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OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER
Volume 05 - Issue 02 - 08/2007
Please send news clippings to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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For up-to-date news visit the OpenOffice.org Newsletter Blog:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com
To read all of this month's stories in full:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_ooonewsletter_archive.html
ATOM feed:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/atom.xml
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Contents
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1. Announcements
================
* Register now for the OpenOffice.org Annual Conference (OOoCon)
2. Success Stories
==================
* Portuguese Ministry of Education distributes open source CD
(OpenOffice.org included)
* Dell's Ubuntu systems will be shipped in Germany, France and the UK
* Lenovo bundling Linux (and thus OpenOffice.org)
* HP releases its first mass-market Linux PC (OpenOffice.org included)
* Google Pack Offers StarOffice Suite For Free
3. Featured News
================
* OpenOffice.org Projects by Members
* Some notes about "Notes"
* Office Open XML (OOXML) Filters
* Migrating OpenOffice.org for Mac to Cocoa
* Some more nice things about the new Chart for OOo 2.3
* OOo 2.3 Localisations
* Completing PDF support in OOo (Part II)
* Mac Address Book Integration : a Google Summer Of Code success!
4. Tips & Tricks
================
* Microsoft Project alternative going open source
* Chart Wiki-Pages
* Extensions Infrastructure – What's new in OpenOffice.org 2.3
* ODF Toolkit - .net Module AODL available for download
* A Favorites Menu in StarOffice / OpenOffice.org
* Language Selection Statusbar Control
* Mac OS X Spellchecker on OpenOffice.org
5. OpenDocument News Roundup
6. Clippings
All news for this month can be found at:
http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_ooonewsletter_archive.html
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Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our
To Do List!!
http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html?cid=921257
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To-Dos/index.html?cid=921257
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Announcements
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Register now for the OpenOffice.org Annual Conference (OOoCon)
==============================================================
"If you have not yet decided to attend, the conference programme and
abstracts of the conference sessions are available online to whet your
appetite:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme.html
...
Registration for OOoCon is optional, but it is enormously helpful for the
organisers in planning a smooth-running OOoCon. If you are undecided about
attending, please visit the OOoCon website; if you are attending and
haven't yet registered please do so today:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/attendees.html#register";
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=331
Success Stories
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Portuguese Ministry of Education distributes open source CD
(OpenOffice.org included)
===========================================================
As can be read in the Portuguese announcement below, the Portuguese
Ministry of Education is distributing an open source CD to K-12 students.
Equivalent commercial software would have cost the affected more than
1.6M K-12 students more than 300 million Euros. The CD which includes
OpenOffice.org will help to eliminate the digital devide and reduce
software pircacy.
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/portuguese_ministry_of_education_distributes?cid=921257
Dell's Ubuntu systems will be shipped in Germany, France and the UK
===================================================================
According to the German article below, Dell will ship their Ubuntu
systems in Germany, France and the UK as well. Great news for the
open source world and OpenOffice.org!
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/93955
Lenovo bundling Linux (and thus OpenOffice.org)
===============================================
According to the announcement below, Lenovo will now also ship Linux
on their notebooks. Since OpenOffice.org is included in the Linux distro,
OpenOffice.org will now be shipping (directly or indirectly via Linux)
on computers from Dell, Lenovo and Everex. Cool!
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070806005583&newsLang=en
HP releases its first mass-market Linux PC (OpenOffice.org included)
====================================================================
"This PC is a low-end business PC. It comes powered by any of a variety
of AMD processors. These range from the 1.60 GHz AMD Sempron 3000+
processor to the speedy 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5600+
processor. The dx2250 can hold up to 2GB of RAM. For storage, it maxes
out with a 250 GB hard drive. It comes with a variety of optical drive
options, ranging from ordinary CDs to a DVD+/-RW LightScribe, Double
Layer/Dual Format drive.
At this time, it is not clear exactly what options HP will be offering
with the RHEL-based system. Previously, HP had offered this desktop
computer with a choice of Vista Business, XP, and FreeDOS. In the
latter case, this was almost always replaced by users with a Linux
distribution.
RHEL 5 Desktop uses the Gnome 2.16 desktop. For applications, it comes
with OpenOffice 2.04, the Evolution 2.8 email and groupware client,
and Firefox 2.0x."
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2655594862.html
Google Pack Offers StarOffice Suite For Free
============================================
"Google Pack, Google’s software download package has been expanded to
now offer StarOffice, Sun’s competitor to Microsoft Office."
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/08/google-pack-off.html
Featured News
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OpenOffice.org Projects by Members
==================================
"As you all know, OOo's community is divided into several projects.
I did a little exercise and compiled a list with all projects by number
of members (ODF). I found 115 projects! Among them are 77 language
orientated projects with 1 to 1005 members. Can you guess the largest
language community for OOo?
And now the fun part: The data can also be visualized as a treemap. Click
the image for an interactive Java version at IBM's Many Eyes service."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/openoffice_org_projects_by_members?cid=921257
Some notes about "Notes"
========================
"One of Writer's weakest spots is the “ notes” feature (also called
“comments” in Word or “annotations” in ODF). The RFE for an improvement
of this feature has the highest number of votes in the “Word Processing”
component. I totally agree that the way Writer handles notes is painful:
they are hard to recognize, hard to view and they must be edited in a
modal dialog. Unfortunately changing this is quite some work to do and
I was desperately looking for some available resources as I hoped to
have the improved functionality ready for OOo3.0. So I was very happy
when a student, Maximilian Odendahl, contacted me and told me that he
wanted to do it as a “ Google Summer Of Code 2007” project. He even
still wanted to do it when I told him that it will take longer than
the GSOC project is expected to last. :-) And so we started."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/some_notes_about_notes?cid=921257
Office Open XML (OOXML) Filters
===============================
"First of all, why is Sun's OpenOffice.org team developing OOOXML
filters, respectively participating in their development? Well, it has
always been in our strong interest that OpenOffice.org users can
seamlessly interact with multiple file formats, including the binary
formats of MS Office. So it is only natural that we care about OOXML
now, too.
...
But let's go back to the OOXML filters. Does the development of OOXML
import filters mean that we have changed our mind regarding ODF? A clear,
a very, if not to say a crystal clear: No. We strongly believe, ODF is
the only file format that provides the level of interoperability and
choice of products that our customers want. ODF is the file format whose
development and standardization we are actively supporting at OASIS, and
it remains the native file format of OpenOffice.org. And with the Sun
ODF Converter software, we make ODF available even to Microsoft Office
users. So, nothing is changed here."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/office_open_xml_ooxml_filters?cid=921257
Migrating OpenOffice.org for Mac to Cocoa
=========================================
"Some things have changed since my last update. As you can see now in
the picture the repaint problem is solved as well as the missing shadows.
Native menus are working again, key input (even complex input, thanks to
ekato). Moreover the speed is acceptable and painting speed increased.
...
So the Mac port continues to thrive, but even with all we have already
there is much yet to do. Any developer willing and able to help
OpenOffice.org is welcome (please find build instructions here), Sun even
offers a job in this area for people willing to work in Hamburg. Testing
and finding bugs is always appreciated, please find a recent build here.
That build is still carbon based, if you want the bleeding edge you'll
best go with the aforementioned build instructions."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/migrating_openoffice_org_for_mac?cid=921257
Some more nice things about the new Chart for OOo 2.3
=====================================================
"As you might know by now, in OpenOffice.org 2.3 there will be a new
chart module. Although its main focus was the replacement of an
unmaintainable previous implementation, there are still a lot of new
features (Thanks a lot to Tony Galmiche, who added some nice pictures
to the otherwise less impressive looking list).
The first thing I want to show here is the "right-angled-axis" Feature.
This means you get a 90 degrees angle between the x-axis and the y-axis
in the 2d projection plane. Sounds complicated, but is quite easy to
understand, especially with a picture."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/some_more_nice_things_about?cid=921257
OOo 2.3 Localisations
=====================
"We received OOo 2.3 localization updates for the following languages:
Afrikaans ( af ), Belarusian ( be-BY ), Bulgarian ( bg ), Breton ( br ),
Czech ( cs ), Danish ( da ), German ( de ) Esperanto ( eo ),
Spanish ( es ) , Estonian ( et ), Persian ( fa ), French ( fr ),
Galician ( gl ), Gujarati( gu ), Hebrew ( he ), Hungarian ( hu ),
Italian ( it ), Japanese ( ja ) , Georgian ( ka ), Khmer ( km ),
Korean ( ko ), Kurdish ( ku ), Lithuanian ( lt ), Macedonian ( mk ),
Norwegian Bokmal ( nb ), Dutch ( nl ),Norwegian Nynorsk ( nn ),
Portuguese ( pt ), Brasilian Portuguese ( pt-BR ), Polish ( pl ),
Kinyarwanda ( rw ), Slovenian ( sl ), Tajik ( tg ), Croatian ( hr ),
Gujarati ( gu ), Tamil ( ta ) , Uzbek ( uz ), Swedish ( sv ),
Russian ( ru ), Turkish ( tr ), Thai ( th ), Punjabi ( pa-IN ),
Vietnamese ( vi ), Chinese Traditional ( zh-TW ) , Chinese Simpl. ( zh-CN ) "
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/ooo_2_3_localisations?cid=921257
Completing PDF support in OOo (Part II)
=======================================
"Ok, now that we let the cat out of the bag, my inbox is filled with some
mails asking for more information on the PDF import filter we're going to
implement. So, I'd like to give you some details that are yet known, but
still discussable if somebody comes up with a better idea:
* As already mentioned in my comment regarding the initial blog entry,
it won't be an option for us to import the PDF content into a Writer
document containing floating text and as such a floating layout. So,
we decided to write a filter that imports the PDF content as OOo
Draw/Impress document. With this solution, we'll have the full benefit
of a page orientated, fixed layout. All graphical elements will be at
fixed positions given in the PDF file and text portions will be combined
as most as possible to be anchored in text shapes, ensuring that text
portions preserve their exactly given position, but are still editable
by the user."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/completing_pdf_support_in_ooo1?cid=921257
Mac Address Book Integration : a Google Summer Of Code success!
===============================================================
"The Google Summer of Code 2007 gave the possibility to integrate a new
very good developer : Omer Bar-or. His work for the "Mac OSX Address
Book integration" is complete and successful! Thank you very much Omer!
The code produced is currently under QA and will be integrated as soon
as possible."
http://splisson.blogspot.com/2007/08/mac-address-book-integration-google.html
Tips & Tricks
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Microsoft Project alternative going open source
===============================================
As can be read here, OpenProj, an alternative to Microsoft Project is
going open source. Here is a quote from the announcement:
"Projity Inc. is releasing a free desktop version of its 18-month-old
Project-On-Demand service. Called OpenProj, the still-in-beta software
will be bundled with several leading flavors of the Linux operating
system, according to an interview last week with Projity CEO Marc O'Brien."
Considering that quite a few of the millions of users adopting
OpenOffice.org will look for alternatives to Microsoft Project,
these are great news!
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/microsoft_project_alternative_going_open?cid=921257
Chart Wiki-Pages
================
"In the OpenOffice.org Wiki there is a page about the Chart. It became
more and more a mixture of miscellany. So, I decided to clean up this
mess a bit. The page now contains four major sections:
* Helping with the Chart. For developers there are some links that may
be helpful for starting coding. For people who like doing QA, there
are some predefined IssueZilla queries.
* Features. Grouped by different releases and features that are not
yet decided upon. This was mostly done be Tony Galmiche."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/chart_wiki_pages?cid=921257
Extensions Infrastructure – What's new in OpenOffice.org 2.3
============================================================
"On our long road to improve the Extension Infrastructure of
OpenOffice.org (here is the full story), we managed to implement another
bunch of cool features and enhancements for OpenOffice.org 2.3, namely:
Preferences Dialogs for Extensions
An extension can now define its own set of preferences dialogs. These
dialogs will be seamlessly integrated into the common Preferences
Dialog of OpenOffice.org (the dialog behind the Tools/Options... menu
item). The extension's preferences dialogs can be inserted somewhere
in the hierarchy (of existing) preferences pages.
...
Official OpenOffice.org Extension Repository
Currently we're in the final phase of the implementation of the official
OpenOffice.org Extension Repository Web Site
(http://extensions.services.openoffice.org). Every extension developer
can create entries for her extensions there, gaining a maximum of
awareness for these extensions by distributing it via The official
OpenOffice.org Extension Repository. Although we're not yet completely
done, it's already definitely worth to take a look..."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/extensions_infrastructure_what_s_new1?cid=921257
ODF Toolkit - .net Module AODL available for download
=====================================================
"I'm pleased to announce that a new version 1.3.0.0 beta of AODL (the
.net Module of the ODF Toolkit) is available for download. A large part
of the new features are based on the work of Oleg Yegorov's Google Summer
of Code 2007 project. By the way the GSOC is still running, but Oleg has
already finished all of his tasks. Thanks a lot for his excellent and
fast work!
What are the new features? The new features are the implementation
respectively the support for ODF forms and fields. Within this new
implementations it's possible for .net based applications to use AODL
for filling out all kinds of formulars which are inside of OpenDocument
files or create new ones from scratch. I'm sure that many developer will
see the advantages of this new features and know where it could be used
within their projects or applications."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/odf_toolkit_net_module_aodl?cid=921257
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."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/a_favorites_menu_in_staroffice?cid=921257
Language Selection Statusbar Control
====================================
"For OpenOffice.org 2.4 this project wants to improve the handling of
languages in Writer documents. Currently OpenOffice.org doesn't provide
an easy way to change the language of a word, paragraph or text selection.
The user has to use the menu and a multi-tab dialog to choose the
appropriate language. A new status bar control should provide this
function and enhance usability for people who have to work with multiple
language documents. To get feedback as soon as possible from the
community we decided to provide a test version of the new feature.
Please keep in mind that this version is not yet feature complete but
supports the most important part (the status bar control), and it is
currently implemented for text documents only. Especially have a look
at the implementation when using multiple script types. You should also
be aware that the OpenOffice.org version is a snapshot from a developers
build. Therefore don't use this version for your daily work but only as
a test version for the status bar control."
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/language_selection_statusbar_control?cid=921257
Mac OS X Spellchecker on OpenOffice.org
=======================================
"For the past two months I have been working on integrating the Mac OS X
SpellChecker into the ‘aqua’ version of OpenOffice.org. Today I finished
the rough cut and I am doing a first checkin of the code.
I have built three languages on Intel - en-US, de, and fr and all seem
to be working. The code is checked into a child workspace called
macosxspellchecker.
Anyone who wants to test it out email me (msicotte at openoffice dot org)
for a url to download a dmg (sorry I have limited bandwidth - I can put
the en-US on high speed temporarily, but the others are low speed)."
http://www.mikesicotte.com/bblog/2007/08/27/mac-os-x-spellchecker-on-ooo/
OpenDocument News Roundup
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Correcting false statements by Microsoft
========================================
"Microsoft says: "No opportunity existed for Microsoft to actually
participate in this full process - given the original scope, the 6 months
between the re-naming of the spec to ODF, and its subsequent approval by
OASIS as a standard."
I'm not aware of any attempt by Microsoft to formally submit proposals
as part of the ODF specification process at OASIS. AFAIK, Microsoft
decided to just be an observer at OASIS all the time. Anyway, if
Microsoft ever made a formal proposal, it should be visible in the
publicly accessible OASIS email archives. However, if I did not
overlook a posting from Microsoft, Microsoft never actively participated
in the OASIS ODF TC and Microsoft never formally submitted a proposal.
However, every OASIS member including Microsoft was invited to join the
OASIS ODF TC. Microsoft was in fact a board member when the official
Call for Participation for the OASIS ODF TC was sent out to various
OASIS mailing lists including the members list
([EMAIL PROTECTED])., and thus Microsoft could not possibly
have been unaware of the formation of the group and was definitely
aware it had the inalienable right to join at any time. Thus, Microsoft
had the opportunity to fully participate in the OASIS ODF TC right from
day one."
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/correcting_false_statements_by_microsoft?cid=921257
Malaysia embraces ODF
=====================
"The Malaysian Administration Modernization and Management Planning Unit
(MAMPU) last week issued a tender for a nine-month study to evaluate the
usage of open standards in its information communications technology (ICT)
deployment. The study will also look into how the Malaysian public sector
should migrate to open standards and the ODF, according to the Malaysia
Open Source Software Alliance (MOSSA).
...
In July this year, Japan became the first country in the Asia-Pacific
region to embrace open software standards. Last August, the United
Nations urged countries in the region to adopt the ODF."
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62030781,00.htm
eWEEK reviews Sun ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office
==================================================
eWEEK has just reviewed the Sun ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office.
Apparently they really liked the plug-in. Their summary says: "Sun's ODF
plug-in can play an important role in broadening interoperability
between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office."
http://blogs.sun.com/chhandomay/entry/very_positive_eweek_review_of?cid=921257
Clippings
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* IBM ships Lotus Notes and Domino 8
http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/news/2196881/ibm-ships-lotus-notes-domino
* Positive Sun Weblog Publisher Review
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/6077
* Singapore Airlines will put StarOffice in front of every passenger
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/singapore_airlines_will_put_staroffice?cid=921257
* OOXML is defective by design
http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/
* Open XML proposal gets thumbs-down
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/08A7B165747139B1CC25734700070796
* Open XML stumbles in India
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/11A4D125F6F358F9CC257344000FF55C
* Brazil to vote against Open XML
http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/news/5BD3B10766DBC144CC25734400839CEC
* Evidence of Microsoft Influencing OOXML Votes in Nordic States
http://www.betanews.com/article/Evidence_of_Microsoft_Influencing_OOXML_Votes_in_Nordic_States/1188335569
* e to the power of hype
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/08/e-to-power-of-hype.html#links
* Is it safe?
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/08/is-it-safe.html
* Germany / DIN votes "yes with comments"
http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/germany_din_votes_yes_with?cid=921257
Newsletter Archive
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Past issues of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter can be found in the archive
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http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce
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