-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi guys, I read with interest your discussion on more features/applications for OOo.
My feeling is it is all so entrenched in existing application types. Outlook stinks because it is awfully slow and only proprietary MS exchange makes it what it is. Thunderbird is decent but its Address Book is primitive. I haven't seen any address book that does what people need in an Internet connected world. First separate person from company and from addresses and eliminate all this double data entry. Then natively support some synchronization with PDA and services like Plaxo. That could become a worthy Address book for the 21st century. By the way the Massachusetts ODF argument applies to address books as well. E-Mail programs are in need of a revolution as well. At first make signature an (almost) mandatory feature, so recipients can safely filter on them to avoid spam or prioritize. Then integrate them with tasks and project management. ... I will spare you the details her to come to the more OOo relevant parts. For word-processing and DTP I think OOo has an opportunity to do the right thing, which is become a universal XML editing processor. Imagine what you could do if Base (in part) would be a native XML database and the core of all document load and saving (may be building indexes on the fly)? Now go and apply styles that not only enforce (warn for violations) of data rules (manifested in XML Schemas, etc.) Imagine you have a book-template that knows that a title, toc, sections, headlines, paragraphs, etc. are mandatory and that page styles need to be odd/even, etc. Imagine a business letter-template knows the corporate head, that a "regarding" line and date field is mandatory and that an image for the signature can be substituted and it has fields to insert an address and store it for later potential use in the improved address book (like Thunderbird does with e-mail addresses). May be it also knows how to bundle a few attachment documents in a mime-like fashion. Then think a flier-template that knows its basic the two column layout, headline, the header and footer and their space defined by margins. It will warn you if you enter too much text and show you the overflow. May be it allows you to adjust font sizes within reason (set by the designer) and has rules where you can place how many images, etc. It also should restrict you to the corporate fonts or at least warn you if you violate such rules. It could even suggest that sentences or paragraphs are too long or that it is a good idea to have at least one bulleted list. I understand it is hard to successfully invent things (may be I'm too much a developer) and also risky (http://conficio.blogspot.com/2006/07/striving-for-total-innovation-is-bad.html - - shameless plug for my blog) but for marketing purposes thinking outside of the box is better than continuing debates over word processing vs. DTP (and ending up agreeing, that they both have their place ;-) I think our marketing focus should be on controlled trials of new ideas and backing them up with research in what the users need. I believe that future content building will not be isolated in the document metaphor but rather come from different sources and will mix data with text (comment and interpretation). If all this is encoded in XML a universal integrator UI is needed that lets users combine, and reference and output in multiple ways (XML-FO?). Just my five cents to advance the debate. K<o> - -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://conficio.blogspot.com/ ================================================ | We teach software one screencast at a time | ================================================ http://www.conficio.com/ Tel: +1 (781) 632 5773 - Fax: +1 (781) 207 9159 Conficio P.O.Box 761062, Melrose, MA 02176 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFEwOZARDUvrJRNjTARAjmMAJ9/CS/zbfQYrtOBvkgOPZ5b0nNBVwCfbxIy iPkv7fNQX/7Xkh06WsW5SrM= =hTim -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
