> The Male Merge interface is implemented in Java. So it is not part of > the contribution.
OK so neither MDI or Mail merge is available. Does that mean that none of the GUI elements are part of the contribution. The question then bears asking what is in the contribution that we didn't have before that would be obvious to this poor simple enduser. It seems to me that it is less. It doesn't work with OOo extensions, there is no draw component. We have been told that those GUI elements of Symphony are what won it awards. And these awards are one of the reasons we should be happy because those elements can go into AOO, but now we are told this is not the case. I'm a tad confused. > In this code base, the mail merge function was > updated with OO.o 3.x code. This maybe so, but it is still a very bad User Experience example. In my corporate training it is the single biggest barrier to change in Marketing and Event Management departments. In the advertising and publishing space it is the biggest single barrier amongst sales departments. The Symphony Mail Merge is intuitive, quick to learn and doesn't require addressing data sources before getting started. One of the difficulties that OOo suffers from is that it costs nothing. So the change back to MSO does not necessitate the abandoning of any investment. The high cost of MSO is actually a barrier to uptake of OOo because businesses are reluctant to abandon any previous investment in MSO to make the change. What this means is that AOO has to be as good and/or better at everything it does, than the opposition or at least in those particular functionalities that individual businesses or departments use. This is because if there is an issue, there is no incentive to open a bugzilla instance when the lowest cost solution is simply to go back to MSO. I thought that getting the Symphony code on board was going to help with this, but it appears not. If I have misinterpreted this please feel free to correct this Cheers GL > > On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Graham Lauder <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Though MDI is not in the current Symphony contributed code, but if > >> people really like it, I suggest we to think about how to make it in > >> AOO, maybe 4.0 or later... > >> > >> - Simon > > > > My hands are up for another lover of Symphony's MDI... :) > > > > One of the other cool things in Symphony that I would love to see in AOO, > > is Symphony's Mail Merge interface. Is that part of the contribution? > > > > Cheer > > GL > > > >> 2012/5/17 zhangjf <[email protected]> > >> > >> > On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 11:35 PM, Alexander Thurgood > >> > > >> > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > > Le 16/05/12 09:26, Yue Helen a écrit : > >> > > > >> > > Hi Helen Yue, > >> > > > >> > >> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Contribution > >> > >> > >> > >> Here you can find a document to describe what's inside this code > >> > >> contribution, by highlighting some additional features beyond > >> > >> what's in Apache OpenOffice 3.4. The feature list includes > >> > >> enhancements on performance, usability, functionality, > >> > >> interoperability, as well as globalization, accessibility and > >> > >> more. > >> > > > >> > > I actually really like the MDI UI and the context-based dockable > >> > > properties panes. > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > Alex > >> > > >> > The MDI feature is not included in the contributed code, while the > >> > sidebar feature is in. The MDI feature in fact is from another product > >> > IBM Lotus Expeditor which Symphony is integrated on. > >> > > >> > zhangjf
