2008/5/16 Keith Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: <snip> Sorry, I have to disagree. > > Firstly the assumption that an office suite should do everything one > does in an office is an absolute fallacy. People might assume that's > the way it is, but it doesn't make it right. > > But the assumption is itself contradictory. Why do we not hear any > requests for integration of financial software into OO? After all > financial controls such as accounting, invoices, payroll, etc. > etc. are core to any business. The only reason why we don't get > hundreds of emails asking "where is the accounting module" is that > Microsoft doesn't do it that way.
Because most people send e-mails, write letters and/or reports and make spreadsheets from time to time. I'm not at all sure why Base in included in OOo, or Math. Accountancy is a minority sport in most offices. And, in fact, commercial accountancy packages make sure they fit well with other office applications. Also, unfortunately and however much you disagree, Microsoft has set a de facto standard. > People have been conditioned to make certain assumptions about what > belongs and does not belong in an office suite. There is some conditioning but the idea that writing an e-mail and writing a letter should *not* use the same UI just plain silly. > Does OO have to meet that assumption? I don't think so. We can suggest > alternatives ways of doing things and that's fine. Only if the alternative is at least as good ; having separate UIs for mail and letters isn't as good. Having to add the same word to two different dictionaries isn't as good. > Next, question is this: If we believe that email should come in pretty > forms rather than just straight text, who determines what format all > those pretty features are going to be in? It used to be html until MS > in its infinite wisdom decided that email composition was a word > processing feature not an email feature and changed the default > into .doc format rather than html. So do we let people compose .doc > or .odf in your TMP? Should proprietary document formats even be > considered when sending documents by email (much less composed in an > email program)? This has already been sorted. One can easily receive Outlook e-mails (e-mails composed in Outlook) in a Thunderbird mailbox. And vice versa. AFAIK Outlook doesn't send .doc files any more than I'm expecting or asking TMP to send .odt files. I *think* that what is transmitted is HTML but I'm not really sure. It's the user interface I'm discussing, *not* the format of what gets sent. What about those silly schmucks like me that think email is best > composed as a plain text format for most situations? They are silly shmucks ! No, seriously, the "overhead" (extra formatting etc.) for short simple e-mails is very small, especially wehen one considers modern data transfer rates and storage capabilities. In the late 70's (1979 to be precise) when I had my first e-mail address I'd have agreed with you. Not today. And again, it's the UI I'm talking about. It's just as easy to type a simple document in Writer as to type a more complex one. Why have to remember two separate interfaces? What if we choose > to use a non-Thunderbird, non-TMP program that is actually far better > than Thunderbird (obviously I don't know what features TMP has!) at > dealing with email. There is no "non-TMP" program. There cannot be; TMP does *not* exist so a "non-TMP" prgram must be something that exists! I invented TMP precisely to avoid this. I don't mind what gets used. TMP is a *notional* program (sorry, I thought I'd said that) which implements whatever features are arrived at by consensus. If it turns out that TMP is Thunderbird plus a few minor changes, fine; if TMP turns out to be Pegasus with some modifications, fine. If TMP is brand new also fine unless it takes 5 years to arrive. > How would you see this working in all the different operating systems > that OOo is produced on? It would be particularly galling to linux > users such as myself who believe in the philosophy that an application > should just do one thing really well and communicate well with other > applications rather than trying to do everything in one monolithic > world-dominating program that takes a super-computer to run and is prone > to break by the nature of its architecture. I fully agree with the *UNIX* philosophy of having small programs that cooperate well with each other. If you think this, why are you using OpenOffice which is one humongous download that can't be split? We even recommend against installing the separate components because (a) there isn't much saving and (b) it may cause problems because the code is so tightly coupled. Also, I'm explicitly *not* asking for a monolith. I'm asking for separate components that use the same UI and share some data files like dictionaries. Fully in keeping with the UNIX philosophy. And why on earth should it not run on different platforms? OOo does; Firefox does; Thunderbird does. Why shouldn't a set of components that perform those functions but share some files and have a common UI? Why should OOo, which is trying to break the stranglehold of one > software manufacturer, be beholden to the same philosophy and then tied > to another organisation in this way? Which philosophy? Yes let's work on better communication between, for example, > dictionaries and email composition. But let's not fall for the bigger > is better, tying everything together is better belief that has really > done little more than change one set of problems for another. Bigger isn't better; that's why I'm not asking for bigger. I'm asking for more. OOo is a brilliant office application. It can do better. The way ahead > is actually the way that Firefox has moved forward- plug-ins and > extensions. OOo is just starting to move down that track and i think as > extensions develop, many of these problems will be sorted out by third > party developers working out add-ons that will meet specific needs. Why do you suppose someone thought it a good idea to add a calender application to Thunderbird? Why do you think someone at Mozilla thought it a good idea to invent Seamonkey which, to quote the Mozilla web site "Containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools, SeaMonkey is sure to appeal to advanced users, web developers and corporate users." This is exactly the sort of approach I'm advocating. > That's my take on it all. > > And why doesn't Ooo have a podcatcher built in? After all I use my > office computer to download and play music- that make it an office > function for me :-) In fact, OpenOffice seems already to have quite a decent media player built in. Why do you suppose that is? Soo cooperation between modules not monolith; common UI, not separate ones; shared files not copies with double updating; separate downloads of required components; separate installation of required components; Help files and documentation that are consistent across components instead of different; and so on. -- Harold Fuchs London, England Please reply *only* to [email protected]
