Re: [libreoffice-design] Design principles

Hi Mirek,

> Even an advanced office suite needs to be focused.
> As I specified, I see Writer as a tool to create great-looking documents.
> That doesn't mean it can't export to HTML -- of course it can. An HTML
> document is just as valuable as an ODT document. What it does mean, though,
> is that Writer's workflow needs to be concentrated at creating a
> great-looking document. All the tools within Writer should help the user do
> that.
> If the user wants to create a website with Writer (which I wouldn't
> recommend, as there are better tools for that), he can download an
> extension to help him accomplish that.
>
> For office productivity software, one of the important things are
> > comparison tables. In these tables, things like "exports to HTML,"
> > "support format XYZ," "can create organigrammes" all get you "points."
> > So, that's where this project comes from: trying to match MSO in a
> > comparison table + a little authentic innovation.
>
> I guess we have very different ideas about what LibreOffice should be.
> I'd like LibreOffice to stand its own, have value not as a Microsoft
> alternative but as a powerful suite of applications that each has its
> specific goal and meaning.

Our ideas where it should be are not so different, I think. :)
However, the most important (paying) customers for LibreOffice are
huge bureaucracies that will indeed create a table of necessary
features and use that to compare the available solutions. So, that's
what the core developers get paid for, too. Specifically:
* fixing crashes/freezes
* improving performance
* matching MSO features (to ease migration)
* opening foreign file formats (to ease migration)

Also, a likely factor in LibO having so many half-baked features is
that it's so much more interesting to do something new than to improve
someone else's stuff. In that way, LibO's organicity also is a huge
burden.


> File format support is important, I agree, but it has no influence on how a
> piece of software is designed.

Well, these were examples.


> The scanner module could actually be very useful if done correctly, perhaps
> if included as a tab under the Insert image dialog.

I believe that scanning isn't part of LibO's core competences (we
don't even have a pixel image editor) and that all current OS's
include better tools already. In the case where they (Windows XP and
Mac OS 10.4/5 (?)), such a tool always comes with the scanner itself.
Thus, integrating with these tools should be the best idea there. But
again, that was an example.


Astron.

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