[users] Re: OOo Functionality to Support e-mail

[Keith N. McKenna]

Keith Bates wrote:

On Fri, 16 May 2008 12:04:36 +0300 (EAT)
"Sammy Njuguna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


2008/5/16 jonathon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:


On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Drew Jensen wrote:


What is being called for is the ability to say - there is one
( or

more )
email clients that works closely with the other modules in the
package.

Other than the ability to use OOo to create webpages that
masquerade as email, what functionality does OOo need, to better
integrate with email clients?



My take.

I have invented a *notional* program called "The Mail Program"
which I will
refer to as TMP. This *might* be an existing program that gets
modified, Thunderbird for example, or a new program that gets
written for the purpose.
I don't much care except that Thunderbird comes close to fitting
the bill already. But if there is a better candidate ...

I also expect that whichever of OOo and TMP is installed *second*
on a user's system will notice that the other is already there and
configure itself accordingly, or at least to offer the user a
choice (or series of choices) as to whether s/he wants this.

I also expect that if TMP and OOo are both installed and if the
user then uninstalls one of them, then the one that remains does
*not* lose functionality. For example, with MS Office, if the user
uninstalls Word, Outlook Express can no longer check spelling. As
far as I am concerned this
is just shoddy.

The numbering below is for convenience only. I do *not* intend it
to imply a
priority ordering.
--
Harold Fuchs
London, England
Please reply *only* to users@openoffice.org


Could'nt have put it better myself Harold,That is the way to go!




Sorry, I have to disagree.

Firstly the assumption that an office suite should do everything one
does in an office is an absolute fallacy. People might assume that's
the way it is, but it doesn't make it right.

I see nothing in the proposal that would assume that a suite should do 
everything.



But the assumption is itself contradictory. Why do we not hear any
requests for integration of financial software into OO? After all
financial controls such as accounting, invoices, payroll, etc.
etc.  are core to any business. The only reason why we don't get
hundreds of emails asking "where is the accounting module" is that
Microsoft doesn't do it that way.

One could make the point that the reason that we don't here the 
complaint were is the accounting module is because the accounting piece 
is used primarily by a small subset of people in an office where as the 
e-mail and calendering piece would possibly be more wide spread.



People have been conditioned to make certain assumptions about what
belongs and does not belong in an office suite.

Or conversely people have come to there own conclusions of what they 
believe would best serve there needs in an office suite. Not everything 
that happens in the world is the result of some dark conspiracy. Regular 
people are quite capable of thinking and deciding things all on there 
own without being influenced by others.



Does OO have to meet that assumption? I don't think so. We can suggest
alternatives ways of doing things and that's fine.

If it plans to compete in the area of office suites it had better listen 
to the assumptions of the people who are going to be using the software 
or it will fail no matter how good it is.



Next, question is this: If we believe that email should come in pretty
forms rather than just straight text, who determines what format all
those pretty features are going to be in? It used to be html until MS
in its infinite wisdom decided that email composition was a word
processing feature not an email feature and changed the default
into .doc format rather than html. So do we let people compose .doc
or .odf  in your TMP? Should proprietary document formats even be
considered when sending documents by email (much less composed in an
email program)?

Since test and html are de facto standard in most all mail programs it 
would not be amiss to presume that they should be there in TMP as well. 
As far as I remember even when using Word as the mail editor in Outlook 
the final product is not a .doc formatted file.



What about those silly schmucks like me that think email is best
composed as a plain text format for most situations? What if we choose
to use a non-Thunderbird, non-TMP program that is actually far better
than Thunderbird (obviously I don't know what features TMP has!) at
dealing with email. 

Then by all means continue to do what you do today. Nowhere in the 
proposal is there anything that says that one has to use them or even 
install them.



How would you see this working in all the different operating systems
that OOo is produced on? It would be particularly galling to linux
users such as myself who believe in the philosophy that an application
should just do one thing really well and communicate well with other
applications rather than trying to do everything in one monolithic

[users] Re: OOo Functionality to Support e-mail

[NoOp]

On 05/19/2008 11:38 AM, John Kaufmann wrote:
> In a message dated 2008.05.19 12:16 -0500, Harold Fuchs wrote:
> 
>> On 19/05/2008 15:01, mike scott wrote:
>>> Bottom posting's fine - but please, please, please learn to snip! 
>>> Most of what you quoted was quite irrelevant to your response.
>>>
>> Could we keep just one thread from deteriorating into a vituperative, 
>> puerile, ad hominem bun fight about psephology, numismatics, religion, 
>> bottom posting and/or conspiracy theories? ...
> 
> Harold, I hate to disagree with you, but may I rise to Mike's defense? - His 
> comment was not ad hominem, nor in the vein of the top/bottom-posting wars. 
>   It was merely saying Please edit to send only what is relevant.  Surely we 
> can all agree that simple courtesy - and the fact that a message has MANY 
> more readers than authors, places a burden on the author to quote 
> economically and efficiently. [Mike's parenthetical "Bottom posting's fine - 
> but..." was not a swipe at any particular posting style (but may have 
> recognized that good editing is even more needed with bottom posting).]
> 
> Now (I hope) back to the thread topic...

+1

172 lines for 7 lines of text isn't necessary. And yes... no snippage in
my reply.
FWIW I pretty much agree with John Meyer's comment :-)


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[users] Re: OOo Functionality to Support e-mail

[NoOp]

On 05/19/2008 11:44 AM, John Kaufmann wrote:
> In a message dated 2008.05.19 13:30 -0500, Manfred J. Krause wrote:
> 
>> 'Prize money for a good Thunderbird/OpenOffice.org project'   ;-) 
>> 
>> 
> 
> Great idea!  Yes, the originating post for this thread - with the
> subsequent posts expanding on the modularity advantage - belongs in
> that competition.

Thunderbird & SeaMonkey already have ODF (OOo) reader plugins:
OpenOffice.org Mozilla plugin


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Re: [users] Re: OOo Functionality to Support e-mail

[web at work]

From: "Keith N. McKenna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Keith Bates wrote:

"Sammy Njuguna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

2008/5/16 jonathon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:


On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Drew Jensen wrote:

OOo is a brilliant office application. It can do better. The way ahead
is actually the way that Firefox has moved forward- plug-ins and
extensions. OOo is just starting to move down that track and i think as
extensions develop, many of these problems will be sorted out by third
party developers working out add-ons that will meet specific needs.


There is nothing in the proposal that would preclude TMP being done as
an extension.


A lot of people have put their two-cents in, so I will add mine.

What ever happened to the term "Modular programs"?
I am not talking about modules like C++ uses.  I am talking
about the idea that you have a set of programs that are put
together to create a system of programs to do your tasks.

Why not have a "module" for wordprocessing, another for spreadsheets,
another for drawing, email, browser, etc.,etc..

All of these modules can share features, i.e.., email could use some of the 
editing

features of the wordprocessor or the wordprocessor could send an email using
some of the email features.

If you do not like the wordprocessor module, you change it out for another
one.  Same goes for the email, drawing, browser modules.

The connections between modules could be created, like stated above,
through extensions and add-ons.  How much integration or sharing of
features could depend upon the module program and the extension that
connects them.

Firefox has an add-on that a menu add-on that goes to the OpenOffice.org
web site.  Why cannot such an add-on not open a OOo process when the
file is not HTML.  Have one that you can choose the software to use as the
viewer/editor when you open/download a document from the net.  There
is one to decide if you want to view a PDF document within the browser,
using an add-on PDF reader, or to open a different external program to
view the PDF document, or thirdly,  just save it for viewing later.

Can the good people who writes these add-ons, etc., write one that gives
you the ability to say:

Documentview
types with

HTML-   Firefox
PDF-  view with "xyz" PDF reader
TXT   -
DOC   -
ODF   -

you get to add the document types and the default viewer/editors
as you see fit.

You could have another add-on in the email that allows you to
choose what dictionary(s) you want to use for the spell checking, etc.,
thereby allowing you to choose one dictionary for all your
applications.

Also you can choose which email package you use to send the
large document you just finished in your wordprocessor.

Some of these ideas are partly covered my many different
extensions and add-ons used in Firefox or OpenOffice.org.

So
many people want OOo to integrate with an email package,
whether it is built by the OOo teams or they use someone
else's package.

Other people have lists of software package type they want to
see on OOo.  The modular/extension way is the only option I
currently know of that would work.

First use the extension/add-on idea to integrate the various
software packages, then someday, design the software to be
use as either standalone of as a module of a suite of software.
Then you can choose what email that goes with what wordprocessor,
that goes with what spreadsheet, that goes with what browser,
etc., etc..

Tim L.
retired mainframe programmer,
a long winded and an avid believer in the open-source concept.



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Re: [users] Re: OOo Functionality to Support e-mail

[Véro Bonnard]

 2008/5/16 jonathon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

2008/5/16 Keith N. McKenna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

> Keith Bates wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 12:04:36 +0300 (EAT)
>> "Sammy Njuguna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>  2008/5/16 jonathon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

  On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Drew Jensen wrote:
>
>  What is being called for is the ability to say - there is one
>> ( or
>>
> more )
> email clients that works closely with the other modules in the
> package.
>
> Other than the ability to use OOo to create webpages that
> masquerade as email, what functionality does OOo need, to better
> integrate with email clients?
>


 My take.

 I have invented a *notional* program called "The Mail Program"
 which I will
 refer to as TMP. This *might* be an existing program that gets
 modified, Thunderbird for example, or a new program that gets
 written for the purpose.
 I don't much care except that Thunderbird comes close to fitting
 the bill already. But if there is a better candidate ...

 I also expect that whichever of OOo and TMP is installed *second*
 on a user's system will notice that the other is already there and
 configure itself accordingly, or at least to offer the user a
 choice (or series of choices) as to whether s/he wants this.

 I also expect that if TMP and OOo are both installed and if the
 user then uninstalls one of them, then the one that remains does
 *not* lose functionality. For example, with MS Office, if the user
 uninstalls Word, Outlook Express can no longer check spelling. As
 far as I am concerned this
 is just shoddy.

 The numbering below is for convenience only. I do *not* intend it
 to imply a
 priority ordering.
 --
 Harold Fuchs
 London, England
 Please reply *only* to users@openoffice.org

  Could'nt have put it better myself Harold,That is the way to go!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Sorry, I have to disagree.
>>
>> Firstly the assumption that an office suite should do everything one
>> does in an office is an absolute fallacy. People might assume that's
>> the way it is, but it doesn't make it right.
>>
>>  I see nothing in the proposal that would assume that a suite should do
> everything.
>
>  But the assumption is itself contradictory. Why do we not hear any
>> requests for integration of financial software into OO? After all
>> financial controls such as accounting, invoices, payroll, etc.
>> etc.  are core to any business. The only reason why we don't get
>> hundreds of emails asking "where is the accounting module" is that
>> Microsoft doesn't do it that way.
>>
>>  One could make the point that the reason that we don't here the complaint
> were is the accounting module is because the accounting piece is used
> primarily by a small subset of people in an office where as the e-mail and
> calendering piece would possibly be more wide spread.
>
>  People have been conditioned to make certain assumptions about what
>> belongs and does not belong in an office suite.
>>
>>  Or conversely people have come to there own conclusions of what they
> believe would best serve there needs in an office suite. Not everything that
> happens in the world is the result of some dark conspiracy. Regular people
> are quite capable of thinking and deciding things all on there own without
> being influenced by others.
>
>  Does OO have to meet that assumption? I don't think so. We can suggest
>> alternatives ways of doing things and that's fine.
>>
>>  If it plans to compete in the area of office suites it had better listen
> to the assumptions of the people who are going to be using the software or
> it will fail no matter how good it is.
>
>  Next, question is this: If we believe that email should come in pretty
>> forms rather than just straight text, who determines what format all
>> those pretty features are going to be in? It used to be html until MS
>> in its infinite wisdom decided that email composition was a word
>> processing feature not an email feature and changed the default
>> into .doc format rather than html. So do we let people compose .doc
>> or .odf  in your TMP? Should proprietary document formats even be
>> considered when sending documents by email (much less composed in an
>> email program)?
>>
>>  Since test and html are de facto standard in most all mail programs it
> would not be amiss to presume that they should be there in TMP as well. As
> far as I remember even when using Word as the mail editor in Outlook the
> final product is not a .doc formatted file.
>
>  What about those silly schmucks like me that think email is best
>> composed as a plain text format for most situations? What if we choose
>> to use a non-Thunderbird, non-TMP program that is actually far better
>> than Thunderbird (obviously I don't know what features TMP has!) at
>> dealing with email.
>>
> Then by all means conti