Thursday August 23, 2007

Some facts about the development of ODF

I just stumbled over a quite new blog entry from my colleague Erwin - a really good one, I think!

It clarifies some things about the development process of ODF.

Read it, and I am sure after that you will also ask yourself why Microsoft started it's own XML document format, instead of simply participating in the development of ODF...

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Aug 23 2007, 11:49:40 AM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Monday August 20, 2007

Accessibility on Linux via Orca - OpenOffice.org and other...

Darragh Ó Héiligh, a blind Linux user in Ireland, has just posted an audio introduction of Fedora Linux with Orca.

My colleague Peter Korn has a nice summary of this in his blog.

I especially like the final comment. After noting the responsiveness of Orca with TTSynth and OpenOffice.org: "It's just getting the job done faster than it is in Windows."

I like it for many reasons

• Orca is e great screen reader - and it is open source!
  
• It shows that it was worth spending some extra time in the  native UAA/ATK bridge, which we have introduced with OpenOffice.org 2.0.1.
• It shows that a good accessibility architecture, like available with GNOME, pays off

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Aug 20 2007, 12:01:26 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Thursday August 16, 2007

A Favorites Menu in StarOffice / OpenOffice.org

I wonder if I am the only person missing such a feature.

There are a few documents which I need quite regularly. Unfortunately they are sometimes not in the recent file list when I need them, and it's also nice to have some special bookmarks for them.

So why wait for it?! It's easy to extend or customize OpenOffice.org via macros and extensions, so I created a simple macro to get my favorites menu.

If you are interested, you can find the macro in the OpenOffice.org Wiki. Simply copy&paste the macro text into the standard library from OpenOffice.org or StarOffice ( Tools / Macros / Organize Macros / StarOffice Basic => My Macros )

To have the menu automatically all the time, simply go to "Tools / Customize... / Events", and add "InsertFavoritesMenu" to "Start Application". On the bottom of the dialog, make sure to save the information with the application, not with the current document.

This is not the optimal implementation, but it works for me and didn't take much time.

Things to improve:

• Don't code the documents into the macro, but provide some XML configuration
• Make it an installable extension, instead of a plain macro
• Optional: Make the Favorites menu as sub menu of the File menu
  
• Optional: Add UI for configuring menu entries
  

Any volunteers? ;)

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Aug 16 2007, 02:52:39 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [11]

Tuesday August 14, 2007

StarOffice 8 included in Google Pack now!

Since last weekend, StarOffice 8 is part of the Google Pack!

This means that you get all the licensed 3rd party stuff that is part of StarOffice, but not of OpenOffice.org. These things include high quality fonts, commercial spell checker and thesaurus as well as additional templates. And it comes with our brand new Google Search Bar!

Really a big value add for the Google Pack, IMHO...

Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Aug 14 2007, 05:05:15 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [3]