Chad,
Thanks for replying. It has been a while since I've installed anything
other than OO and even longer since I could be considered a "beginner".
Thus, I haven't really paid much attention to the initial layout of
buttons/menus. I will say that I always thought the defaults were
pretty much similar to any other word processing program, but I was
never paying close attention.
I would tend to agree that the navigator (which I still don't use
myself) and stylist can be daunting for beginners. Using the stylist
came naturally for me as I transitioned from MS Office as I used styles
in that as well. Unfortunately, I think the overwhelming majority of
Word users do not.
As for the options/preferences, can't argue with you there. The only
thing with regard to that though is I don't think beginners ever hit
options/preferences no matter what program they are using.
It will be interesting to hear from Hans regarding feedback he gets from
students.
Jeff
Chad Smith wrote:
On 12/14/05, Jeff Causey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Chad and and Hans,
Hello Jeff,
Are you saying that Writer has a lot of features that beginners might
get confused with or OO as a suite? Could you expand upon that and
provide some info on what features you think would be confusing to a
beginner?
Let me start by saying, I'm at work, and I don't have OOo 2.0 at work (since
I'm on a Mac, and I don't want to put a program that is in testing on my
boss's machine - so I have NeoOffice 1.1, which is based on 1.1.4) - so some
things have changed in 2.0 which may have improved the look and feel of OOo.
For one thing, just looking at Open Office when you first open it - there
are about 57 buttons and drop-down menus visible on the screen.
On AbiWord, there are only 44 buttons and menus. And when you open those
menus, the options are a lot shorter on AbiWord than Open Office.
The Navigator and Stylist are 2 features that come to mind, as well as the
old URL bar (which has been removed from 2.0, thankfully). Other terms like
"Exchange Database" "XML Filter Settings" and "Hangul/Hanja Conversion" can
be downright scary.
Go to Tools > Options and then click each of the little + signs next to the
words on the left. When I did it, I had to scroll down for nearly three
full "pages" of options. And the fact that there is a choice called
"Options" and another called "Configure" - that's confusing as well.
I'm not at all trying to tear down Open Office. I'm just pointing out a few
of the things, on a quick glance, that could be frightening to beginners.
(And to those who may flag my emails - I'm responding to a direct
question.) I understand that Open Office is a full sized suite of programs
that can do a lot of powerful stuff, and the more features a program gets,
the more confusing it gets to navigate through. But for someone who just
wants to type up a report for class and has never used a computer before,
AbiWord is much more simple and inviting.
--
- Chad Smith
http://www.gimpshop.net/
Because everyone loves free software!
