Hi Henk-Jan,
Henk-Jan van der Molen wrote:
As a Linux user, I have been working with Open Office for some time now.
Lately, I have been thinking about a new function in Open Office to
persuade as much MS Office users as possible to migrate to OO.
I have described this function below; I am curious what the OO project members
think about it. If you have any questions or remarks, feel free to respond.
You talk about 'the submerge screen'. I think most English call it
Reveal Codes.
Thanks for posting and the nice way in which you describe your idea.
Generally, discussions about functions are held at [email protected]
Recently there was a very long thread about RC (reveal codes) at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
See:
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=users&by=thread&from=1320355
I've two remarks at your idea:
- in the way OOo works with the style-concept and includes the
appropriate, strong tools, RC is not at all necessary. (IMHO - my
company trains people in OOo/SO; English if you wish, however mostly in
Dutch ;-)
- the idea that it might be an strong selling point in marketing, is
interesting indeed. And this should maybe be considered beside the
question wheater or not it is a function needed.
What do you/others think? Continue at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ?
Greetings,
Cor
--
Cor Nouws
www.nouenoff.nl - www.bsooo.nl - http://nl.openoffice.org
Open. For business.
Keep up the good work!
Best regards,
Henk-Jan van der Molen
==============================
In the old DOS days, many users were fond of the submerge screen Wordperfect
provided, because it gave the user an insight and control over the layout of
the document that was without parallel.
With Windows and KDE/Gnome every wordprocessor is wysiwyg, but some users
still long for the control the submerge screen offers. Those who have
experienced unpredicable changes in the style of a document when deleting a
last empty paragraph in MS Word, know what I mean.
Wordperfect still has the submerge screen, but the problem now is that the
world has selected MS Office as a standard. Most users are unwilling to pay
for an alternative, however user friendly it is. Its even hard to persuade
people to start using a good freeware wordprocessor like Open Office, because
some users don't trust that Open Office can handle ALL their MS Office
documents. Its all about trust.
To my opinion, that situation could change if a next version of Open Office
would provide a submerge screen. As I see it, there are 2 benefits:
1. I believe that this could persuade many users to try Open Office, because
they feel more in control using it. They will trust OO more to process their
precious MS Office documents, because all changes can be undone easily.
2. Also I think that good publicity can be made when the next version of Open
Office would have a submerge screen. Many Wordperfect users would instantly
know the benefits of this function. They would want to see for themselves if
the user experience is similar to Wordperfect. I think that even the
announcement that OO 3 would have a submerge screen, will cause a thrill. It
is a strategic choice to reveil news like this up front, of course. But other
software companies display similar behaviour.
I know that developing this function will take a lot of effort, but it would
be worth it. Wordprocessor software is very important, because lost of people
use this software knowingly every working day. This group includes managers
who can make the choice for migrating their company to OO.
I think that if the amount of OO users could double, then this can tip the
scale. More people will see the benefits of using open source Office
software, e.g. for archiving documents. In short, I believe that adding the
submerge screen function to the next version of OO, will speed up this
process.
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