on 09/20/05 10:04 'Randomthots' wrote:
Chad Smith wrote:
My answer is - who cares? Why does it matter if it is a Blog or an
online
newspaper? Why does it matter if an office suite is defined a certain
way or
not? What we need to decide is, not what some mythological architypical
"OFFICE SUITE" should or should not contain - but what should
OpenOffice.orgcontain.
Exactly. It seems to me that these decisions should be based on more
pragmatic arguments. Particularly, What have users of office suites
come to expect? and What is do-able given the existing infrastructure
and resources?
I think *both* viewpoints ought to be considered if we are to continue
to please existing OOo users and attract new users.
The fact (opposed to the philosophy) is that OOo already *does*
include an
HTML editor - one that sucks. It needs to be fixed. Whether that fixing
comes by rewriting the exisiting code, tweaking the existing code, or
removing the exisitng code and adding a pre-existing outside source
of code,
like Nvu or something, is up for debate. But the question of whether
or not
an HTML editor should be included is moot. It should because it is.
And because it's expected by the end users in a corporate environment.
There is real productivity value in having these different components
that have the same look-and-feel, the same nomenclature, similar menu
layouts, etc. UI consistency makes learning to use the different
components much easier.
I'm not certain an HTML editor is *expected* by office suite users in a
corporate environment. It might be used by a limited few, but I don't
know if I would attribute "expected" to the functionality.
I'm not saying philosophical stuff is bad - it's just getting really
old. I
honestly think this exact email, almost word for word (Rod's not
mine) was
posted like a year ago, and like six months ago, and like a year and
a half
ago. This endless defining of an ideal OFFICE SUITE is redundant and
boring
and doesn't change anything about the very real code of OpenOffice.org.
-Chad Smith
3. Quit changing file associations for users with MSO installed!
Whether or not it SHOULD be confusing is a moot point; the fact is
that it IS confusing for a fair number of new users, and even worse,
it's ALARMING to them and makes a poor first impression. Windows users
are accustomed to having to worry about viruses, worms, trojans,
spyware, adware, and all other sorts of nasties. Any program that does
something totally unexpected to them is immediately VERY suspicious
(and destined for the Recycle bin).
I need to strongly disagree here. I think giving the users the option
(which is what OOo does - not perfectly, but it does it) is the right
approach. That some users *REFUSE* to read the instructions is not
something we can solve. In my opinion a lot of the users who post in a
panic that "OOo has broken MS Office" (usually in ALL CAPS and with way
too many exclamation marks) need to switch to decaf. I think the point
is that users need to read the instructions - I don't care if it is a
VCR, fire extinguisher or software. On the other hand, we could do a
better job in [users] with a standard (and gentle) template with the
instructions for how to reassign the icons. There's a bit too much undue
frustration that surfaces too often on that topic.
4. A full-frontal assault on the bibliography project. The current
system is good for exactly one citation/bibliography style and totally
worthless otherwise.
Just my $0.02 worth (BTW, when did the "cent" symbol disappear from
keyboards? Where did it used to be?)
I think it was somewhere on the right-hand side of the keyboard, perhaps
as a shifted "\" symbol - I don't remember exactly and my manual
typewriter is too far back in that dark, scary closet right now. ;)
SJK
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