 -0500, Rod Engelsman a écrit : Having said that, though, I disagree with the characterization that this would be creating this whole thing from scratch. One of the beauties of OOo is the code reuse, and a whole lot of the pieces to a PIM already exist in the form of useful APIs, particularly if the thing is built around HSQLDB. However, there are many forms of "code reuse". good info snipped < The kind of code re-use I was referring to was the way OOo uses the same code to edit text whether in Writer, Calc, Impress, or Draw text boxes. As Jonathon quite correctly pointed out, aside from the email, a PIM is really just a collection of database tables with a particular kind of interface on top. All I'm saying is that a lot of the pieces for this thing already exist in the OOo code base. In fact, you could prototype a fair amount of this thing right now just using macros. Heck, OOo even already has half of an email client; it can send emails directly without calling an external MUA for email-merge. So it wouldn't be trivial, but it wouldn't be anything like starting completely from scratch to create an application. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Mail Client
Alexandro Colorado wrote: On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:26:42 -0400, Cor Nouws <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Alexandro Colorado wrote: Except when they do the 'inform' every other hour. And any answer that you give them is not good enough. Then it becomes a liability. I suspect they ask their family and friends to post the same request frequently ;-) Cor We need a public announcement. something like, www,whywewontdevelopoutlook.com :D --Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org Here's what I don't understand... I was poking around on the project pages at openoffice.org and I took a look at the project management project (http://oopm.openoffice.org/). Now, if anything, project management seems even more peripheral to the mission of OOo than a PIM project. I don't understand how that is accepted as an incubator while a PIM is roundly shouted down as a Really Stupid Idea(tm). Even worse, if you take a look at the Wishlist (http://oopm.openoffice.org/initial_analyze/wishes.html) for the project, it quickly becomes apparent that it has a whole more in common with PIM software than the existing suite. In fact, there is a discussion on the project pages for Lightning toward the end of extending the task list/to-do component into a full-fledged project management tool. I detect four distinct threads in the argument against an OO PIM. The first is a philosophical argument that attempts to draw a line between document creation and communication technologies. The second claims that open-source software is all about single-purpose tools that do one thing really well vs all-in-one Swiss army knife software. The third claims that the "open-source" way of doing things is to use and contribute to existing software rather than start another project. Finally, the fourth makes no particular value judgment for or against an OO PIM but simply states that the project currently has higher priorities and limited resources. Argument #1 is entirely specious for several reasons. Impress is entirely about communicating ideas. On the other hand, Calc is primarily about data analysis and Base is about the storage, organization, and retrieval of data. Finally, *any* document is ultimately a communication tool. Even a reminder note to yourself is a communication from your present self to your future self. The second argument is directly refuted by the existence of OpenOffice.org itself. Alternative/competitive open source projects exist for all the components of OOo: AbiWord, Gnumeric, Rekall, etc. If you don't like all-in-one software, why support OOo at all? On the other end of this are projects like KOffice and Emacs (it can do email). The third argument is based on a wholly faulty premise. As of today, Sourceforge.net proudly claims 118,615 registered projects. The Yet Another syndrome is legendary; Yet Another Text Editor, Yet Another Browser, etc. Some of this can be ascribed to the hubris of believing yourself capable of creating the definitive example of some type of app. But some of it is legitimately aimed at satisfying a niche in the software ecology. An OO PIM would fall into the same category as KMail whose real reason for being is to fit into the KOffice/KDE paradigm. The fourth argument is the only one that carries a lot of weight IMO. Given limited resources it probably is better /at this time/ to concentrate on improving the existing components of OOo, particularly Impress and Base, pushing projects that are more central to the mission of OOo like the Biblio project and SVG, and generally dealing with bugs, optimizations, and code cleanup. Having said that, though, I disagree with the characterization that this would be creating this whole thing from scratch. One of the beauties of OOo is the code reuse, and a whole lot of the pieces to a PIM already exist in the form of useful APIs, particularly if the thing is built around HSQLDB. So I'm not jumping up and down screaming that we have to have it and we have to have it now. I just disagree with a lot of the objections that are raised against the idea. And I really don't understand the people that seem to get so /angry/ when the subject is brought up. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: PDF Read & Write?
Alexandro Colorado wrote: On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:12:23 -0400, Alexandro Colorado <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:42:43 -0400, Robert M. Yannetta"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: OpenOffice.org is a great product to export documents to PDF, but why doesn't the product open PDFs for us to read? because it lacks the postscript render engine which is not the same and also there is no binding to the engine of OOo yet. there are some ideological reasons as PDF has been seen to portrait secure un-editable documents. There are also legal issues one of the famous one was when a russian developer exposed the code to edit PDF and he was sent to Jail under NSA law. This got a lot of press in the past I guess you can google for thsi case and get something rather quick. Sorry it wasnt NSA law, it was DMCA which btw just got more extreme. --Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org I don't think it was pdf. IIRC, it was their e-book format that has an encryption scheme to prevent unauthorized (read: not paid for) viewing. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Mail Client !!!
Michael Adams wrote: I've watched this whole thing go round and round in circles. I agree with Daniel that OO.o doesn't need a mail client. I am not too sure about Evolution though. I think what is needed is good communication lines with the Gecko/Thunderbird/Sunbird developers. So that the two suites work really tight together. Sunbird is going to improve, possibly into a full fledged PIM. Sunbird has been stuck at the 0.2 release for at least two years. I'm not sure if any active development is occurring over there. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Mail Client !!!
Alexandro Colorado wrote: On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 23:56:03 -0400, jonathon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: For my part, I am getting ready to install NetBSD, and use SendMail as my email client. [At least that program knows how to deal with 10 000 messages per day,] huh? I am confused, I thought sendmail is a deamon for email servers (MTA) not an email clients. Maybe I am wrong. No, you're not wrong. I'll leave the obvious conclusions up to the reader... -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Mail Client !!!
Daniel Kasak wrote:
I still haven't heard a convincing argument as to why anyone needs an
email client integrated into OpenOffice. Why is it so much easier to
send an email when the window title says "OpenOffice" instead of
"Evolution".
First, you're setting up a strawman by focusing on only one function of
Outlook-style PIM apps, namely email, and then even worse, implying that
there are no integrative interactions between a PIM and the rest of an
office suite -- or at least that any interactions are insignificant.
But your worse mistake is the use of the word "needs" in the first
sentence. There is very, very little that 99% of computer users do that
they actually "need" a computer, much less any particular software, to
accomplish. Email? Write a letter, pick up a phone. And you don't need a
word processor; a typewriter or a pen will do. I got through engineering
school ('78 - '82) with nothing more than a calculator and graph paper.
The point is that computers and software aren't primarily about need so
much as they are about speed and convenience. So anything that makes
life easier for the user, even a little bit, is a legitimate target of
software development. Then the real question is how would an OOo PIM be
better than a third-party standalone.
1. Completeness. For better or worse, and for whatever reason, it has
become a consumer/user level expectation that an office suite will
include a PIM. MSO has one. WordPerfect Office has one. The old Lotus
SmartSuite had one. Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't take the
time to write in requesting it. OpenOffice.org just seems incomplete
without it.
2. Integration. Whether you personally use them or not, there are valid
integrative/interactive functions between a PIM and an office suite.
They may or may not be an everyday thing for you depending on how you
work, but many people utilize them. And honestly, how much interaction
between the existing components of OOo do you use on a regular basis?
Most of the time I use them as if they were separate apps, but on those
occasions when I do something like embed a spreadsheet or drawing in a
text document, I expect that I will have better results with a suite
than with separate apps. You _should_ anyway. So if, for example, I'm
using an OOo PIM as a datasource for a mail merge, I would expect that
to work better, more smoothly, more reliably, and more automatically
than using some other external database.
3. Look and Feel. This is easy to dismiss, but it shouldn't be. There is
real value to the fact that the menu structure and UI design is
consistent among the various components in OOo. It enhances productivity
because common items are in predictable places. I rarely use Impress,
but when I do, I know where to look for things in the menus because they
are in the same places as they are in Writer or Draw and they have the
same nomenclature.
And who said, there can not be made a better mail/PIM application than
Evolution, Kontact, Thunderbird or whatever ? ? ? They are NOT far as
flawless as it is claimed to be !
If the alternatives you listed are not perfect, then this is a very good
argument for NOT starting an email client from scratch - ie it is
obviously a large task, and one that will take a long time and a lot of
resources to complete. Why not make the open-source alternatives that
have been at the game for YEARS now just a little better?
You wouldn't be starting from scratch. It would be more like the
addition of the Base component. The address book, emails, contact items,
to-do lists, etc. could all be stored in native HSQLDB databases. This
would have the advantage of scalability up to enterprise level with
relatively little work. The HTML editor, while almost useless for
designing a website, is perfectly competent as an editor and display
engine for text and html email. The major coding would be the calendar
and the UI. Not insignificant, but nothing like starting completely from
scratch either. And this is open-source, right? One big happy friggin
family? Surely there's some code out there OOo could adopt and adapt,
the same way HSQLDB was incorporated.
It's still just a mental barrier that people have to get over.
OpenOffice doesn't include an mp3 encoder, or a P2P client, or a game of
tetris,
I forget the magic incantation, but Calc has a Star Wars game in it.
or an email client - and nor should it.
Is that a moral judgment? The word "should" is a value-laden word.
If people still insist
on jumping up and down and insisting on one, then they only have to
actually code one to make it a reality. But the *great* majority of
people interested in writing a good email client are already attracted
to other mature projects ( relatively speaking, but particularly in
relation to OOo's email client which currently does not exist ) such as
Thunderbird and Evolution.
Adopt and adapt.
Keep in mind that the main
[discuss] Re: Mail Client !!!
Alexandro Colorado wrote: Like I said before this is FLOSS and if you have an itch, you are welcome to scratch it, but is really annoying when you want other people to scratch it for you at least when you get an answer and you keep pointing out why u have that itch. The problem is that for most people, this itch is right in the middle of the back, between the shoulder blades. All we can really hope for is some kind soul to relieve it. (Hey, it was *your* analogy...) :) -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Shortcut keys
RBL wrote: Greg Brandon wrote: Hi, I'm a former excel user exploring Calc, and I'm used to using the CTRL-1 key combination (it may not be well-known) in Excel to bring up the Cell Formatting window, since I tend to use it a lot. Having this shortcut key in Calc would be really good for those who are used to it. Also, I'm missing the Ctrl-shift-+ and Ctrl-= for formatting text to superscript/subscript. As an engineer when I use software like this I often include formulae with subscripts, etc., and I'd rather use the keyboard than have to spend a couple of seconds to format text. Thanks Greg This is the #1 problem with OOo: it doesn't support MSO keystrokes. It's goes its own way. Some of that is probably because OOo has to work in Win, Mac, and *nix environments. Some keystrokes that would be legal in Windows may be intercepted by Gnome, KDE, etc. and vice versa. So you have a somewhat more limited set of keystrokes to choose from. At least that's my understanding of it. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Yet another PIM application for your window desktop
Alexandro Colorado wrote: A few days ago someone esle ranted about OOo not having a PIM app, browsing the web I found yet another PIM application for Linux/Windows/MacOSX. At the risk of starting another interminable discussion on this topic, I have to object to this characterization of a request (with reasons) for an OOo PIM. If anything, the ranters are on the other side of the debate. Putting aside for a moment the question of how such a beast would come to be (code from scratch, adapt/steal from other projects, etc.) an OpenOffice.org branded PIM would be valuable thing. The bottom line is that there is currently *no* open-source, cross-platform, PIM that is anything like a competitor to Outlook. While Thunderbird is a fantastic email client, the address book is fairly primitive. Likewise, Sunbird and the Calendar extensions are the next best thing to a stalled/abandoned project. I've tried at various times over the last two years to use/embrace them, but they are very kludgey and the stuff that didn't work two years ago still doesn't work. The best hope on the horizon is Evolution. Still not the equal to Outlook, but close enough for most people. The glacial pace of development is very disappointing though. I've been hearing about the Windows port for over two years now and we're finally now at alpha/beta with no installer. What I don't understand is given the obvious desire of Sun, IBM, et al. to unseat MS, and the level of demand for this product, that it takes so terribly long to happen. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Who would have thought... MS doesn't want you to buy a PC without an OS.
Chad Smith wrote: It seems that Microsoft is concerned for computer "white box" makers income. They are on a campaign to convince the PC makers of the UK that selling a "naked box" or a computer without an operating system is "not in their best interest financially." According to Microsoft, the makers would get more cash if they sold the computers with an operating system Gee... I wonder what operating system they want you to sell? http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39261437,00.htm http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060405-6531.html What do you all think about this? Mofia like tactics or just a healthy marketing push for more Windows boxen? -- - Chad Smith A little of both I suppose. What I find interesting is the emphasis on software piracy. It's not like they don't know that some or most of these boxes are destined to run Linux, which they despise, but what really bothers them is the idea of customers transferring a copy of Windows that they already paid for from one machine, that's at end-of-life-cycle or has just crapped out, onto a new machine. Their whole business model is predicated on a Windows license being non-transferable from one machine to the next, even if the old machine is being scrapped. That's one reason they have to crank out a new version of Windows every so often, not to incorporate new features or technical improvements, but to make this whole scheme more palatable to customers. So for most customers, when they replace a machine, buying another copy of Windows seems like less of a rip-off because at least it's a new version. There's also a kind of arrogance implicit in the assumption that the only conceivable purpose for a white box is piracy. I mean, geez, what other use could there possibly be for that? -- Rod -- "I don't mind using Windows; I just want it to be *my* choice." - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Before I will report a bug ...
Tomas Lanczos wrote:
Hello everybody,
From the Open Office package I am using mostly the Impress together with the
Math to prepare my lectures - it is much better for scientific presentations
as the Power Point. The Math is very nice for mathematical expressions, but
it's less appropriate to write chemical reactions (however with some
limitations it works) - I'd like to remain this way that in the world are
much more chemists then mathematicians ... :-)
Well, today I found two functions in the Math which is not working:
- the n-th root of x - if I write following the "Formula Reference Table"
in the OOo help e.g. "nroot {xyz}" I will get "nroot xyz" , well I can use
instead e.g. "sqrt {xyz} lsup n" which looks more - less like I intented,
but ...
- the stack{...} simply does not stacking the symbols, if I write e.g.
stack{abc} I get "abc" what is definitely not good.
So, my question is - am I doing something wrong or is it a bug?
Many thanks for every answer in advance
Tomas Lanczos
Dept. Geochemistry
Comenius University
Bratislava, Slovakia
Tomas,
I can't say much about using it for chemistry (Geez, I hated
chemistry class) but the other two work as advertised but the help isn't
very clear on the syntax.
To get the nth root of x type:
nroot n x
To stack the variable a,b,c type:
stack{a#b#c} <--- curly brackets
Generally, I find that the formula editor works like a charm, but it can
be a struggle figuring out what it wants for inputs sometimes.
--
Rod
-
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[discuss] Re: Impress with decision making
Reply is CC'd to non-subscribed OP Darrell Feebeck wrote: As a teacher, I like to create interactive presentations and tutorials for my students. Usually, I use Flash because MS PowerPoint doesn't have the functionality for rudimentary decision making. Unfortuantely, for most instructors that I work with, Flash has too high of a learning curve, and it also usually takes some time to develop. If Open Office Impress could implement some rudimentary form of branch decision making and perhaps variable assigning, this would be the ultimate teaching tool. If you remember the Amiga computer, they had a program called AmigaVision, that had all the tools for this type of thing. It was icon driven, easy to use and had just this sort of features. I wish someone would make a program similar to this, or at least add some of its features. I'm not trying to change what Impress is or turn it into a programming language, but if some of these features could be added, I think there would be happy teachers the world over and Impress would crush MS PowerPoint even more than it already does. Just a thought. Since I'm not familiar with the program you mentioned, I can only guess at what precisely you have in mind, but it is possible to assign a macro, run an external program, and navigate by clicking a picture or icon. The macro language is very powerful and should allow you to do pretty much anything you can dream up. The downside is that the macro language is not for the faint-hearted and it won't be a click-click/drag 'n drop affair. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: OPENOFFICE CALC
Daniel Carrera wrote: Liberty wrote: Every Calculator, Spreadsheet, Compiler, and Interperter, that I've seen defines 0^0 as 1. If Calc handles it differently than other programs it could cause compatabilty issues. Compatibility is a fair argument. The first calculator I tried (the one that comes with Gnome) gave me an error. Then I tried KSpread, and that gave me a blank cell. Then I tried Gnumeric and it gave me an error. Cheers, Daniel. Excel 2000 gives an error. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Google to buy Sun
Robin Laing wrote: Chad Smith wrote: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/03/16/032943.php It Looks Like Google's Buying Sun After All The prospects that search engine giant Google is due to buy the U.S.'s most sophisticated hardware company "have been swirling around trading floors and Silicon Valley for more than a week," reports the credible periodical in the Deal Book's blog. "Shares of Sun, which has a partnership with Google to develop and distribute each other's technology, spiked up about 4 percent last week as a result of the rumors." See - I told you so. What do you all think this will mean for OpenOffice.org? Much more pressure on MS as Google could promote ODF on all the searches. Just think about it. Every time someone goes to Google, they get a download link. Also StarOffice could be promoted more. And as others have said, lots of programming support. I would think that Google would have some interest in ODF taking off simply because it would be easier to parse and index than doc. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: supporting Engineering Notation in Calc (was: Upping a Priority )
Andrew Robertson wrote: Have that large community of users vote for it; this should raise the priority. :) Not really. You can easily find issues that are years old with dozens of votes. I'm not sure how priorities are actually set, but votes is at best a minor factor. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Google Acquires Writerly
Jonathon Blake wrote: Chad wrote: I marginallized his pet project of ODF What you fail to understand is that Microsoft has lost: i) The office suite war; This war won't even seriously begin until the open-source crowd *seriously* takes on Outlook on the Windows platform. ii) The server war; I'll give you that one. iii) The desktop war. Not even close yet. iv) The file format war; We can only hope, but not yet. xan jonathon -- Ethical conduct is a vice. Corrupt conduct is a virtue. Motto of Nacarima. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Will Calc Match This?
Jonathon Blake wrote: Dave wrote: 1 million rows and up to 16 000 columns A fully populated worksheet of that size would require 96 768 GB RAM, just to load. That comes out to 6,048 bytes per cell. I'm not arguing the point, but I'm just curious where you got that number. 1. Assuming Calc will be able to handle M$'s perverted form of XML, will it be able to handle sheets of this size? The more pertinent question is if Excel will be able to handle a sheet that is that big. 15 625 vertical sheets 63 horizontal sheets. Total of 984 375 sheets. Calc _might_ not be able to handle it. Do you have enough RAM? Do you have a large enough hard drive? Are you using very fast chips? These are requirements that were/are the purview of supercomputers, before Beowulf clusters took center stage. I don't think the point of it is to actually create spreadsheets that large so much as it is to functionally remove the hard-coded limits that currently exist. Instead your limits will be "soft" that will depend more on your available resources and willingness to put up with sheets that take a long time to open and work with. The reality is that most users probably couldn't create a spreadsheet that uses the existing limits in Calc (64000 rows, 256 cols, 256 sheets). Assuming your figure of 6K per cell that would require something like 2.5 TB of RAM to load already. The reality is you would *either* want/need more than 64000 rows with only a few columns *or* more than 256 cols with only a few rows, etc. 2. If not, the users list will probably be flooded with posts saying "in Excel I can have this many ... blah, blah, blah". That might happen. If so, then either educate people in how to use databases, and how to use spreadsheets, or go to Plan B Does anyone here know if any development is under way to add this capacity to Calc? This might be an interesting "problem" Write a function/plugin/macro that makes the user think that they are using Calc, but in fact are using the dBase clone. [Circa 1994, there was a spreadsheet for Dos, that could have an infinite number of rows, columns, and pages. The limiting factor was the amount of disk space on your system. ] Plan B Record: Cell Field zero: Cell Number Field one: Page Number Field two: Column Number Field three: Row Number Field four: Cell Value field five: Cell Value Type Field six: Cell Formula Field seven: Cell Links From. Field eight: Cell Links To. Create records as needed. Keep an index of all fields. Whilst slower than Excel, it provides for more pages, columns, and rows than Excel proposes. [And suffers from the same issue: How much RAM, and disk space does your system have.] Wondering if being able to advertise a spreadsheet that can handle 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 pages, with 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 rows, and 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 columns is going to win any brownie points anywhere? xan jonathon -- Ethical conduct is a vice. Corrupt conduct is a virtue. Motto of Nacarima. I don't know if the above was meant facetiously, but it's a real question: What is/should be the border between a spreadsheet and a database? The reality is there are likely as many spreadsheet databases out there as "real" databases, and for good reason. A real database, even an "easy" one like Access, is kind of a PITA to set up. I think anyone who could devise a hybrid between the two that really combines the best features of both would have a real market winner. Maybe something like a user-friendly object-oriented database. I remember seeing a web-site a couple years ago for a product that claimed to be such a hybrid, but I was unable to locate it again for this post. FWIW, there *are* some interesting ideas for spreadsheets floating around out there beyond the Excel/Calc paradigm. One I found is Abykus, http://www.abykus.com/, which claims to be an "object-oriented" spreadsheet. It doesn't try to have a humongous number of rows/cols, but it does other interesting things. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Digg Story: More Evidence That Google Is Buying Sun?
Daniel Carrera wrote: Neither Sun nor Google have enough money to buy the other. The two companies have similar revenue ($11b for Sun, $6b for Google). I have no idea if this is true or not of course, but the revenue comparison is totally irrelevant. The more relevant numbers are market capitalization and Google has a great, steaming pile of that. It's not unheard of for a smaller company to buy out a larger one anyway. These deals are all about stock; cash may or may not enter into the picture. If Google *did* have enough revenue, it doesn't seem right to buy a company with decreasing revenue. That happens all the time. Generally, the declining company is subsequently cannibalized, half the staff is laid-off, and the profitable bits are sold again. Also, Sun's business model is diametrically opposite to Google's. I'm not sure what you mean here. It seems to me that Sun's main business is providing the kind of equipment that is central to Google's business model. Maybe they see a possible synergy. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: $127,000 to make OOo the best Suite out there?
Alexandro Colorado wrote: How much will it cost to build a PIM for OOo, to be able to connect with the most popular webservices, and also to have the level of integration and put OpenDocuments and make Online OpenDocuments and live documents through webservices. How many work hours from a team of programmers and how much will this programmers cost. This might be something that many Sun/Novell employees might be more aware. But it might be interesting to have an actual figure. And even more interesting thinking on ways to acomplish this. I won't comment on webservices because I don't know much about that area, but as to a PIM for OOo, a couple of observations are in order. 1. OOo now includes an integrated relational database engine. 2. At it's heart, a PIM is nothing more than a specialized database application tied into some communications facilities. This holds for email clients as well. So it seems to me that the building blocks at least are already present. In fact, a clever person could build a functional PIM right now using Base. The only drawback is that the interface would likely be a bit clunky and programming the thing in StarBasic would probably make it run slow. Another thing to consider is that an email app built around a database would be a very scalable entity for corporate use -- much more so that mbox or maildir -- and if you can set such a thing up to use the native HSQLDB then it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to hook the thing up to a corporate DB like Oracle. What I'm saying is that every time this subject comes up in one way or another, there is a chorus of protest that OOo's limited resources shouldn't be squandered to produce "Yet Another E-Mail" app from scratch. But I think that's simply wrong-headed because 1) you wouldn't be starting from scratch, and 2) the product that you end up with could be very much more than "Yet Another" email app. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Microsoft Office's latest plug-in - your phone calls
Chad Smith wrote: What do you all think - useless bloat, a new way for MS to acheive vendor-lock-in, a valuable feature, or what? Useless bloat vs. valuable feature? For any individual I suppose any "advanced" feature falls into one or the other of these two categories. Depends a lot on what you do for a living and how you do it. Vendor lock-in? I don't know... Cisco is actually very friendly to open standards in general. Despite being the dominant player in networking hardware (about 80 - 85% market share worldwide, IINM) they have a pattern of innovating, submitting the innovation to a standards body, and then adopting the resulting standard while deprecating their proprietary implementation. Not in all cases do they drop the proprietary protocol entirely, but they always support the resulting standards. I don't know a lot about their CallManager line in particular, but that has been the pattern with their routers, switches, and wireless gear. If you take a look at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps556/products_programming_reference_guides_list.html you will see that they have freely posted a lot of material for programmers to use to interface with their products, so there would seem to be little reason that open-source competition would be locked out other than a failure to apply resources to the problem. Having said all that it should be obvious that this particular feature will be a function of Outlook, since that application would be the one to know your schedule. And since the open-source world is roughly 5 - 10 years behind MS in this product area, I wouldn't expect to see any *actual* open-source competition for quite some time, if ever. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Why do you force me to use M$ Excel???
Peter Kupfer OOo wrote: Actually, OOo offers a more powerful feature (in some ways) that lets you find the equation of a line without making a chart and makes it easy to use the slope and intercept in further calculations. Look in the the linest function. It returns the slope of a linear regression and the y-intercept in a 2 x 1 array. HTH, I hope you aren't actually implying that Excel does *not* have that feature as well? In fact it has the exact same name and performs the exact same calculations. Look... I love and use OOo. But Excel is an excellent product. In my books it is Microsoft's finest piece of software. Calc is very good and, for my needs, good enough. But compared to Excel it still has some catching up to do. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Why do you force me to use M$ Excel???
Rigel wrote: charting component? Rigel Yeah. Check it out here: http://graphics.openoffice.org/chart/chart.html I didn't find much in the way of a time line or anything else that would indicate when we could expect this, but my impression is that some new charting features should be arriving in an incremental v2 release. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Why do you force me to use M$ Excel???
Jürgen Schmidt wrote: He has two choices, he can implement it himself (it's open source) or he can submit an official feature request and let the community vote for it (a high vote count can be a good indicator for a fast implementation) and when somebody else volunteer to implement it the feature will find it's way into the product. Life can be so simple ;-) Juergen What's the point? The relevant issue is #5289, http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5289, and it has been open since May 26, 2002. That's almost four years! It's also closely related to http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=366, which has been open since Feb 2, 2001 (over 5 years!), and http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=7998, open since Oct 1, 2002. So basically, if you can't code it yourself, and very, very, few people can, you really have no choice but to use the competitor's product. On the bright side, there is some indication that this will be addressed when the new Charting component hits the streets. But your guess is as good as mine as to when that will appear. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Web Office Suite: best of breed products
Daniel Carrera zmsl.com> writes: > > > I think you are thinking on a service like Writely, while I am talking > > about a web app like EyeOS or PHP-Nuke where you can install on your > > intranet and provide it for your company from your local server. > > Ok. If it's installed in the local intranet, then it's not all that > mobile and not any different from using thin clients. So what's the > advantage then? > > Daniel. It can be as mobile as anything else on the Internet if you set up a road-warrior VPN network. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [discuss] Help for calc
No, Donald, don't do that. It's not necessary. The missing help files for Calc are a known issue with that release and will be fixed in the next release (hopefully in a few days). -- Rod Ray wrote: Donald, I would suggest you uninstall the OOo from your computer, deleting and folders remaining (unless you have some data you want to retain) and then reinstall OOo2.0.1 after turning off firewall, virus scanners, and even the spyware programs. Some programs, such as Norton, do interfer with installation of new, large programs. Ray PSDon't forget to turn them back on after the installation. - Original Message - From: "Donald R. Fredkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 12:19 PM Subject: [discuss] Help for calc I am unable to access help for calc in OOo 2.0.1. I have reinstalled and even downloaded a fresh copy and the problem persists. I do not have this problem with 2.0, and I do not have this problem with any other component of 2.0.1. I have installed OOo on my Win2000 computer. Am I alone with this problem? Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Ian Lynch wrote: Its the people that use Windows and who are used to Outlook that are making all the fuss. Most Linux users don't seem to have the problem. Well... with all due respect and not to put too fine a point on it, most Linux users are accustomed to apps that are "good enough". They're used to peripherals that don't work as well or at all. I mean it took me a good couple of weeks to get wireless networking working on two computers under Linux here. The same thing that takes maybe 10 minutes under Windows. And, in particular, the open-source credo seems to be toward single-use apps that do one thing well, but only one thing. I can get calendaring through web calendar and have it accessiblt anywhere. Its not really anything to do with E-mail anyway. Ah... but that's where you're wrong. If you have the KDE apps installed I invite you to open up Kontact. This is very similar to Outlook... at least it's headed in that direction. It functions as sort of a unifying framework for the individual functions of mail, address book, calendar, to-do list, journal, So, for instance, you can create a new event in the calendar that is a meeting, and there's a tab for "Attendees". You can then choose the attendees from your address book. I guess this then puts an invite or something on their calendars. Even better would be a button that opens up the email app with the attendees addresses filled in so you could send them all a note. Maybe this does this, I'm not sure. The point is that all these different kinds of items mail, contacts, calendar entries, etc. can all relate to items of the other kinds. Outlook goes further and allows you to associate almost anything with anything else. Including ordinary files like docs or spreadsheets. You also get nice little timesavers that are missing from Evolution, Kontact, or the Mozilla products. For example, if you right click on a contact in the address book, among the options are call the contact, email the contact, and compose a letter to the contact. The last option opens up Word and loads the letter template wizard. You choose the style, fill in blanks, and click your way through the dialogs. At the end of that process you have a pre-formatted letter complete with addresses and boilerplate ready for you to finish. Whatever is done, some people will not be satisfied unless the development exactly mirror what they are used to on Windows and Outlook. That is why its a platform issue. That's why I said for some Windowsphiles, unless the environment is an exact clone of what they are used to they won't be satisfied. You're being too pessimistic. It doesn't have to *look* the same; it just needs to be able to do the same things without taking twice as long or being more complicated. The purpose of computers is, after all, to mechanize intellectual labor. The more of that they can do, the better they fulfill their function. It's simply a question of functionality. I'd use linux if it did anything that I need better than Windows does. But the point about disruptive technologies is whether it does what is needed well enough at least initialy for a sizeable minority. Then I would appreciate it if folks would stop harping on how great Linux is and how much Windows sucks. You can't have it both ways. It can't simultaneously be "superior" and "good enough". At least not overall or on the same characteristics, although each platform can and does have it's strengths and weaknesses. I tire of the cognitive dissonance. Clearly it does. I'm a member of the sizeable minority, you probably aren't. As the new technology improves it becomes "good enough" for more people. That does seem to be what is happening now. It does not have to be better, it has to tend towards becoming as good as in key areas at lower cost. In fact its a bit more complex because Linux and OOo are better than Windows and MSO in some respects. There are also probably no massive new aspects of functionality that the majority of people need to enable MSO to stop people adopting OOo. It's not the majority that's important. The masses don't affect societal change, the leaders and key players do. And the leaders and key players are the folks that need and use and expect the higher functionality. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Email vital for Desktop Linux adoption, prime role available for OOo
Ian Lynch wrote: On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 09:25 -0600, Randomthots wrote: The problem is I don't know a good name for the category of sw that's a calendar/pim/email such as Outlook or the old Lotus Organizer. There are apps that work to do the same job. They just don't happen to be all sipplied by one manufacturer in one package. If you install a Linux distro like Mandriva you get it all installed together though and choices of the combinations you wnat to use. I like the K-Office apps. Kontact is a lot like Outlook in the way it integrates the calendar/pim/email stuff. Unfortunately, I don't know of any cross-platform apps like that, which I believe is very important for migration. I know that for myself being able to use Mozilla and OOo on both platforms makes things a lot easier. The backend server stuff is important, but it doesn't necessarily need to have the OOo name on it. But even for just one guy on one computer, Outlook offers more functionality and ease-of-use than Evolution, depending on what your needs are. Exactly, depending on what your needs are. I have no particular need for anything beyond what Evolution provides so I'm not at all worried that it has no calendar etc. OOo has limited resources. It can not do everything. A collaborative project with Novell to better integrate Evolution with OOo might be a possibility but I don;t think OOo should be in the business of re-inventing the E-mail/PIM/Calendar wheel. I appreciate that you are willing to acknowledge that it depends on your individual needs. Sometimes it seems like too many people are of the attitude that if it's good enough for me it should be good enough for everybody. That's just not true. -- Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rich wrote: Rod Engelsman wrote: Rich wrote: so, to run with generic widgets you should run this in konsole (you're using kde, so it should be in K->system->konsole) : export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen; soffice if you can revert to nv driver and test oo.org with generic widgets - that might help to find out wether this flickering is the same problem or not. Thanks. I have to get ready for class... and it's a two-hour drive each way so I won't be able to get to it until tonight at the earliest, more likely tomorrow. it seems we were not the only ones with this problem - http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=41806 so from m91 (counting public ones) generic widgets will be used in qt environments Rod Good to know. I wanted to find out if it was a bug or just something I'd screwed up, something which is entirely within the range of possibility given that I have all of 3 months experience with Linux. Cheers Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: New icons
Pourya Shahroudi wrote: Hello im one of your biggest fans i just installed open office the beta version and basically i hate the new icons i believe the old icons where much better than the new ones. cheers pourya To each his own. I personally love the new icons. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Solutions to problems
Wesley Parish wrote: FWIW, our community cybercafe's using Win98, not XP. Minor detail. I'm pretty sure I remember having almost the identical utility in WinME, so I would imagine it's in 98 as well. Is that function an extra or included with XP? Where is it located in the Start menu? I've never come across it in XP - I suspect it's in the Accessories submenu. Somewhere hidden pretty deep is all I know. But it's actually a fairly nice little tool; you can print photos, like 4 4x6's to a page, contact sheets, rotate, flip, etc. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Solutions to problems
Christian Einfeldt wrote: I'm glad the guy wants to use OOo, but FWIW you can do that in about one click with the Picture and Fax Viewer that comes with WinXP. Is that function an extra or included with XP? Where is it located in the Start menu? It's kind of hidden in a way. I have yet to see an entry in the Start menu for it, but unless you install something like Photoshop that's likely to change your file associations for graphics files, it will come up automatically when you double-click on a jpg, gif, and I'm not sure what other formats. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Solutions to problems
Wesley Parish wrote: I had an interesting experience the other day, the the community centre cycafe I work as a volunteer for. An elderly gent turned up, with some photos he wanted switched from horizontal to vertical for online selling of the things they represented. I found the local installation of OpenOffice.org and fired up Draw. I worked out how to spin the photo around, so it was vertical, and he wanted to take the program home with him! (Unfortunately, the installation package had gone awol, and I wasn't able to burn him a copy then and there - pity.) It's heartening! Wesley Parish I'm glad the guy wants to use OOo, but FWIW you can do that in about one click with the Picture and Fax Viewer that comes with WinXP. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: OpenOffice.org Support on the Users List
Diane Mackay wrote: Steve Kopischke wrote: Diane Mackay said the following: [...] Then how do we improve the existing support system? By identifying the places where improvement is needed, in a way that is broken down into small issues, then address each issue as it's own item. The result should be an improved support system. Others in this thread somewhere suggested they had experience with help desk type support. Maybe they too can provide some guidance that shows how this can be accomplished. Ric I think was one of them... In fact, he suggested some possible issues in his (first) response to this thread. Maybe it is time to fish-bone the potential issues, so that they can be sorted and addressed, item by item. There are indications that there are elements that need to be changed or improved. Might we have to accept the possibility that the support system won't be able to meet the needs of every user? See Daniel, here too suggests that the expectations may be too high. I can see after reading Steve's message again, that I drew my conclusion about my own expectations from both your's and Steve's responses... I think that I drew a fair conclusion, considering two posts and my own very real high expectations. Diane Have you ever worked retail? I spent some time as a sales associate and later as a manager of a Radio Shack store. I can tell you from experience that some people are just plain stupid -- at least about technology. Often they are so lost they can't even form a coherent question. And a corrolary to this is that a certain percentage of people are just assholes. I realize that is an impolite and politically incorrect term but it still is true. The first group of people are very difficult to help and the second group isn't worth bothering with. And we've all seen examples of both kinds on the user's group. So I would say that your expectation of helping ALL users satisfactorily is laudable, but plainly unattainable. A good goal, but don't beat yourself up about not always meeting it. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: [native-lang] Re: [discuss] Re: IRC Talk - Software Patents.
Daniel Carrera wrote: Rod Engelsman wrote: Speaker: Simon Brouwer Title: "The Banana Union - Software Patents in Europe" [snip] What time is that going to be? The last one was held around 6 am local for me (Central Daylight Time -- UTC -??). OOops. Timezones: * UTC Sat 15:00-- Coordinated Universal Time * CDT Sat 10:00 AM -- US Central Daylight Time (e.g. Chicago) * CEST Sat 5:00 PM -- Central Europe Summer Time (e.g. Paris) * EEST Sat 6:00 PM -- Eastern Europe Summer Time (e.g. Athens) Sample cities: * Caracas Sat 11:00 AM * Rio de J. Sat Noon * Tel Aviv Sat 6:00 PM * Beijing Sat 10:00 PM * Tokyo Midnight. * Canberra Sun 1:00 AM For more timezones: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html Cheers, Bummer. I'll be watching the kid then with no access to 'puter. Have yet to catch one of these. I'm really interested in the SW patent issue. Makes me mad, actually. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: IRC Talk - Software Patents.
Daniel Carrera wrote: Greetings everyone, There is yet another IRC talk this comming weekend. This one is about a very important subject for us, software patents. Speaker: Simon Brouwer Title: "The Banana Union - Software Patents in Europe" Software patents are probably the single greatest for the Free Software and Open Source movements. And Europe is where the battle lines are. Simon Brouwer is very active in the fight against sw patents, and has appeared in the Dutch press speaking about patents. This is a talk everyone should attend. What time is that going to be? The last one was held around 6 am local for me (Central Daylight Time -- UTC -??). Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] xml as a spreadsheet format
As much as I love OOo for Writer and Draw -- as well as the general philosophy, etc. -- I gotta tell ya, the spreadsheet file format just sucks! I've been trying to do a small research paper on IPv4 address depletion and the future of IPv6, yadda-yadda, so I got ahold of some raw data from ARIN, LAPNIC, APNIC, AND RIPENCC. This came in the form of txt/csv files via ftp. Using Linux was a big help at the beginning, using sed to massage the data somewhat and combine it all into one file. The result was a txt file with 63,260 rows in 7 columns -- about 3 MB total. I fully realize this is into the realm of a database, but I wanted to do some analysis using the Datapilot functions. Importing into Calc was fairly straightforward and the file loaded in just a few seconds. Now the fun begins. Tried to use the Datapilot but it simply choked and came up with an error. This is 1.9.91 on FC3. Then I tried to simply save the file in the ODS format. That took *over* *thirty* minutes! I then saved it again in xls. Maybe 5 minutes or so for that operation. Screwed around with it for the better part of a day. Everything I tried to do was s painfully sss. Gave up. Rebooted into XP. Opened up Excel 2000. Loaded the original data file. Added a column using an array formula. Fired up the Autopilot. Got my analysis done and made a nice chart. Saved my work. Total time -- maybe an hour. Saving the xls file when I was done took just a few seconds. This is not meant as a troll, just an observation. Like I said, I really love using Writer and Draw. But the xml file format for spreadsheets is really unusable for a large sheet. Out of curiousity I renamed and unzipped the ods file. About 50 MB. The xls is about 10 MB (with Autopilot sheet an Chart) and the zipped ods is about 600 KB. I couldn't care less about the space; I have 100 gig on this system. But notice what happened: the 3 MB csv was transformed into over 48 MB in the ods format before zipping. That's a 16 to 1 ratio. I understand the importance of open formats, but we really need to come up with something better than that. For small sheets it really doesn't matter that much, but with bigger data sets it is simply unusable. And it's not just OOo. I tried the same thing with gnumeric. Once again, saving into their xml format was just painfully slow as well. Comments? Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: publisher
Sorry about the double-post, I hit Send prematurely. Ian Lynch wrote: Both are significantly worse in that respect than Impression Publisher on the Acorn RISC OS platform in the early 90s. Impression Publisher could be used quite happily for both word processing and DTP on a 25 MHz machine with 4 meg of RAM but then it was written largely written in Assembler optimised for one processor. Bingo. That's ultimately the key to all your praise for the efficiency of your beloved Acorn. In fact a Psion netBook is in hardware terms considerably more powerful than those machines. This seems to indicate that coding efficiency is more important than hardware performance but there are very low expectations in this respect because people believe products like MS Word and MS Publisher represent state of the art hi-tec and that code efficiency doesn't matter too much because hardware keeps getting more powerful. If you code in Assembler you will certainly (well if you know what you're doing anyway, I guess) get faster, more efficient, optimized code. But at what price? Platform portability for one thing. And development will take a lot longer and be more expensive. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: publisher
Ian Lynch wrote: On Fri, 2005-04-08 at 22:44, Nicolas Mailhot wrote: Well publisher is a dtp joke actually. I wasn't writing "let's do publisher" but "let's add a serious dtp mode to oo.o" It'll have to get in the queue behind a lot of other rfes unless you know a source to fund the development. (For those who've never touched anything but a word processor : in dtp you write text by the kilometer then pour it in pretty presentation molds. Sometimes the writing and the presenting are not even done by the same team. In wisiwig word processors the damn thing does not let you forget about the presentation a single second, so you do half-hearted attempts at presentation while your text isn't finished yet, at by the time you get to prettifying things most of those attempts either stand in the way like the cruft they really hard or are just plain obsolete since you've reworked you text dozens of time since then) There really isn't any need to separate the two if you have the stuctures in which to pour your text or type it in directly. It really shouldn't make much difference Writer is actually a bit worse even than word in this regard btw, at least word got a serious plan mode. Both are significantly worse in that respect than Impression Publisher on the Acorn RISC OS platform in the early 90s. Impression Publisher could be used quite happily for both word processing and DTP on a 25 MHz machine with 4 meg of RAM but then it was written largely written in Assembler optimised for one processor. In fact a Psion netBook is in hardware terms considerably more powerful than those machines. This seems to indicate that coding efficiency is more important than hardware performance but there are very low expectations in this respect because people believe products like MS Word and MS Publisher represent state of the art hi-tec and that code efficiency doesn't matter too much because hardware keeps getting more powerful. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rich wrote: oh, this actually is directly dependant on oo.org :) (actually just recently, when native widget support was introduced, Joost Andrae kindly informed me on discuss list how i could force use of generic widgets) so, to run with generic widgets you should run this in konsole (you're using kde, so it should be in K->system->konsole) : export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen; soffice if you can revert to nv driver and test oo.org with generic widgets - that might help to find out wether this flickering is the same problem or not. Thanks. I have to get ready for class... and it's a two-hour drive each way so I won't be able to get to it until tonight at the earliest, more likely tomorrow. BTW, how would I reverse that business after trying it out? Assuming it screws up OOo again :) Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rich wrote: hmm, interesting. i'm experiencing the same problem - but only with gtk widgets. with generic widgets everything was fine. if possible, can you try the same combination of video drivers and kde with gtk and generic widgets to see wether this is reproducible with one or both sets of widgets ? of course, i should mention that i am experiencing flicker on two different machines. one has i845g (i think) video - http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=40258 driver, other has some sort of s3 vieo card, so this probably isn't directly related to nv driver. Well, I'm pretty new to Linux. Frankly, I'm sort of proud that I can say I now know how to switch out the video drivers by swapping out xorg.conf files. But I have no idea how to specify which set of widgets it should use. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rod Engelsman wrote: Group, I have recently played with the 1.9.79 and now the 1.9.87 releases. I've noticed something (actually it's very hard *not* to notice) that I would like to pin down. When I pass the mouse over the icons in the toolbar and over buttons in dialogs, the icons and buttons will flicker off and on rapidly. It's like the rendering is slow or something. If you move the mouse rapidly, you can actually see the buttons and icons disappearing and then re-appearing. When I do this, the CPU activity spikes as well. My system is: Fedora Core 3, 2.6.10-(something) 770 kernel, 1.5 GHz P4, 256 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce2 video card on the generic nv driver. I'm tempted to think part of the problem is that I need to install the proprietary nvidia video driver, but I haven't had any issues with previous releases of OOo or any other software for that matter. Any clues? Rod Update for anyone that's interested or affected: Installing the prop nvidia driver fixed the problem. I guess the combination of KDE and OOo was straining my system. I suppose that the proprietary driver allowed the machine to offload some work to the video card that wasn't happening with the generic nv driver. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rod Engelsman wrote: Group, I have recently played with the 1.9.79 and now the 1.9.87 releases. I've noticed something (actually it's very hard *not* to notice) that I would like to pin down. When I pass the mouse over the icons in the toolbar and over buttons in dialogs, the icons and buttons will flicker off and on rapidly. It's like the rendering is slow or something. If you move the mouse rapidly, you can actually see the buttons and icons disappearing and then re-appearing. When I do this, the CPU activity spikes as well. My system is: Fedora Core 3, 2.6.10-(something) 770 kernel, 1.5 GHz P4, 256 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce2 video card on the generic nv driver. I'm tempted to think part of the problem is that I need to install the proprietary nvidia video driver, but I haven't had any issues with previous releases of OOo or any other software for that matter. Any clues? Rod Update for anyone that's interested or affected: Installing the prop nvidia driver fixed the problem. I guess the combination of KDE and OOo was straining my system. I suppose that the proprietary driver allowed the machine to offload some work to the video card that wasn't happening with the generic nv driver. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Java fallout: OO.o 2.0 and the FOSS community
Daniel Kasak wrote: I wouldn't be so quick to paint a picture of Sun as a champion of all that is good. I never said that it was. Sun is a company - a commercial entity - and as such, thinks in the same terms as all other companies, eg "How do I make more money? How do I destroy the competition? How do I create a need for my products?" Yep, yep. Sun's decision to open-source StarOffice was unconventional, but was still a decision very much based on the above questions. It was by no means made because Sun wanted to do something *good*, simply for the sake of being a good citizen. There are *individuals* in companies that would argue for doing something good simply for the sake of being a good citizen, but this nobility does not apply to corporations. Period. Whatever reasons Sun had for open-sourcing StarOffice, they all point back to making money, not being nice. OpenOffice is most certainly not a *gift*, but a *strategy*. It can be both, they're not mutually exclusive. For instance, you see a lot of corporations that contribute funds to charitable orgs. This is both a gift and a strategy. The strategy part is an attempt to bolster the public image of the company. From the stand-point of the recipient, the motivation is secondary. Keep in mind that there are other companies who make money from open source software - MySQL for example. In Sun's case, I'd say that they made a very wise *commercial* decision to open source StarOffice. That's yet to be seen. Have they made a profit on SO? Has OOo/SO severely eroded MS's installed base and revenues? Will this happen? Sun have betrayed the open source community at many critical points. You can only betray something or someone if you've made a commitment to them. Twenty years ago I made a commitment to "love and honor... yadda, yadda... till death do us part" a particular woman. There are many ways that I could potentially betray her and that commitment. I have made no such commitment to the woman that lives next door. So while I could do many nasty things to her, none of those things could be described as "betrayal" simply due to the lack of such commitment. Sun and Microsoft have been in bed for quite a while. I remember not long ago a story on Slashdot on a deal between Sun and Microsoft that they would not sue each other into oblivion over patent infringments. StarOffice was specifically mentioned in the agreement; OpenOffice was not. This seems more than a little suspicious. I can vaguely remember other examples of Sun and Microsoft and behind-closed-doors type stuff, but if people are interested, they can google for it ... I could spend the rest of my life googling for conspiracy theories, but that doesn't make them true. I also remember that Sun bought into SCO's Linux licensing scam. Surely they could have at least sat on the fence with everyone else? But no, they start making public statements designed specifically to attract companies scared by the SCO licensing scam away from Linux and towards their own offerings. That's a little unethical. Makes perfect business sense to me. After all, they do offer a competing product, Solaris, which they wish to promote. Have they ever made a public commitment to support Linux? If not, then where is the ethics problem? I wish people could reserve their criticism for companies that are actually *opposed* to open-source software instead of banging on the good guys for not being pure enough. Unfortunately there is no such thing as 'pure enough'. You're either pure or you're not. While that might seem elitist, it's simply fact. The 'rules' are clear and if you don't follow them, then you're not open source. So does your criticism then apply to Redhat, SuSe, MySQL, or any other company that mixes open and proprietary business? I'll also point out once more that while Sun might be leveraging open source to it's advantage now, that I would certainly not see this as a life-long committment. They're happy enough with they way things are currently. If the open source community identifies threats such as this 'minor impurity' and acts upon it now, we can protect ourselves from trouble further down the track *when* Sun decides they've had enough competition from open source. The worst that Sun could do would be to simply stop supporting OpenOffice.org. They could shut down the website and re-assign their developers. But the code would remain regardless. That's the part of all this that's a gift, no matter what their intentions may be. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No-break
John W. Kennedy wrote:
Just as with quotation marks, Unicode is trying to undo confusion
introduced by cost-saving measures applied to Victorian typewriters. (I
have seen people -- usually in their late 50's or older -- who will, if
not stopped, use lower-case "L" instead of the digit "one" and sometimes
even upper-case "O" instead of digit "zero".)
Oh man, that takes me back! I learned how to type back in the '70s on an
old manual typewriter. I had forgotten how it didn't have those keys! I
can also remember forming an exclamation mark with an apostrophe,
back-space, and period. And of course, no ~`[]{}<>\ or |.
And Dan Rather can tell you about the lack of any kind of real super- or
sub-scripting back then, too.
Rod
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[discuss] Re: Daniel is hired by Microsoft
Rich wrote: Daniel Carrera wrote: Hello everyone, Guess what? I got a new job! Whooo hoo!! Yay money! I was hired as a technical writer for Microsoft's Office division. I showed them my OOoAuthors work as a portolio, and they liked it. John Durant was impressed by my Styles chapter. I will be working on the Microsoft Office Developer Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/ A neat thing about this job is I get to telecommute. So it won't interfere with school. Yay! Jean was instrumental in getting me hired. She has a tech writer friend at Microsoft who served as a contact. More importantly, she wrote a nice recommendation letter for me. Thank you Jean! This is so cool! I can't wait to start. Oh, incidentally, my contract doesn't allow me to work on a competitor's product. So I will have to quit OpenOffice.org involvement. Oh well. In any event, it was great working with you guys. this was believable... up to this sentence ;D but i must admit, nice one, you got me at first ;) As of next week, the email [EMAIL PROTECTED] won't work. You can reach me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cheers, Daniel Carrera Technical Writer -- Microsoft Office division. You know, this may get me kicked out of the club, but I would take a job like that... seriously. Politics is all well and fine, but I have a wife and two kids to think about. And you had me going for all of about 3 seconds. :) Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No more file association to MSO when installing
Ric Hayman wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Daniel Carrera wrote: | Rod Engelsman wrote: | | |>This has been an issue for a *l* time, Daniel. | | | My understanding is that the UI has already changed, and now, weeks before the | final release, there is a suggestion for another change. | The issue of ambiguous wording in the install script re file associations for MSO files has been around for as long as I've been on the mailing list - which is nearly two years. This thread mentioned the IZ issue which has been there since 2002 - this is not a new suggestion. Ric Furthermore, the change that Daniel is alluding to was simply to change the default state of the checkboxes on that dialog. Previously, the boxes were already checked when the dialog popped up. Most people will tend to let the program install with the defaults so they wouldn't tend to uncheck them. This was indeed a positive change IMHO, but it only addressed half of the problem. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No-break
John W. Kennedy wrote: No, it's a hyphen. U+002D (hyphen/minus) short U+2010 (true hyphen)short U+2011 (non-breaking hyphen)short U+2012 (en-dash)long U+2013 (em-dash)longer U+2014 (horizontal bar) longest U+2212 (true minus) short Okay. So answer me, truthfully, just between you and me and some of our closest friends... :) If I were to present to you a piece of paper with the hyphen/minus, true hyphen, non-breaking hyphen, and true minus printed out, could you distinguish them from each other? Other than the difference between breaking and non-breaking I don't really see the point. Or is it about the computer being able to tell the difference for search-and-replace, etc.? Has an issue been filed? I would vote for it. It couldn't show up until v 2.1 at the earliest, but the idea definitely has merit. 46414 Voted for it. Thanks for filing the issue. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Java fallout: OO.o 2.0 and the FOSS community
You know, this sort of thing crops up again and again... A mother buys an ice cream sundae. It has chocolate sauce and whipped cream on it. Yummy! Hands it to her little boy, who looks at it and screams, "What's the matter b, no cherry!!?" Here we have a corporation that acquires a major piece of intellectual property -- an office productivity suite, changes the liscencing to GPL and hands it over to the open-source community. If that's all they ever did, it would be the single greatest gift to FOSS ever, right up there with the Netscape gift of Mozilla. But that's not all. This corporation then devotes dozens of programmers to the task of updating and improving this property over a period of years. Hosts the website that distributes it to outside developers and users. Actively promotes it, even though it directly competes with a proprietary version of the same software that they sell. Only fly in the ointment is that some small parts of the code are dependent on a proprietary, though freely distributed, software that this same company owns. Let's get real, just how pure does a company have to be to be seen as one of the good guys? There's a real limit to how much they can get away with in furtherance of this experimental strategy. As someone else pointed out, if the parts of OOo that depend on Java bother you that much, then re-write the freakin' things in C++. Start a fork if you *really* feel the need. I wish people could reserve their criticism for companies that are actually *opposed* to open-source software instead of banging on the good guys for not being pure enough. My 2 cents, nuff said. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No-break
John W. Kennedy wrote: Rod Engelsman wrote: John W. Kennedy wrote: Why, o why, o why, o why, o WHY can we not have a simple "do not break" character attribute? I'm working right now on transcribing an 18th-century document full of "Mr. Sh" and the like (actually, that's two em dashes), and I can find absolutely no way to prevent "Sh" being broken if it happens to hit the end of a line. All I can do is manually pad out the line with extra spaces until the whole thing falls off onto the next line -- but if I should need to alter the margins, or make a correction to the text, I have to do the whole thing over again. You can insert a non-breaking dash using Shift+Ctrl+(minus sign). Does that do what you want? That's a hyphen, not a dash. Yeah, I know. It's an en-dash, not an em-dash. I thought maybe it might work for you. Too bad it doesn't. :( Anyway, this is only the most recent annoyance. Time and time again I've hit some problem using OOo that could have been quickly and conveniently solved if I had been able just to say, "Don't break here," (as I could on DeScribe), but which instead had to be solved by performing some kludge. Mark the word in question "no language". Turn off hyphenation. Fiddle with the margins. Rewrite the copy. etc., etc., etc Has an issue been filed? I would vote for it. It couldn't show up until v 2.1 at the earliest, but the idea definitely has merit. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No-break
John W. Kennedy wrote: Why, o why, o why, o why, o WHY can we not have a simple "do not break" character attribute? I'm working right now on transcribing an 18th-century document full of "Mr. Sh" and the like (actually, that's two em dashes), and I can find absolutely no way to prevent "Sh" being broken if it happens to hit the end of a line. All I can do is manually pad out the line with extra spaces until the whole thing falls off onto the next line -- but if I should need to alter the margins, or make a correction to the text, I have to do the whole thing over again. You can insert a non-breaking dash using Shift+Ctrl+(minus sign). Does that do what you want? Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No more file association to MSO when installing
Daniel Carrera wrote: Tony Pursell wrote: I thought more was going to be done to avoid it and I am amazed that we still have a setup dialog that virtually invites people to do what they don't really want to do But why didn't you say this before the UI freeze? I saw the OOo snapshot before the UI freeze and I thought the problem had been fixed. The time to test the UI and request changes is before the freeze. Jut a few weeks before the final release. Cheers, That is *really* disingenuous, Daniel. This problem has been discussed for *over three years*. UI freeze, my ass! That was before the UI freeze for 1.1 for God's sake!! Ignore a problem for three years and then claim you can't do anything about it because of a UI freeze is just lame. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No more file association to MSO when installing
Daniel Carrera wrote: Uhhmm... yes it does. It looks very clear to me. It says that OOo will automatically open those file types. It's not. At least not to new users. What's not clear from the wording is whether or not you will be able to open MSO files *at all* if you do not check the boxes. Because changing this is not like flicking a light switch. Actually, this one almost is that easy. This is in the install script, not the program itself. And it wouldn't require anyone to write *one* *line* of new code, merely to disable a few lines with comment marks. Asking "why take that chance?" is incredibly unfair. It inherently assumes we have nothing to lose. In truth, we have a lot to lose. We have time, effort and code stability to lose. Explain exactly how this change would affect "code stability". And it would save an incredible amount of time for the volunteers who have to repeatedly answer the same complaint that "Open Office took over my MSO files!!". For that reason, UI changes should, in general, be postponed until the next release. Now, if you can bring down this UI change to just changing a string, that has a better chance of success. If you can do that, please file an issue. Cheers, I think you're really overstating the extent of the effort required to bring about this change. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: No more file association to MSO when installing
Daniel Carrera wrote: Enrique wrote: Before releasing OOo 2.0 I would propose something radical: Just before a release is not the time to propose something radical. This has been an issue for a *l* time, Daniel. Even if you convince everyone, inc the developers, that droping this dialog and functionality is a good idea. The issue is that we are in the *beta* release right now. The UI freeze was months ago. The specs were months before that. Right now developers are just trying to make things stable so we can release the product in a few weeks. Compare this with the quickstarter. The QA was a much simpler UI change, and there was massive support for it. But we had to wait a lot because developers were not sure that they'd manage to do it without breaking anything. There is a lot of QA involved in UI changes. This is not the time to suggest such a UI change for 2.0. I'm sorry. Cheers, Then make it 2.01 for christ's sake. How many times do we want to answer the same stupid question Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rod Engelsman wrote: Am I the only person with this problem? Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Flickering icons
Rod Engelsman wrote: Group, I have recently played with the 1.9.79 and now the 1.9.87 releases. I've noticed something (actually it's very hard *not* to notice) that I would like to pin down. When I pass the mouse over the icons in the toolbar and over buttons in dialogs, the icons and buttons will flicker off and on rapidly. It's like the rendering is slow or something. If you move the mouse rapidly, you can actually see the buttons and icons disappearing and then re-appearing. When I do this, the CPU activity spikes as well. My system is: Fedora Core 3, 2.6.10-(something) 770 kernel, 1.5 GHz P4, 256 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce2 video card on the generic nv driver. I'm tempted to think part of the problem is that I need to install the proprietary nvidia video driver, but I haven't had any issues with previous releases of OOo or any other software for that matter. Any clues? Rod More info: This only happens under KDE. The icons and buttons etc. are fine if I run it under a Gnome session. Another (minor) issue with OOo and KDE is that the Writer component isn't installed in the KDE menu system. The other components are installed OK, just Writer is missing. It's not a huge deal to add it manually of course, but it does seem weird. And once again, this turns out not to be an issue when using Gnome. Although, come to think of it, an earlier release of OOo installed some items in Gnome, some items in KDE, but not the same items. I was missing Calc under Gnome and Writer under KDE. This all seems sort of random to me. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Flickering icons
Group, I have recently played with the 1.9.79 and now the 1.9.87 releases. I've noticed something (actually it's very hard *not* to notice) that I would like to pin down. When I pass the mouse over the icons in the toolbar and over buttons in dialogs, the icons and buttons will flicker off and on rapidly. It's like the rendering is slow or something. If you move the mouse rapidly, you can actually see the buttons and icons disappearing and then re-appearing. When I do this, the CPU activity spikes as well. My system is: Fedora Core 3, 2.6.10-(something) 770 kernel, 1.5 GHz P4, 256 MB ram, Nvidia GeForce2 video card on the generic nv driver. I'm tempted to think part of the problem is that I need to install the proprietary nvidia video driver, but I haven't had any issues with previous releases of OOo or any other software for that matter. Any clues? Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Engineering mode in calc ?
Chris BONDE wrote: Boy, are you a young thing! When I was going (not a gear) they had multiple scale, PI folder scales, etc slip sticks. Chris I was right on the transition. I had a slip-stick in high school, but by the time I was in college the calculators had come down in price -- and increased in functionality -- to where they were a real alternative. The HP-41C was the penultimate gear-head calculator. All the scientific functions, 10-digit LCD display, programmable, and you could get these expansion cards that plugged into the top. Give it more memory or more functions, and even plug in a printer. Geek chic. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Engineering mode in calc ?
Daniel Carrera wrote: Peter Knudsen wrote: Is there a way of telling Calc to show numbers in engineering mode such as 150e-3 or 100e3 instead of respectively 1.50e-1 and 1.00e5 Use a user-defined numering format: 000E+000 Cheers, Sorry, Daniel, that doesn't do it. In engineering mode the exponent is always a multiple of 3. 5 = 5e+0 50 = 50e+0 500 = 500e+0 5000 = 5e+3 5 = 50e+3 50 = 500e+3 500 = 5e+6 etc... It follows from the use of metric prefixes of kilo, mega, tera, peta and milli, micro, nano, atto, femto, etc... That's been the standard in engineering school since at least the late 70's when I attended. And I have yet to find a calculator -- either physical or computer app -- capable of displaying such since my venerable old HP-41C died (the display went to crap on it). It may seem silly but I still miss that thing sometimes. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Telling the user what gets lost
Jonathon Blake wrote: And who is going to document the things that are lost for each version of Word, RTF, etc? I would imagine the engineers that built the filters would know what works and what doesn't. Unless they don't test their product. That and user feedback in IZ. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: MSN Producer like program in OO Impress's future
Nicu Buculei wrote: I don't think we should care about anything else beyond free formats - Ogg Vorbis and perhaps uncompressed Wav You know what I care about right now? Producing a 25 to 45 minute presentation in Powerpoint format with voice-over. Personally, I could give a flying fig whether it's in rm, wav, Ogg Vorbis, mp3 or whatever. The fact is that right now -- before the end of the semester at least -- I have to create this presentation. I would prefer to do as much of this using free software in Linux as I can. As it stands that won't be possible. I will likely have to boot into XP (I'm running dual boot with FC3), create the presentation in Powerpoint, and see what I can do with PresenterOne. Probably end up with 2 or 3 of those files because of the 15 minute limitation. I understand your political point, but arguing over how to do this and be as "pure" as possible is just going to slow the whole exercise down to a crawl and force people like me to use Windows even longer. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: MSN Producer like program in OO Impress's future
Sweet Coffee wrote: Hi Everyone! I would like to thank everyone who responded to and posted their input and ideas about a presentation player (like MSN Producer) and/or a media player in OO. I have not installed OO v2.0Beta as of yet and do not know what options they have to play media in OO Impress, if any. I know that, in the past, if I wanted to include a sound clip and/or video into a slide I would just do it in PowerPoint because it was much more do-able in that program. I do not have MSN Office anything on my computer so I would always have to work on those slides outside of home. A real drag. I hope the folks working on v2.0 have done something about this. I cannot think of learning a program language like C++, which someone suggested in this thread, until the summer. I am hoping someone with this programming skill will consider developing for OO in the near future (to fit in with v2.0), 1. An MSN Producer like program (Presentation Program), that could be run on the web and desktop. [Maybe allow for the plugin of any player with OO (as someone mentioned previously)]. 2. Portable program which will run and open OO files on any computer that does not have OO installed. [Flash is nice in OO Impress, but animations and audio/video cannot be viewed with it] Frankly, maybe I am too naive or optimistic, I think the above would help give OO more market share because more people who are a bit afraid of opensource would get to see it in action. I dunno! Does anyone else have thoughts about this. Anyway to catch the "eye" of developers regarding this? SC It sounds very much like a viable third-party add-on sort of app. Accordent makes something very similar to MS Producer called PresenterOne that produces RealMedia files. Since nothing exists open-source yet, as a stop-gap -- if you are running Windows -- you can download their basic version for free. It is limited to a 15-minute presentation, though. They also have two higher versions -- one is Standard (or some such nomenclature) which removes the 15-minute limit and adds some more features, and a Professional version that lets you set up streaming media over the web. Lots of money for those, though. I'm interested in all this as well, because I have to produce a PP presentation with voice-over for a class. The 15-minute version is too short for my needs and MS Producer -- even if I could stomach the thought of using MS for this -- requires Office 2003 and all I have is Office 2000. I guess I'm just going to have to add sound to each transition and have a "Click here for next slide" button or something. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: 3D/4D with Base, or is there something else?
Jacob, First of all, I want to say, "Damn you!". I was just about ready to turn in for the night when I read your post. Now you got me thinking and I'm going to be up later than I wanted. :) My suggestion: If you want 6 dimensions, you should have 7 tables. One each that is a simple list of the possible attributes along that dimension, e.g. Make Dimension: Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Toyota, etc. Color Dimension: Blue, Red, Silver, etc. Then your seventh table will simply have 6 columns with tuples for each combination that exists -- the boolean ones. . Where it gets interesting is when you want to display the data in tables. Especially if that is supposed to be interactive. I would suggest you look at a browser-based approach. Probably PHP, but I know very little about that. You would want to construct a program that would loop over the x,y that you chose and construct a table with X's in the cells that would contain boolean ones. The X's would actually be hyperlinks to start the process over again with different query criteria. I can vaguely imagine how you could do something like this, but I don't know the actual tools well enough to do it myself. You could also program something like this from scratch, but I believe a PHP/browser approach would give you faster results easier. In any case, the display/selection bit is probably beyond what you can do with off-the-shelf database form/table tools. Although you could easily set up the forms to input the data I suppose. That could save you some work. Hope this helps. Interesting problem -- check back here, I would like to hear what you come up with. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: New features
Lars D. Noodén wrote: What is Scribus? (I'd ask what is MS-Publisher but I don't want know.) Is it like PageMaker or QuarkXpress? If so, then one of the key features for me was the ability to split bodies of text into connected sub-bodies. You can have linked text frames in Writer. Is this what you mean? On a more general note, what features are missing in Writer that should be present in a DTP? Or is it more a matter of UI changes? Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: OO does not show up in Win XP Start Menu recent used Apps
OldSarge wrote: To Joanne: Could be because you continue to use MSFT! Maybe, if you went to Linux, you might get a different result? Yeah, maybe you would have only some of the OOo icons installed in the menu system. OOo 1.9.69 on Fedora Core 3. Interestingly a different subset of OOo items showed up on the KDE menu than the Gnome menu. Neither was complete, but they were missing different components. Methinks this is an installer problem(s). Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: MSN Hotmail blocking OOo attachments & Misspelling: opemoffice.org takes you to site selling MS Office
Peter Kupfer wrote: Jacob Floyd wrote: [snip] Borrowed from G. Roderick Singleton: The best way to have problems such as this evaluated is to file an issue. If you haven't already registered, do the following: Go to click the Register link at the top right of of the page. Fill in your information and reply to the confirmation email that will be sent to the address you provided. Once you have confirmed, go to again and click on the "Bugs & Issues" link in the General links box. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It is important that you file the issue to ensure reproducibility with your examples. [snip] Can someone explain to me why filing an issue about hotmail at openoffice.org would do any good? It's not OOo that has the problem, it's hotmail. I'm just not seeing the connection... Maybe someone can explain it to me. Curious, Jacob I am trying to figure out if Rod is making fun of me for sending out a reply like the one he did when someone has an issue, because it is like an automated response. If he is, in my defense, I usually include real typing and thoughts along with my form. I do this because I don't want to type the same thing over and over. All in good humor though, hopefully. :) Absolutely. No hard feelings I hope. :) It just sounded so much like GRS's canned RTFM response that I couldn't resist. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: MSN Hotmail blocking OOo attachments & Misspelling: opemoffice.org takes you to site selling MS Office
Juan Carlos Avila wrote: This is Norman and I can imagine the frustration you are having while continuing to experience issues on virus warning. I know how important it is to have your concern addressed immediately and we thank you for taking the time to report this to us. Your feedback is of great help in our drive to continually improve our products and services. Our Product team is aware of this and we are currently working on a fix for this issue. Although I do not have the exact date on when this issue will be completely fixed, I will take the responsibility in making sure that your feedback will be given priority. Thank you for your patience and cooperation. Please remain confident that Hotmail is in control of the situation and is committed to serve you better. Sincerely, Norman V. MSN Hotmail Technical Support it seems to me it looks like a automatic response. ive got this kind of responses very often (when i was a hotmail user) Borrowed from G. Roderick Singleton: The best way to have problems such as this evaluated is to file an issue. If you haven't already registered, do the following: Go to click the Register link at the top right of of the page. Fill in your information and reply to the confirmation email that will be sent to the address you provided. Once you have confirmed, go to again and click on the "Bugs & Issues" link in the General links box. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It is important that you file the issue to ensure reproducibility with your examples. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Less is more/Less is a bore: Organizing Templates dialog
Ralph Aichinger wrote: Can anybody tell me, if in the following screenshots the marked menu is really necessary? Some dialogs are in German, but I think everybody gets the idea: http://www.pangea.at/~ralph/dialogderhoelle/ What I want to say is the following: The topmost configuration does not make too much sense, does it? If it does not, as far as my maths tell me, the marked menu is not needed, if one considers the lower two configurations equivalent (aside from interface locale, that is). Am I stupid, am I overlooking something or should I file an Issue to remove one of the two menus? Having a "pleasant optical symmetry" is not enough reason for me. *Is* there some use for the topmost configuration I have not thought about? The fundamental reason for asking this question is, that I am thinking this dialog is much too complicated as it is, and adding redundant UI elements only reduces the chance of people to find out what works or not by simply trying all permutations. /ralph -- feel free to flame me, but I really think this is a dialog from hell. I agree. I have a hard time understanding that dialog as well. Frankly, the whole business of managing templates in OOo is very confusing to me. It's not clear to me where the templates are stored (for back-ups). This is in direct opposition to the paradigm on Styles which I like very much. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Spreadsheet
Peter Kupfer wrote: S wrote: I was thrilled to find OpenOffice, but disappointed when I saw Spreadsheet only handles 32,000 rows. I use Excel daily, and frequently use files that contain around 45,000 rows of data. Are there any plans to expand the capacity of Spreadsheet? - Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! – What will yours do? Yes, OOo 2.0 will handle some huge number of rows. It is like a 6 digit # I believe. They doubled it to 65,536 rows -- the same as Excel. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: OOo Install Program Text
Mathias Bauer wrote: Maybe we are talking about different things here. I'm not against changing the text of a dialog if it is not understandable (though I still doubt that this is the case here, I can't see that "the instructions are broken"). But explaining to the user what checking and unchecking of checkboxed means is ridiculous. Not in this case. I'm not really a newbie by any means; I've been using computers -- mostly Windows -- since about '92. When I first installed OOo about a year ago, I was a bit taken aback at first when all my blue "W"s and red "X"s turned into seagulls. I figured out what the deal was pretty quick but it was something I hadn't really thought about before. I had just assumed that the icon was derived from the file extension rather than the file association. I can understand why someone less knowledgeable would be confused and even panicky at that result. The dialog text *is* unclear. It can be read two ways: 1) do you want OOo to *always* open these file types? or 2) do you want OOo to *be* *able* to open these file types? It's important to keep in mind that a fairly high percentage of people installing OOo are doing so for the first time and they are in "evaluation" mode to see if the program is any good. Those people simply don't know yet whether they want to use OOo full time or even at all. And the user base is moving way beyond the geek and "early adopter" stages and into Joe and Jane Sixpack. A lot of them don't know much about how computers work and they aren't particularly interested. They know how to click that icon or choose this menu item to do something. Their knowledge is largely empirical. The checkboxes in the dialog we are talking about are by no means different to others in OOo or other programs. Moreover, nearly every graphic viewer I know has a similar configuration dialog where you have text at the top that says: "use xxx as a viewer for:" followed by several checkboxes, each for a specific graphical format. I never heard that this poses a problem to the common user. Frankly, I hate it when programs do that. Especially at install time. Often I simply don't know if I want the program to do those things yet. It doesn't help that I've probably got a dozen programs on my machine that can open a jpg. Same for mp3. Graphic and media players can be downright aggressive that way. It's not a behavior to emulate. My opinion is that the checkboxes should just go away. Devise some way to set the file associations through the options or tools menu. If the installer could detect an installation of Word, etc. then I would only set those associations at install time if the installer *did not* detect those programs on the machine. I suppose you could skip that step for other platforms. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: OpynOffice - bouncing a rough idea
Ian Laurenson wrote: I'm currently procrastinating on work that I should be doing - so thought I would bounce an idea (only half serious) off the discuss list. On this list there have been discussions about a "lite" version of OpenOffice.org, here is an idea of how it could be implemented. Imagine a "cut down" version of OpenOffice.org written in Python, I'm going to call it OpynOffice (OpyO pronounced oh pie oh) in this message. Some suggestions for OpyO are as follows: * No tables in text documents - instead these are implemented as embedded sheet objects. I've often wondered why -- especially once you grok how OOo reuses code -- that there is a need for a separate table object distinct from a spreadsheet. Other than compatibility with MS Word. * Only one way of cross referencing (extend variables a little and do away with set references and bookmarks). The variables would also handle paragraph numbering. God knows it could be made simpler anyway. * No endnotes just footnotes that can be positioned at the end of the document. I want to be able to put the things wherever I want -- like the way you position a TOC or Index. Paradoxically perhaps, the end of the document is often not the right place to put the Endnotes. So what do you think - is this "Py in the sky" or something worth considering? The Python stuff itself I have no comment on -- not qualified to speak on the subject -- but I like some of your other ideas. I think it would be interesting to see what you could come up with if you sufficiently generalized the concept of a document and then built an office app while completely ignoring issues of compatibility with other applications. It seems to me that the paradigm of separate apps for text, spreadsheets, drawings, presentations, and web pages has unnecessarily constrained the architecture of OpenOffice.org. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: [Fwd: Autoreply to ***SPAM*** Re: [discuss] Suggestion regarding splash image]
Peter Kupfer wrote: Christian Einfeldt wrote: On Saturday 05 February 2005 12:46, Peter Kupfer wrote: Is this real? IMHO, no, it is phishing. I sent like 10 messages to the discuss and got one of these. I didn't cc anyone or anything else. I am subscribed to the list, and my post made it through. Can a moderator (or anyone really) comment on this? It appears that it might be a phishing scam. I routinely ignore requests to go to someone's email box so that I have the privilege of corresponding with them. If they want to receive email from me, they will do the work of adding me to their list of real emailers BEFORE they send it out. Asking someone else to do your data entry for you as a condition of correspondence is, IMHO, rude. I agree. I am curious where this came from. The message I sent, was only sent to the list, there was no cc or anything like that. So, I don't know who Steve Ward is or how this would have come to me. Odd. Thanks, Not a huge mystery. This Steve Ward fellow subscribed to the mailing list. Messages you get from the list have the poster's addy as the "From:" and discuss@openoffice.org as the "Reply-To:". I fully expect to get one of those now from sending this message. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: Thoughts about saving files in non-OO native format
Rick Owen wrote: Greetings, I've just joined the list. Welcome!! snip I have a couple of comments about this particular message and the philosophy that (I think) is behind it. First, my idea about the philosophy behind it. It appears to me that the intent of this message is to say (in so many words) "We can do things (i.e. formatting things) that Word cannot do; we are better than Word. To take advantage of this 'betterness' you have to save this file in our format." I don't think it's meant to imply that, although there's nothing wrong with believing you have a better product. Indeed, there would be little point to the whole exercise otherwise. I think it's meant to simply be a straight-forward expression of reality: That *anytime* you create a document in Program "A" and save that document in the native file format of Program "B", there exists the possibility -- or even probability -- of some loss or alteration of formatting. This isn't unique to OOo in any way, of course. My question would be, Do other programs do this? Does Word warn you when you save as WordPerfect format? Does WP warn you if you save as Word format? If they don't -- and I don't know if they do or don't -- then I would absolutely assert that we should drop the warning. Either people understand the problems inherent in saving to a foreign format or they don't. In any case, there is very little they can do about it anyway. First of all, it implies that my 300 page masterpiece that I've spent weeks formatting with pictures, etc. is now going to lose all formatting if I save it in Word format (even though my customer will only accept it in Word format). I know that isn't what it means, but you have to look at it through the eyes of the novice "maybe I'll use it maybe I won't" type user. If there are formatting features that cannot be preserved in Word format (which I have a hard time believing there are), then make it a configurable option that warns the user that "The selected formatting can only be preserved by saving the document in the latest OpenOffice.org format." or some such thing. My guess is that 99.9% of the time, the user meant to do something else anyway. Actually, that 300-page masterpiece with pictures is exactly the sort of document that is likely to give you trouble. Word and OOo handle object anchoring differently it seems, and the translation is often dodgy. Lots of people have reported compatibility problems related to illustration placement and I've had problems with text frames. And don't even think about exporting a document with embedded Draw illustrations. (Insert them as bitmaps instead.) Endnotes will be placed differently. There are several -- many? -- known compatibility issues, though it's getting better. Word has no concept of page, frame, or numbering styles, either. The paragraph and character styles translate very well, but formatting that depends heavily on the other style types is iffy. If it sounds like I'm on a soapbox, I am. OpenOffice is good. Not good; great! I want it to succeed in a big way! However, I know from personal experience that people are resitant to change and as soon as that message pops up (especially for someone sticking their neck out a bit), they'll just scrap it. The sad truth is that if they absolutely *have* to create complexly formatted documents that absolutely *have* to be saved in doc format and that absolutely *have* to retain their formatting faithfully, then they probably should use Word. But I believe that to be only a small percentage of the user base. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: æèåä
alastair horne wrote: Can anyone translate this into english please. If not its ok I will get somebody that what it is, I am pretty sure its chinese, correct me if I am wrong. regards alastairh I wouldn't bother. My impression from the links is that it's some Chinese spam. rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: "missing" feature and function
Peter Kupfer wrote: Rod Engelsman wrote: > FYI, the Mozilla folks have another project in the works called "Lightening" which is supposed to tightly integrate the Sunbird calendar/task manager into Thunderbird. It's presently at the pre-Alpha stage (working up the program specs, etc.), but it will eventually totally address the needs of Outlook users. They don't have a formal time-table, but I would expect to see some preliminary code sometime in 2005. Rod What does Lightning do? Just integrate them? Aren't they already integrated? Is there a page for this new program? Thanks, It puts it all together like Outlook or Evolution -- calendar, to-do, e-mail -- with the group scheduling stuff as well. There are links to it on the T-bird site (somewhere under development, I guess) but I don't have it handy. Google for it, friend. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[discuss] Re: "missing" feature and function
Daniel Carrera wrote: Hello Mark, Thank you for your input. We have partnered with another project, Mozilla, with the agreement that they provide an email client, web browser and calendar and we provide an office suite. The reason for this is that we simply don't have the resources to maintain an email client. Also, email clients are very different from the other components we have at OpenOffice.org. So, if we tried to maintain one, we would just produce a mediocre email client attached to a mediocre office suite. This doesn't make sense, when Mozilla has already made an excellent email client and is making good progress towards a calendar. Please use those. Go to http://www.mozilla.org and download "Thunderbird". Best, Daniel Carrera. OpenOffice.org volunteer. FYI, the Mozilla folks have another project in the works called "Lightening" which is supposed to tightly integrate the Sunbird calendar/task manager into Thunderbird. It's presently at the pre-Alpha stage (working up the program specs, etc.), but it will eventually totally address the needs of Outlook users. They don't have a formal time-table, but I would expect to see some preliminary code sometime in 2005. Rod - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
