On 17/04/2009 21:12, Michael Adams wrote:
On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:51:48 +0100
Came this utterance formulated by Harold Fuchs to my mailbox:
I think there are a few reasons why people, particularly Windows
people, want integrated mail:
* Windows computers often come with Outlook (or Outlook Express)
mail and MS Office pre-installed so people think they belong
together.
* Many versions of MS Office come with Outlook or Outlook Express
so people think ...
Outlook Express comes with Windows, but not with all versions of
windows. Outlook comes with Office.
* Users of Outlook (but not of Outlook Express) have (used to
have???) an option to configure Word as their "mail editor". If
you choose this option then, when you either create a new
message or reply to an existing one Outlook invokes some sort of
inbuilt version of Word (it probably uses the Word API). You
type your message with all (most?) of Word's editing
capabilities, including things like tables, but then you just
hit Send. No separate document is saved. The Word window is
within an Outlook window so things like your address book, Send
button, space for Subject etc. are just there. Your mail
"signature" , if defined, is automatically added.
IMHO this is one of the worst uses possible. This formatted mail exports
as an HTML mail. Word is notorious for bad HTML which it seems to have
aquired from the equally notorious Frontpage. Non-standard, custom tags
galore, bloated HTML mails - grrr. And i am increasingly seeing no
quoting of quoted text - whats up with that?
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/01/10/microsoft-breaks-html-email-rendering-in-outlook/
I didn't say it was good. I didn't say I like it. I said it's what a lot
of people have come to expect, partly based on what other people in
their company do. And it is convenient because you don't have to learn
two separate user interfaces.
* Spell checking is integrated between Outlook (or Outlook
Express) and Word.
And if you uninstall Word, Outlook Express spell checking breaks!
Yes. That's one of the reasons people don't uninstall Word. Clever isn't it?
I think it's a shame that OOo's spell checker can't integrate with,
say, Thunderbird's. You used to be able to copy TB's dictionary into
an OOo directory somewhere (or OOo's dictionary into a TB directory)
but even that is no longer possible since the advent of OOo 3.x with
its new scheme for handling dictionaries as extensions. Ho hum.
I like the option to choose my email program seperately from my Office
software, it allows mix and match.
Mix and match is fine. But mixing and not matching is what we have if we
choose OOo and Thunderbird. Or OOo and any mail program - at least as
far as spell checking is concerned.
Thunderbird/lightning integration with OO.o is pretty good. Sun has/had
programmers on that.
Thunderbird/OOo integration has got *worse* from 2.4.x to 3.x. As I said
you can no longer even use a copy of a TB dictionary in OOo, or a copy
of an OOo dictionary in TB. Of course, you should be able to use the
*same* dictionary. Why do I have to add the same word twice? Or if not
TB, then some other mail program. Sun doesn't have programmers on that.
Or if it does then they are travelling backwards.
--
Harold Fuchs
London, England
Please reply *only* to users@openoffice.org
