Friends,
Thank you for the huge effort everyone has expended to get the word
processor component up to the place where it is today. I can only
imagine the depth of work that went into the effort. There is no way
that any should belittle that work.
However, with that said, there seems to be a major problem with the
direction that OpenOffice is taking in the further developmental stages
of the product, particularly with regard to Writer.
Having come from using the best of the best, WordPerfect, I am familiar
with the fantastic degree of polish that comes from decades of
development. Sadly, we users sometimes get rather complacent and
demanding of certain aspects of software that attempts to compete with
such high standards. By the same token, justified or not, those wishing
to compete must be willing to address the issues which are the most
blatant with regard to comparisons between products.
In the case of Writer, there seems to be a need to re-examine what
should be the next step in the product's development. It is my
suggestion that further features be set aside in favor of polishing, and
making usable, the existing product. Too many common usability issues
are surfacing to make Writer a real contender in the category of word
processing.
With the necessity of moving to the Linux environment, the user must
have their basic need of a good word processor made available, even if
for a fee. Because Writer is given out to many by their choice of OS
version, it has become the de facto program of choice. If only it were
up to the task.
For instance, if one wishes to use the columns feature, although
incomplete and difficult to use, that feature overrides the page layout
and makes it impossible to find a way to stop using columns and go back
to regular text on that page. The only way it can work in any normal
usage situation is to start fresh and make sure that columns are only
inserted into existing text so that at least one line exists after the
columns.
Of course that is only one example of many I could make. But the issues
remains that these things could be easily fixed by going over the
existing program as it is now without further feature additions.
Whether it be menu layout, feature groupings, or settings locations,
clarifying what is there would go much further than expansion of the
program at this stage.
Most people only use about 2% of a program's capabilities, and that
small group of capabilities must be properly thought out and intuitive
to use. This is a big opportunity for the programmers of Writer to step
up and polish the existing program, and thereby push it far to the
forefront of the genre.
Thanks again for all the hard work, and thank you for your kind
consideration of this suggestion.
Best regards,
Michael Kitchen
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