On Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:13:57 -0600, Tech Support
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Friends,
Hi Michael.
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.
Remember OOo is open source and we are always open to help from anyone
feeling they can provide and improve the product.
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.
If you are particularly worried about Writer I suggest you to join the
writer user and/or development list. Also to write bug reports on specific
tasks and get to known the Writer team. This will insure that your
petitions get more and more informed. You can join going to
http://sw.openoffice.org and joining their mailing lists.
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.
Wordperfect is a good product however remember Writer is a whole different
product and our goal is not clone it or other commercial 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.
Here is where issue reports help the developers understand this usability
issues they also help you to define the issue on a very narrow maner so
that is better understandable by developers.
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.
There is a Linux version of Wordperfect too but I havent got any good
review of that product to even be willing to check it out.
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.
To get double columns I am able to go to Format > Page and assign the
number of columns I need. I am not sure what you mean by incomplete and
dificult to use. I didn't find it difficult at all to either find it or
get it to work. The process is pretty straight forward. Can you please
tell us how is that dificult for you?
To go back you will need to know how to use Styles in OpenOffice.org. If
you don't know how to use Styles in OpenOffice.org you will find it very
foreing. Like any product it pays to learn how to use it. To change styles
in pages regardless if its columns or page orientation you need to assign
it when you insert a Page Break otherwise the styles carries on through
the document.
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.
Unless you change the style back.
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.
Yes bloatware is something we are targeting by using extensions now to
migrate the new functionality to an extension-base model for added
functionality.
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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Alexandro Colorado
CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES
http://es.openoffice.org
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