Hello Jeff, On 12/14/05, Jeff Causey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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".
I have a hobby of collecting and trying out as many office suites as I can find. Word processors too. It's great because so many give away 30 day trials now. I've got MS Office, MS Works, AppleWorks for Windows, AbilityOffice, ThinkFree Office, AbiWord, OpenOffice.org, WordPerfect Office, Lotus SmartSuite, EasyOffice, 602 PCSuite, TreePad, and a few others on my PC at home. Here at work, on my Mac, I've got MS Office, NeoOffice, AbiWord, TextEdit, AppleWorks, TextMaker, and iWork. And on my Linux box, I've got OpenOffice.org, Koffice, and AbiWord. Online I've tried WebOffice and Writely. Needless to say, I like to see the differences among the UI. That's the main reason I try them all out. The UI and the features. I am not a beginner, but I try to put myself in that mindset, and then look at program. AbiWord, Writely, and MSO for Mac have the best looking interfaces for beginners, IMHO. It's not just a matter of "pretty colors" or nice looking icons, either. It's not overwhelming them with a ton of options, (which MSO can, but MSO for Mac hides them pretty well - giving the user only one toolbar to begin with, and putting the rest in a "floating palette" - which is comfortable to Mac users, not so much to Windows users, since it's not all in one nesting window. KOffice, for example, has some great icons, but the layout can be overwhelming. 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. For a while, yes, word processors did pretty much look the same. But since 2002 or 2003, things have been different, and here recently, especially in the last 2 years, things have been changing. User Interfaces have been simplified, and icons have gotten bigger (since there are less of them to fit on the screen). I think it's been a good trend. 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. I've been told that Styles do make life easier once you get the hang of them. I've messed with them somewhat, but I usually end up going back to formatting as a I go. Old habits die hard, I guess. 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. You're right about that. It was just the strongest example I could think of to illustrate how a complete suite of programs, even with the other programs turned off, can be overwhelming. Most of those options are for Writer. It will be interesting to hear from Hans regarding feedback he gets from > students. I agree. I hope to hear back from him. - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ Because everyone loves free software!
