Greetings,
Well from what I've read on the website, the first thing I should do
when I join this mailing list is bother everyone with an email stating
Who I am, some background and what I expect from OpenOffice.org
Who I am
------------
My name is Eugen Minciu, I'm a student at the "Mihai Viteazul"
National College in Slobozia, Romania (and despite the name it's a
high school). I'm 19 years old, I've been using Linux distros left and
right for the last 4 years and Linux is how I came accross OpenOffice
(although I found the windows version a bit later).
I have been using OOo for about 3 years now without that much
frequency really (I don't really do a lot of office work, but I do
some text processing and write a few formulas every once in a while)
so I've formed a pretty good opinion about it.
BOOOORING. OK, let's get to that part that may be of any interest to
anyone. The ideas.
Watching OpenOffice evolve from around 1.0 to 1.1.2 (I tried
downloading 1.9.680 a few weeks ago but it didn't work and I didn't
try to make it work that much since I had other things to do. I'm
currently getting it again) I have formed a pretty good idea of what I
expect from OpenOffice.org 2.0. I'm not trying to complain or bitch,
these are my ideas and you might not agree but they are my ideas all
the same. Maybe someone will agree with me.
1) FAST
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OpenOffice.org 1.x is terribly slow. I don't know what the problem is
since I'm no developer or anything. I've heard good things about OOo
2.0 regarding this though and I'm going to take a look see in a few
hours (slow connection).
Now let me detail this a little. If I was going to develop cross
platform applications in multiple programming languages which all
require their own VM and keep a few browser windows open as well, or
if I was going to decide to do some hot-shot 3D CAD program I'd come
to expect my 700Mhz Celeron with 256MB RAM too much.
Unfortunately I've found it too slow even when all I'm running are 2
open documents, a browser and XMMS (audio player). Now don't get me
wrong but I always expect more from open source then I do from
proprietary systems. Which is why I expect OOo 2.0 will NOT force me
into an upgrade but actually run faster then its older brother.
2) SIMPLE
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Don't get me the wrong way or anything. Contrary to popular belief I
actually don't consider myself an idiot. I may not be the brightest
fellow on a radius of 100 miles but I don't think I'm dumb as a rock
either. The truth is 75% of OOo's users only use about 10% of what the
menus offer.
The other truth is that they waste time looking for a (common) option
through a menu packed full of things they don't need and many are
confused. Now myself, I generally learn the keyboard shortcut
associated with the action. But let's be honest. Many people don't.
Even people working in an office (whose actually loses money because
of their ignorance) choose to not learn them and navigate through
menus (as learning about 10-15 keyboard shortcuts besides the ones you
already know is kinda hard at 45 years I guess)
Another thing. Many of OOo's users(I dare say most though I may be
mistaken) are converted MS Office or KOffice users. Now a whole new
bunch of very complicated menus is going to mean their learning curve
will be a bit more steep. If you're home user this is no problem, you
do this in your spare time and that's it. But as a company, if you
come to find migration is too costly in respect to time and that
you're actually losing money instead of winning you won't migrate.
OK. Now here are a few ideas. (It's kinda late but there's always OOo 3.0 :) )
Let's look at the open-source world out there and see who the real
successful folks are. Firefox is by far, the best example of
successful OSS out there. And just as OOo they've been getting users
through migration rather then new users. Of course they would have
never made it if their app wasn't stable and secure (which are 2 of
OOo's pluses as well) but there was another thing that really got them
millions of users worldwide in an amount of months.
They kept it simple. The more you confuse users that are new to your
products the more of them you'll lose. I mean Mozilla was around for a
few years now offering the same features yet it's success never boomed
as did Firefox's.
They solved the problem of adding extra features through addons. Users
that want more can simply add features with extra addons. Now 95% of
Firefox's users don't even know what an addon is. But those that do,
and those that need them have full freedom to do what they desire with
their product. I, for example, have 11 of them (exactly what I need,
nothing more).
This is of course, a lot harder to do with an office app. But, from
what I understand, OOo 2.0 supports plugins and this is the first step
(IMHO) to getting it right. Now the trick is to move as much as you
can from the interface to plugin land. And to have the user set up his
preferred plugins with a simple dialog (like in Firefox). There should
also be some form of network management for plugins (from what I
understand OOo 2.0 does this with its own installation already.).
Here's my example for the OpenOffice.org text processor. I take 1.1.2
as an example (it's what I have installed). Here's what I see in the
menus and afterwards is what I need
OOo 1.1.2 File menu:
---------------------------
New/Open/AutoPilot // Close/Save/Save As/Save All/Reload //
Versions // Export/Export as PDF/Send // Properties/Templates //
Page Preview/Print/Printer Settings // Exit
My file menu:
-----------------
New/Open//Save/Save As/Save All // Page Preview/Print/Printer Settings // Exit
everything else can be implemented as plugins, I don't need them and
exporting should be in the same menu with saving anyway.
OOo 1.1.2 Edit menu:
----------------------------
Undo/Restore/Repeat // Cut/Copy/Paste/Paste Special/Select
Text/Select All // Changes/Compare Document/Find and
replace/Navigator/AutoText // Exchange
Database/Fields/Footnote/Index Entry/Bibliographic Entry/Hyperlink //
Links/Plugin/ImageMap/Object
My edit menu:
-------------------
Undo/Restore // Cut/Copy/Paste/Select All/Find and Replace
OOo 1.1.2 View menu:
----------------------------
Zoom // Data Sources // Toolbars/Ruler/Status Bar/Input Method
Status // Text boundaries/Field Shadings/Fields/Nonprinting
characters/Hidden Paragraphs // Online Layout/Full Screen
My view menu:
Zoom // Toolbars / Visible Elements // Full Screen
Where Visible Elements should hold, Ruler/Status Bar/Fields/Hidden paragraphs
Everything else should be a plugin.
Now of course I could extend this to all other menu items (and in the
unlikely event anyone wants me to I will :) ) but you get the point.
There are two other things that should be taken into account
1) Not every toolbar item should have a correspondent menu item. It
really does only confuse people. (For example I saw a beautiful
solution for alignment with the cursor that can change alignment when
clicked in a certain area of the screen. Wouldn't you find it equally
nice if that option wouldn't clutter the menu (and maybe not even the
toolbar).
2)You really must separate options that belong in two different
applications.(why should I view with an Online layout when there's a
OOo Writer/Web application in my menu.
There's one thing you have to do though, if you ever choose to take
this approach. Firefox is a browser, so installing the plugins from
the web is a sensible idea. On the other hand you should probably
include all plugins in a special package and have the user install a
plugin from that package as he needs it.
And if you're really concerned by the fact that offices will not
migrate to OOo because they will have to configure it to obtain MS
Office equiv. of functionality then release two versions: OOo and OOo
Enterprise edition. The Enterprise edition is just the same as the
standard one with many plugins activated by default so separate
development branches should never be necessary.
3) INNOVATIVE
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Don't laugh: Introduce ROP (Rapid Office Productivity)
OK. Here's really where my 2 cents come in :). Rapid Application
Development has been sugar and spice to the application development
community for years now. Office productivity should really expect the
same.
a) Introduce Business Related Templates
What does this mean. It means (with a huge development effort, I
agree) make large amounts of templates and group them by who will
actually use them. I think an office that commercialises toilets will
not really need the same templates as one that commercialises PCs.
However, both these companies would appreciate relevant templates and,
right now, other then a few trivial ones, if they want them they're
forced to do their own.
b) Introduce an Office Collaboration Application
Now I don't know anything about working in an office except what I've
seen these people do and complain about. Here's a common scenario:
- the boss, Mr John Boss goes to work at 8:15
- he wants Jim Employee to write a memo for the staff at accounting
telling them to write status reports until Monday.
- Jim Employee is a lazy bastard and isn't there yet. So the boss will
have to talk to him later (or send him a memo which is bound to take a
lot longer then talking to him, plus kill a few innocent looking trees
in the process)
- Jim Employee gets to work at 8:45, his secretary tells him Mr. Boss
has been looking for him.
- Jim goes to talk with the boss but he's an a meeting so he'll have
to wait for two hours.
- Jim goes and does something else
- Two hours later the boss
Of course, people will argue that any one of the two could have called
the other and yadda yadda. But if this wasn't an important issue that
wouldn't happen now would it. In fact, I think this scenario isn't
only plausible, it's common.
It would be a lot simpler if the boss could have opened a
collaboration application, and send Jim a note with what to do. Later
on when he actually got to work he'd just read it. Then he'd just send
the memo to the others as a memo and they'd read it with their OOo
Collaboration app. They could, in turn, send the reports to the
required location, and get it done pretty quickly since all they'd
have to do is open a template and fill in a few blanks.
Of course the example may be silly for 1.000.000 reasons I didn't
think of (and didn't want to waste my time thinking of) but it shows
one thing. If one could eliminate a lot of the hassle of walking
around the office with a simple (and extensible) application that
would get the job done faster everyone would benefit. Less calories
would be burnt, trees would be spared and bosses wouldn't scream at
their employees asking them why they're not at work on time.
The trick is not just to emulate what MS is doing but to actually go
ahead of their game and see what offices really need, what common
folks really need and go out there and fullfil those needs. That's
what will get you laid, paid and used by millions worldwide :)
OK now that's a hell of a lot of talking.To sum it up:
1) Fast - less wasted time means more earned money and less stress
2) Simple - if your application is confusing it won't get used by
mainstream people
- if it is used it wastes people's time
3) Innovative - don't play the game, make the game, every player will
tell you that
Now I'm not trying to bash OOo (hell, I use it). I suggest these
because I firmly believe you can turn a good application into a
memorable application that really changes the way people think about
computers.
Sorry for my English, it's not my native language, I hope it was good
enough for you to get the message anyway.
Thanks for the (large amount of) time dedicated to reading this.
---
Eugen Minciu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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