[wplug] OpenOffice, StarOffice

Tim Lesher tim at lesher.ws
Sun Jul 20 22:09:32 EDT 2003


On Sun, Jul 20, 2003 at 03:13:00PM -0400, Robert Supansic wrote:

> What we need is OpenOffice Lite, a stripped-down word processor, spreadsheet, etc for 
> first-time and/or non-power users that can be readily adopted in offices and schools.  
> OpenOffice Regular should also be ruthlessly redesigned to allow modules to be added to 
> the Lite version as needed.  (A side benefit of simpler software, of course, is almost always 
> increased stability and response time.)

While I agree with you in principle, I've come to the conclusion that
this is a Utopian dream.  The reason is this:  it's true that most
people who use a word processor only use 20% (to pull a number out of
a hat) of its features... the problem is that it's a different 20%.

For example, I just read an article in the past week (don't remember
where, but it was linked from linuxtoday.com) about a company's
attempted switch to OpenOffice.  The biggest complication for them was
that OO's mail merge support isn't as good as that of Word.  I'm
wondering, "What?!  Who ever uses that?"  Meanwhile, I've been griping
about OO's poor styles support (which has improved in 1.1, BTW).
Everyone to whom I mention this says, "Poor what support?"

To be fair, I'm far from the only person to notice this.  One of the
first people to corroborate my theory was Joel Spolsky
(http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html).

But your idea of a "Firebird" version of OpenOffice is interesting.  I
haven't looked at the OO source, so I don't know if the architecture
lends itself to such a thing.

> Personally, I would love to work on that.  Alas, I went to the
> OpenOffice web site and found it to be so badly designed as to shake
> my confidence in the future of the project..  I looked high and low
> for help for a mere user and could find none.  I tried to find some
> source code to browse -- to no avail.  I wanted a list that
> described the function of each of the files in OpenOffice -- again,
> to no avail.

Not to denigrate your web browsing abilities, but what website did you
go to? at openoffice.org, I found everything you mentioned except the
last, all linked from the left-hand navigation list.  The only thing I
didn't see whas a list that described the function of each of the
files in the application... personally, I've never seen that for any
application.

-- 
Tim Lesher <tim at lesher.ws>
http://www.lesher.ws




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