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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: Cheer up.. (was  koffice feature and release plan)
From:       "Praedor Tempus" <praedor () uswest ! net>
Date:       2001-09-15 9:42:36
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I wish I could use koffice for most of my writing.  I really hate having to 
have multiple wordprocessors and spreadsheets and such on my system, wasting 
space, simply because no one of them is fully functional.  

My real writing HAS to be done with lyx.  Absolutely has to because ONLY lyx 
can do references/citations.  It is a pain to use though, because it is SO 
different than any wordprocessor on any platform (linux, windoze, mac, beos). 
It requires a certain amount of "programming" knowledge via latex to do 
anything well - and that sucks.  

For a letter/cover letter that I will print out, koffice is fine.  If I want 
to send a document to someone such that they could also work on it, however, 
it isn't really useful because, one (and well-known), it can't save into ms 
word format, even an older format;.  It cannot save into wordperfect format.  
Two, it has its own format incompatible with every other format out there.  

This second isn't the kde or koffice team's fault.  This type of thing is 
just as true for abiword and all other possible linux wordprocessors.  I want 
to see ONE standard format that ALL wordprocessors use by default (html isn't 
it and RTF is NOT anywhere near it.  Xml? We'll see.  I don't know enough 
about it but I do know that I frickin' hate html for documents.  I am not 
posting webpages, I am writing articles for submission to journals or 
documents for colleagues to collaborate on.  HTML sucks but, unfortunately, 
it is one of the only ways for lyx to export to be "useable" by Word (it's a 
piss-poor method, however).  

I have hopes for koffice/kword/kspread/kchart but as useable as it may now be 
for simple writing needs, it is essentially useless for professional writing 
(for ANY scientist or serious researcher).  This isn't just koffice, however, 
this is ALL the other word processors/suites except lyx (but see the problems 
with it above).  StarOffice, at least, does a pretty good job of exporting to 
word so I know that anything I write with it can be transfered to most of my 
colleagues.  Soon after Sun took over StarDivision and StarOffice, I wrote to 
them about the need of a bibliography-handling capability ala EndNote with 
Word and WordPerfect.  They actually responded and added a bibliography app - 
but it turns out to be absolutely useless!  It does NOTHING except hold 
references.  Big whoop.  You cannot insert them as citations into documents 
and you cannot use it to generate the corresponding reference/bibliography 
page(s).  Dopes.  Sheesh, business people have no inkling of the NEED to give 
proper attribution in documents.


On Monday 17 September 2001 10:19 am, Ben Hall wrote:
> On Monday 17 September 2001 09:31, David Faure wrote:
> > On Lundi 17 Septembre 2001 16:11, Ferdinand Gassauer wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > This list is depressing. Everyone wants features _and_ timelines for
> > those features, but when it comes to actually patching the code......
>
> I've been lurking on this list for about a week now, and it scares me when
> this is said, but it's most certainly true!  In the single week that I've
> been listening in, about three different people have come up with the
> "idea" of using SO/Gnumeric/<your_app_here> filters, and have asked for
> repeats of features already.
>
> Sure KOffice isn't ready to displace MS Office yet, maybe it never will,
> but it's good enough for all of my routine tasks.  I'm not willing to pony
> up the code, so I'm not going to start whining when I find that feature X
> is missing.  Besides, does the KOffice team who's giving everyone there
> time even want to compete with MSO feature for feature?
>
> I use kword quite frequently now.  It's very stable, fast and usable. All
> of the things that immediately ticked me off about 1.0 are gone, and it
> makes a great program for small/medium sized documents.  It's great! 
> KSpread has multiple undo!  This is a feature that has been completely
> missing from all versions of Quattro Pro (At least up to 9)!  Go figure..
>
> Do I use KOffice exclusively?  No.  Is i good enough for 90% of what I do?
> Yes.  And it's a joy to work with, and free to boot!
>
> You know, I shelled out $150 for Gobe Productive 2.0 for BeOS a little over
> a year ago.  KOffice already far surpasses that suite for my document
> needs.
>
> David and the rest of the KOffice development list, don't get too
> depressed.. KDE is fantastic, KOffice is great.  I use it, I enjoy using
> it.  I have SO/OO and VMWare/MS Office on my machine, and I'll use KOffice
> whenever I can, just because it's such a nice and complete package.
>
> KOffice is an important project, and you guys are doing a great job.  KDE
> is very ambitious, and this is a ambitious part of the overall project,
> that you guys have managed to put together something that works this well
> is such a short period of time is amazing to me.
>
> Hey, would you like to set up a primary/secondary set of mailing lists? 
> You could have people there to filter out the noise, and only send through
> what really counts.  I'd volunteer to answer some of the questions, and
> maybe developers could take turns listening in if you're short on people.. 
> Just a thought..  (from someone who's only been lurking for a week and has
> contributed exactly 0 lines of code..)
>
> Good luck, stay patient.
>
> Ben

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