Hi,
OO.o is great; don't get me wrong. 3.1 is an excellent step too! But I
have a few questions about annoyances that perhaps aren't OO.o problems
but something I am missing in setup or the way I use things. I know
questions should be limited to one per post, but I think this one really
mitigates to be one post.
Please clarify whether the following are "that's the way it is", or,
"There's a setting for that at ... ":
I hate comparing things to Word because I've come to think of OO.o as
something that stands on its own merit, but it's still the clearest way
to make some points; please forgive the comparisons<g>
1. Desktop:
With OO.o, whenever I want the Desktop I have to start at My Documents,
drill up, switch todrive C:, then drill down to docs & settings, uname,
desktop.
Why can't the Desktop have a mirror at the top of at least drive C?
I guess I could switch it to use XP type boxes, but then I lose some of
the OO.o box capabilities. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that would
give me back Desktop as an explorer choice instead of having to drill
down to it. In XP, no matter how deep into a structure you go, going
all the way to the top always brings you to the desktop. I occasionally
put things on the desktop as sort of a post-it, where it's "in my face"
and won't be forgotten.
2. Save, Open dialogs and others:
They don't remember the last setting used. Once in awhile they do, but
most of the time I find myself having to continually use the Up a Level,
choose the drive letter and drill down to the same directory I used last
time.
When/how does/doesn't the dialog box/es remember the last used
directory?
3. Will printing envelopes ever be straightened out?
It's better than it was and usually as long as the envelope is put in
the printer to defaults, they work in general. But if you have a
different orientation (face up/down; long/short edge first,
centered/right side of tray, etc.) they no longer print properly.
And, it's a real PIA to figure it out on one's own. As soon as I
think I OO.o Writer's envelope methods of dimensioning/positioning
figured it, it doesn't work on the next non-standard envelope I have to
make.
4.
WORD, for whatever reason, can create, and properly print, an envelope
of any size withing the loaded printer driver capabilities without my
having to touch the printer or printer drivers themselves.
Writer however seems to measure things from the bottom of the page,
the last part to enter the printer, as opposed to the leading edge,
which is the top of the paper. So, to get it to position things
correctly, the printer must also be set for the exact correct paper
size; it's not enough to let the program manage it.
Will the OO.o methodology ever be more along the lines of hos Word
and any other processor I've used, does it?
Or am I really missing something? I've read multiple articles on the
subject of envelopes and some are good, but ... they conflict with each
other at times and still don't work out for me. And I have standard,
branded printers; HP and Epson.
5 Table Boundaries:
Should be shown by default. I haven't met a single person yet to doesn't
think tables, labels etc. are borked because they see nothing on the
page.
6. Copy/Paste Web Page content:
OO.o still does a pretty bad job of pasting into it from portions of
copied data from web pages. Usually when I do that I'm copying tech
support types of pages, not overly complex pages and they often fail the
readability test. But I can jump over to Word and do the same paste and
get a perfect copy nearly every time. At the worst I might have to
adjust a table column or two. As a result I finish the task up in Word.
My goal is to rid myself of MS and that gets in my way.
Overall they're minor annoyances, I agree, with the exception of the
envelope issues. That one's a PITA. But with all the fantastic work
going on and the stellar capabilities of 00.o, it seems like another
look at some of the basics might go a long, long ways to converting more
newbies over. I haven't yet bit-binned Office 2k2 because of a couple
of those problems; when I'm in the middle of something I just can't be
bothered to stop and work out Writer's issues.
Anyway, there it is, for what it's worth. I guess my point is, I think
the timing would be excellent to take a look at some of the basics, the
things any user is going to come across right away, and smooth them out
and avoid any surprises or the feeling that a work-around needs to be
found.
Any helpful comments would be most appreciated. I realize it's
entirely possible a few of these annoyances are my own doing, but ... if
that's the case, I can't figure it out.
Regards,
Twayne
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