Brian Barker wrote:
At 06:26 17/11/2008 +0100, John D. Herron wrote:
When you launch OpenOffice.org 3.0, the first thing that appears is a
switchboard, i.e. a dialog box with icons that allow the user to open
an application or document of his choice. My question: does anyone
know whether there is a any way to eliminate (or disable) this
chooser? there's nothing about it in the help file.
You get to see this welcome screen only if you choose to start
OpenOffice in the manner that generates it. If you want OpenOffice to
skip this screen and go to something else, you are asking it to read
your mind if you start OpenOffice this way. Use another way instead.
I think there are three ways in which you might want to start
OpenOffice, depending on what you want to do with it initially:
o If you want to open an existing document, the simplest way is
probably to find and double-click that document. This way, you will
see the welcome screen only fleetingly: the document window will then
appear.
o If you want to start OpenOffice and to create a blank document of a
particular type, there are entry points to allow this. Don't start
"OpenOffice.org" (or soffice, or whatever it is called on your
platform). Instead, use the entry point that corresponds to the type
of blank document you wish to create. Choose "OpenOffice.org Writer"
(or swriter), "OpenOffice.org Calc" (or scalc) and so on, as
appropriate. You may have menu entries for these, and they are also
available from the Quickstarter if you have this running. This way,
you will not see the welcome screen.
o There are a few remaining circumstances in which you may want to
start OpenOffice without yet declaring what you wish to do next.
Perhaps you want to open an existing file, but choose to do so from
within OpenOffice. Or perhaps you wish to use a template or to
retrieve a document from the Recent Documents list. In these cases,
the welcome screen is exactly what you need - so that you can indicate
there what you want to do next. And only if you want that screen, I
suggest, should you start OpenOffice the way you are currently doing.
Note that you do not need to use the options in the centre of the
welcome screen, as some menus are alternatively available: File | New
>, File | Recent Documents >, and so on may be useful. In particular,
the welcome screen doesn't stop you doing anything you could do if it
wasn't there!
The welcome screen also appears, of course, if you close all documents
without closing the program itself: again, OpenOffice needs to know
what you want to do next and the welcome screen is a useful way of
displaying this.
If you prefer to have desktop shortcuts or menu entries for the
swriter, scalc, etc. entry points, you can create these yourself very
simply, of course. (How to do this depends on your platform.)
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
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Add one more method: You can create shortcuts on the desktop to a few of
your most frequently edited or viewed documents, or to the one or two
you are working on currently. Not just easy to use, they serve also as
reminders, little sticky notes. The shortcuts are easily deleted when
they are no longer needed; the documents themselves remain in their
proper directories for future reference and proper backing up.
I have a fancy-shmancy Logitech keyboard with programmable function
keys. I programmed Fn+F3 through Fn+F6 to open 4 documents I need almost
every day.
I guess it is intended that you will use the chooser-switchboard only to
create a new document from scratch or from a template.
——Eli
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