What's needed in OpenOffice from what I'm seeing is exactly the kind of interface revamp that the community projects have made their goal. MS Office 2007 and 2010 have been going to a tabbed view, and maybe OpenOffice should consider such a look.
I see the 2 big issues addressing OOo right now as reorganization and interoperability. Features are not organized well in an intuitive interface, and the design should be simplified into more clearly stratified and distinguishable categories. Furthermore, there should be multiple routes to the same solution. You should be able to merge cells by going to not only the Format drop-down menu, but also right-clicking over highlighted cells and seeing a merge option in the menu there. You should also be able to go to Format Cells from the Right-Click menu and see the option to merge cells there too, perhaps in the Alignment tab. As someone who's used Office for years, but used OOo sporadically for years as well, along with Works and even Lotus for a short time, I've come to take such interoperability for granted. It is less obvious for less major word processing, or for the Writer program, but for Calc right now is really sticking out. If the program requires 'reading the manual' to figure out even basic features, let alone the more advanced ones, perhaps it should be considered the program is not organized or intuitive enough as is. I would like to see OpenOffice improve, and all of my points I feel are quite valid. I did not come here to seek advice. I came here to make the program better with good recommendations and viewpoints. I came to offer my feedback. The hostility is a bit disappointing. I'm hoping it's an isolated case. Jzyehoshua On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Graham Lauder <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wednesday 10 Nov 2010 23:42:29 Joshua Zambrano wrote: > > Hello, I just wanted to drop off some recommendations for OpenOffice, as > a > > user of office suites. > > > > -CALC > > > > - Merge Cells. No capability to merge cells that I can see, a very > > valuable feature. > > Format > Merge Cells, been there since day one > > > > - Turn Off Auto Complete. Keeps turning everything it can into date > > format, very annoying. Should be able to turn this off, but option > not > > visible that I can see. > > Tools> Cell Contents ..uncheck autoinput > > > - Remove Hyperlinks. Hyperlinks shown can't be easily deleted. Going > > to the hyperlink window does not show an address there. Should be able > to > > hit backspace to remove hyperlink like with MS Excel, but does not work. > > This forces you to delete hyperlinks and type in the whole link text over > > again, also time-consuming. > > Um, not sure what you're doing here but it all works as expected in my > version. Highlight cell, content appears in the formula bar, edit as > required. > > > > - Mass Format Change. Highlighting many cells and trying to change > the > > format (number/date/text/currency) does not work, you must change each > > individually, a time-consuming issue. > > Um select all the cells you want, right click on the selected area, choose > format cells. Works every time on mine > > > > - Optimize Rows/Columns: Going to optimize row heights or column > widths > > does not work. It does not set them to ideal settings, merely makes > > them even wider. Let alone the shortcut of clicking upper left cell and > > then a row/column boundary to instantly optimize size like in MS Excel. > > Um again, what are you doing? Format>Row(or Column) >optimal height(width) > the dialog opens and allows you to pad the cell to your requirements or use > the default. > > > > > > -WRITER > > > > - Can't Open MS Word 2010 .doc Files. Crashes just trying to open > them. > > > That's an MS problem with their file format, however the latest version of > OOo > handles docx without problems > > I will add that OOo is not a free version of MS office and if that's the > way > you think of it, then you are missing out on a lot of features in OOo that > MSO > doesn't have. Don't expect OOo to work exactly the same as MSO, it's not > designed that way. > > These sort of posts often draw a RTFM (Read The F**king Manual) response, > because you don't come in asking for some assistance, you come in demanding > that the software do things your way when it already does those things but > using a slightly different method. Take some time to do some discovery. > > > Cheers > GL > > -- > Graham Lauder, > OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ > http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html > > OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. > > INGOTs Assessor Trainer > (International Grades in Open Technologies) > www.theingots.org >
