OK, I cannot really vouch for the whole suite. I only have so far, played
with Writer, but I wanted to give my first initial thoughts.
1. I must say, when the application comes up, I was shocked at how long it
took to load. I think it took maybe half a minute to a minute. I dono if
that's cause I'm only running 800mhz or what. So, I really can't make a
fair complaint there, as I dono if OO is to blame for that. My guess is,
probably that they're not.
2. Upon the first look of the Writer screen, just voing around, I was very!
very very impressed. Not quite, but almost everything read. There were a
few things here and there that I wasn't really totally sure about. I didn't
vo H on them though, as it's not that they are not labeled, it's just I
don't really know what they are used for, or do. So, I'll rtfm on those.
Really, they're probably things I'll never use though anyway.
3. I noticed that some of the menu buttons in the two toolbars at the top,
didn't seem to drop down when I hit vo space on them. Neither did they seem
to do anything when I rooted my mouse and then did vo shift space to click.
I've not tried vo shift m yet as that just occured to me right before typing
this mail. So, that actually might work.
4. The edit areas on the main writer screen are disgusting in my opinion.
I can't for the life of me figure out what they are. There's about 4 or 5
of them that I am seeing.
I also am noticing, that if I have a file that has multiple lines of text,
which 99.99 percent of files do, I'm finding it's for some really peculiar
reason, putting each line as a seperet item. meaning, I can actually vo
left and right, and hear each line seperetly by item. Now that! is
annoying! Command up arrow does not seem either to be taking me to the
toppa the file.
5. I don't like the fact that I am a low vision user, and there is no zoom
option in the window menu. This means the only way to maximise the
application where it takes the whole screen is to either resize the window,
or, spend a few minutes looking through the menus only then, to find that
command F will give you full screen. I just don't like the fact that that
option wasn't more obvious.
6. I went into the preferences. I was quite disappointed that there is
only one tab, and that one tab hardly is worth anything. All it has is
like, your name, your e-mail address, your phone number, etc. There is
really no customization.
7. The fact that I could not apply certain formatting very obviously and
easily really ticks me off. I'm sure it can be done, but, I've not found
any way. For instance, like I said before, creating tables and then
entering data into them, seems a royal pain in the behaunkus. Furthermore,
I want the ability to change accessibily the color of the font text, as well
as change the document's background color.
I've not found either how to do that.
8. Conclusion: I think at least that Writer, is o, Kayyy. I think it
still however needs a ton of work. It's a real good first try/start, but,
there are just enough annoyances to really drive me insane. Does this mean
I am giving up? Absolutely not! If someone can work with me, and show me
how to do, and how to get around these things that are confusing me, I'd be
more than happy to give them a chance to do so. Do I think this is a bad
product? Again: Absolutely? not! I think it actually, is extremely
promising. I think it has fantastic potential, but there are just so many
kinks right now, that I really don't think I'd use it as my primary editer.
I'm not very good at editing things on a Mac, anyway, in general, but, I'd
like to get better at it, that's for sure.
Chris.
