OpenOffice.org 3.0 at the horizon

So will all 2.x trageted issue be solved until Sept 08'?

Posted by Kami on June 21, 2007 at 03:31 PM CEST #

Hmm. I was rather desperately hoping that 3.0 would be the 'throw it all away and start again' release... but no, it's just another "add more features" release. 2.x looks increasingly like a relic from the 90's, and is just getting more unstable and usable as you add more and more features to it. Apple's Pages is a joy to use in comparison, while still supporting most of the features that most MS Word users would ever want-- that's the sort of approach OO.o should be taking these days, IMHO.

Posted by 192.122.221.3 on June 22, 2007 at 12:54 AM CEST #

I am especially excited about the work being put into extensions. Might it be best to standardize on calling them add-ons like Mozilla?

Posted by David Mackey on June 22, 2007 at 04:18 AM CEST #

In my opinion extension name is good for us. Mozilla called their stuffs same. Building office suite from ground is not a trivial, easy to do task. It takes lot of time and effort. So repairing, extending the current application via code refactoring, rewriting is the way where we should go, IHMO.

Posted by Kami on June 22, 2007 at 07:08 AM CEST #

I also was wondering if we should be working toward making the code less complex. OOo is becoming a really huge monster, some libraries are pretty big like svxlib and also many users branches are locked up. I wonder if we should eventually take a vision like firefox took with the original Mozilla browser (now seamonkey) and start making the app more hackable. From the VCL toolkit rework to a more modular and defined approach to the suite and give a freshen look to the bindings like Python 2.3.4 into 2.5 (yes Red Linux is working on those bits), but it will nice to have Python better integrated into the environment like making the Basic IDE multi-language and finally integrate the Xray introspection into the mix.

Posted by JZA on June 22, 2007 at 03:27 PM CEST #

I fully support the suggestion to make OOo simpler. Using plugins is then a logical choice, consider other open-source projects do this with very positive results, most notably Mozilla Firefox.

This is a way to let a core team focus on the core framework, while others can focus on various other things, like im-/export filters, platform-specific tweaks, user interface design, extensions, etc. It may attract more developers, that can focus on specific areas, without overseeing much of the whole application suite.

Perhaps we should get a separate group op people creating a fork of Writer and make it a lean, stable, fast and extensible alternative for Microsoft Word, similar to the way such people created Mozilla Firefox...

Posted by Ernst de Haan on June 23, 2007 at 03:43 PM CEST #

You all have fallen into what I call the Firefox trap. Firefox is *not* a complete rewrite from Mozilla and it is *not* "lighter", "smaller" or "faster" than Mozilla. It's just the more pleasing GUI look that lets people think it is. But if you compare startup times, code size and memory consumption you will discover that this is just an urban legend.
Besides that I agree that OOo needs some ;-) modularization improvements (some examples have been named here like svx). So you might be pleased to hear that this is planned to happen. But if you had a look on the code you would discover that OOo is much more modular already than most people know.
So there is no reason to dump the code. "Throwing it all away and starting from scratch" is the best way to put you out of business. That's not an option. Refactoring the code base (a process that is ongoing since years) and replacing parts of it (that already has happened in some modules) is much better. There is a lot of well structured, solid code in OOo and even the code that doesn't have the best shape now does not necessarily get better if you write it again, but it will surely lose all the knowledge and fixes that the old code contains. I recommend to read http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html.
BTW: I don't see a reason to change the name of our "extensions" to "add-ons". First this term is already used in OOo and even in Firefox they call "extensions" "extensions": "add-ons" is a term that describes extensions and themes (the latter don't exist in OOo). If you open the "add-on" manager dialog you will see that they still have "extensions".

Posted by Mathias Bauer on June 25, 2007 at 10:08 AM CEST #

It is good to hear that OOo is becoming more modular. OOo's biggest downside is its large size and slow speed in comparison to other Office suites. But Mathias is right: Firefox is no leaner than SeaMonkey.

I like OOo's look. It is simple, intuitive, and it is what most people are used to.

Posted by Nate on July 04, 2007 at 08:50 AM CEST #

I don't know why new releases with more Feature while basics are still buggy. I even cannot work with my MS colleagues because of the im-/export bugs. My most used prog is the Writer following by Impress and with both the documents look different with both comparing MS products.

Posted by Slawomir Messner on July 04, 2007 at 10:58 AM CEST #

Can we get its demo version. If it is so powerful than i want to use see its features.

Posted by Jitin on July 04, 2007 at 01:40 PM CEST #

Two improvements that I would like to see are: 1) envelope options that print the zip code bar and the two parallel vertical bars by the stamp such as MS Word has, and 2) a built-in legal pleading paper tool. The legal pleading paper attempts by independent parties have been lackluster in the sense that material can't be imported into them with correct margination.

Posted by Wolfgang Nordmeyer on July 04, 2007 at 08:15 PM CEST #

I'm not a developer. However, I use StarOffice everyday for school. Here's my list of things I'd like: 1. Make the envelope tool easier. It's just not very intuitive. 2. Show page breaks. When I insert a break there isn't a line there that I can see to move and delete. 3. When I right click to copy/paste the dialog box always goes down and disappears off the screen. It should know the cursor position and adjust accordingly. 4. Base is a pain. Is there anyway to make it more intuitive. The lack of reports also makes it difficult. The whole thing is just hard. 5. Macro support needs to be better. The otherday I had to install Excel because Calc couldn't read all of the macros associated with the file. I don't have any issues with speed or size. However, a good look at what people actually need from it might be better than just copying what MS has. Overall I'm really happy with StarOffice which is why I use it everyday. I keep a copy of OOo on my thumbdrive as a portableapp.

Posted by chris on July 05, 2007 at 04:13 PM CEST #

Firefox and Thunderbird may not be "faster" or "lighter" than Mozilla all-in-one (or Seamonkey) but I prefer programs that do one thing well. Surely a OO Writer by itself or a OO Calc by itself wouldn't be such a mammoth download as the current all-in-one, would they? Surely they would be easier to install and update as new versions are released. Writer and Calc are the only OO apps I ever use. Why do you have to clutter my hard disk with code for the others? And BTW, I think "OpenOffice.org" is a very silly name for a program. You should name the program "Open Office".

Posted by Neil Parks on July 05, 2007 at 05:12 PM CEST #

I agree with Neil Parks. A standalone Writer is the way to go. Firefox is better than Mozilla because it's *just* a web browser. Specializing may be for "insects", but insects are a lot more like programs than people--they're creepy and tend to grow to huge sizes and run amok! A standalone Writer would be a faster download and easier to maintain (e.g., no need to update every time there's a Calc bugfix.) Maybe someday Writer will break off from OpenOffice the way Firefox split off from Mozilla. We can only hope.

Posted by E.B.C. on July 06, 2007 at 11:45 PM CEST #

I sincerely hope that the version 3 will be much more compatible with languages using 2-byte characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.). The version 2.x has a lot of troubles dealing with texts in these languages (many issues have been filed in this regard).

Posted by JO on July 07, 2007 at 04:12 AM CEST #

Well, from my point of view, if i can't either export or import to ms, then i have to convince each user i work with to download oo. That is not convienient and also not going to get oo spreading as fast as it should. That should be your first priority before ALL else. That said, i noticed that there is only two backgrounds in impress. Who can use it then as a serious tool? So, increase the backgrounds. The is one thing i would really like to see. Sometime you want to group your pages by a topic. Like days of the week. Have the outline view alow you to group them into ROWS as you like. Then you could easily find anything. Capishe? Thanks, Almost a great product.

Posted by tz on July 08, 2007 at 02:37 AM CEST #

What you must remember, however, is that OpenOffice.org is not simply a clone of Microsoft Office. Most of the complaints I've seen about lack of support for Microsoft Office files should really be directed to Microsoft. Why do you have troubles importing MS Office documents? They are stored in a proprietary format in binary form and must be reverse-engineered even to be able to be imported. To add more to the confusion, Microsoft doesn't even follow generally standard tags and attributes. As you can see with Office Open XML, not even all the colors use standardized names. Would better compatibility with Microsoft Office be nice? Yes, of course it would be, but OpenOffice.org shouldn't stop its own progress in development simply to be a clone of Office. It needs its own reasons for people to want to use it (as it already does have) over something else other than being free to use. That said, it indeed would be a lot nicer if it was split into individual components, as the Microsoft Works suite did several versions ago. I can only imagine that memory usage would improve using smaller executables in addition to the benefits in disk space provided from being able to install only the components needed. Granted, OpenOffice.org does use a lot less disk space in total when compared to the components of Microsoft Office suite as-is. The list of features listed so far do sound promising. One thing I do hope is that Extensions will be as well supported and distributed as they are for Mozilla's products. I do have one question, however. I never could get Novell's import filter for OOXML to work properly with OOo 2.2. The files it created were only readable by itself and not by Office, and Office's files were not successfully imported. Will the official native support for Office 12 files wait until 3.0 in Q3 of 2008, or will it be introduced into the 2.x line?

Posted by Kurt on July 09, 2007 at 08:59 AM CEST #

In general, i liked OOo very much. But I really have to admit, that it is getting more unstable. I can't even use some nice printer settings here. I have to export as pdf (that works ;) ) and then use advanced printing options. Beside that, I agree that the chart module needs update - it's quite useless fore me in the moment (I was a teacher for MS Office at University). Another big problem is the version pumping! You can't add 5 features and add another 1.0 to the version. I don't see any "BIG" new feature for 3.0 at all. Just like firefox/thunderbirg - new GUI and a 1.0 to the version number. A goog example - take a look at Blender3d: Thousands of BIG new features, and just a 0.05 to the version add. Fact: There doesn't seem to be really big development going on in OOo. Greetings and keep going! Genscher

Posted by Genscher on July 10, 2007 at 05:56 PM CEST #

OOo under Windows is working well enough for me that I don't even have MS Office installed on my main work PC any more. Unfortunately, OOo under Linux (ubuntu 7.04) can't see my Type1 fonts, even though other Linux programs can. This is preventing me from switching away from Windows completely. For me, font handling is the Achilles' heel of OOo, and I really hope you put some concentrated effort into it as soon as possible, even before 3.0, if possible. Thanks.

Posted by G on July 10, 2007 at 09:14 PM CEST #

When I import equations from Writer to Adobe Pagemaker (as a metafile), the equation is not properly arranged, some symbols are missing or wrongly displayed. With MS Word, the equation looks exactly the same whether in Word or in Pagemaker.

Posted by Kevin on July 11, 2007 at 03:06 PM CEST #

I started using OpenOffice a year or so ago because it solved a compatibility problem between Microsoft Word on my computer at work and Microsoft Works on my computer at home, and I like the program. I really only ever use Writer. I think all of the rest of the programs are great to have available, but simply having OpenOffice available as a word processing alternative to Word is a tremedous accomplishment, and I find that the program works great. To make it suit my needs, I had to turn off a lot of the automatic features, and after doing that, I was very comfortable with how Writer performed. Thank you very much. I think your effort is wonderful. Certainly there are improvements you could make to Writer; everything can always be improved, but I would think that you want to make improvements to the existing program and not just start over again, which would seem to be wasteful to me.

Posted by Robert F. Salvin on July 13, 2007 at 05:57 PM CEST #

Although I could not use Linux on my laptop (it overtaxes and overheats my CPU), I continue to go with *all* open-source apps -- including OO. Two features in particular continue to delight me. Importing a Word document with a complex equation, worked and appeared just fine. And, exporting to PDF (which Word cannot do at all), also worked like a champ. :) Thanks to OO, I have not used an MS Office product in almost a year. If I may offer just a couple of quick points: . Calc needs to be considerably more robust. I'd like to be able to run proper data analysis, using much larger data sets. . The GUI seems to be borrowing all the worst, most pedestrian pages from the MS Office playbook. I realize that this is mainly to ease the transition from Office, but... you're OO! Innovate! :) Thanks for listening -- A²

Posted by Alan Augustson on July 14, 2007 at 06:53 PM CEST #

I'm working with Oo since quite some time now and it works quite well. Right now I'm writing my thesis about interface design and things like that and I read a post above, that the interface of Oo should stay as it is. "It is simple, intuitive, and it is what most people are used to." My opinion, its only "...what most people are used to..." New users are coming everyday, why not make digital products like Oo more understandable and faster to use for them? I read in quite a few blogs that the learning curve might be steep, but the efficiency is goin up likewise. Meaning, that the developers should consider a visual improvement as well(not top priority maybe ;) ). Looking at into New MS Office Suite I have to say the order in the menu and the labels make much more sense than the "old" - File Edit View - principle. Come on, we all have big screens, we dont need all the tiny Icons at once, selected and neccessary-bigger-understandable grouped icons make much more sense. So, no offense Oo-Developers you are doing a great job so far! :) Keep it up! M.

Posted by Matt on July 15, 2007 at 05:36 PM CEST #

I have just downloaded, OpenOffice PC version, for the first time and so far find it to be working well for me. Just one thing i would like to see would be thie ability to use it to find and replace tabs and returns. I do a lot of editing of text files from emails etc. and this would make editing a lot faster. There once was a WP program called WrietNow for the mac that had that ability however it is no longer avable. It used code in the find and replace fields that could be read e.g. ^T for tab and ^R for return. It may also intrest you that a company called e-PRESS selling OpenOffice or a clone of it as EasyOffice http://www.e-press.com/new/home.con.asp It is a very unstable package and it looks very much like it was cloned from your package. Thank you George

Posted by Georg Duckett on July 16, 2007 at 12:29 AM CEST #

I became interested in OOo when it became usable on Windows with the 2.x line, and the one thing I find of most interest over MS Office is the concept of the ODF standard, which is a prime reason for switching. Having worked in Publishing, I appreciate the ease of extracting images from the zipped container, as opposed to Word. I would appreciate some output features that could make professional printing easier, like the ability to do cropmarks and registration marks. I have had some issues and participated in the bugzilla, and some of my issues have been fixed by now, though others reported by many lie dormant for years, which is disheartening. I think a problem of performance has more to do with cross-platform issues than overall bloat, possibly because of the reliance on Java. I have no complaint about startup time on Windows, unlike what some Linux people report, but it is a bit slow compared to Word from anything like pulldown menu drawing time to moving the Styles and Formatting palette (which is painfully slow). There are many areas where OOo needs a lot of polish, which I hope is implied in the 3.0 version number (hopefully before, though), like a proper Dictionary installer as opposed to the current hack, and a proper Clip Art browser (and hopefully an officially-supported clipart library; OpenClipart is pretty poor). If some of these things are relegated to Extensions, I hope the essential ones are included by default. There are some Firefox extensions I wish were standard, not requiring a trip to an obscure Extensions page and pot-luck search. Having tested OOo's Word import and Sun's MS Office ODF plugin, I've come to realise there are sadly very good reasons for various governments and organisations to stick with Word formats considering the legacy issue, even switching to OOXML, until a proper fully-functioning and reliable ODF plugin exists. Doubly so considering some of the other issues with the other apps Calc, Impress and Base. Personally for my meagre use of Calc it is better than my Office 2002 Excel, but power users have definite issues. I hear ODF still has not included formulas in the standard, which could be an issue for adoption. Some have complained of the use of MathML rather than TeX, arguing that what is suitable for the internet is not necessarily so for print, and that TeX is far more comprehensive. The main reason appears to be that MathML is a proposed standard, and TeX is not. I have tried neither nor need to, however, so am hardly an authority.

Posted by Martin Andersen on July 16, 2007 at 06:01 PM CEST #

I have just barely had the chance to explore the OOo suite, and I love it. The price of this software was perfect. It will keep me away from MSO and their $150-$800 suites.

Posted by Dustin on July 17, 2007 at 11:37 PM CEST #

I think OOo-2 is a great tool but I agree with many of the opinions here. I think it would be great to make the code more hackable and more easily to extend. OOo on a modular basis would be great. I never use the presentation tool or draw for example. If one could select this stuff singularly from the webside it would be the way. Especially an Office suite you can plug together right to your needs it would be a great advantage and perhaps somebody would find a way to integrate for example thunderbird-adressbook or Sunbird-Calendar into OOo. I would be very happy if I could make my OOo a bit more slim.

Posted by Felix on July 21, 2007 at 08:46 AM CEST #