Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: odf purists mailing list request

On 9/10/2011 2:55 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
> An odf-purists lists might be interesting though I am not sure how one discerns what it means to be 
> odf-pure, as opposed to OpenOffice-pure.  Maybe it is about OpenOffice purism, where use of the 
> native ODF Open ... and Save As ... is handled.  No opening by clicking on .doc/.docx files, etc.
>
> I'd say the developers are certainly concerned with making that part work as well as possible.
>
> Not sure how you'd describe the list so fellow purists would know they were fellow purists.  I 
> shall watch with interest.
>
>   - Dennis
>
> BAFFLEMENT
>
> I am baffled by this statement though:
>   "Such a program would be rather useless without a free file format."
>
> Is not ODF a free format?
>
> Or is the assumption that Tim Deaton wants "everything MS Office 97 did" to include open and save 
> as .doc, .xls, and .ppt?
>
> I guess that doesn't matter for the odf-purists list.  The non-purists get to deal with it.
>
> I would think that availability of free-to-the-public specifications for [MS-DOC], [MS-XLS], 
> [MS-PPT], [RTF] and some of the common features like [MS-OFFCRYPTO] would be handy for the 
> non-purists. That those and more are covered by the Open Specification Promise will be sufficient 
> reassurance for some of us, I think.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andreas Säger [mailto:villeroy@t-online.de]
> Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 10:19
> To: users@global.libreoffice.org
> Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: odf purists mailing list request
>
> Am 10.09.2011 18:37, Tim Deaton wrote:
>
> > Personally, I want LO to be able to do everything MS Office 97 did, and
> > mostly the way MS Office 97 did it - but that works well on current
> > operating systems.
> Such a program would be rather useless without a free file format.

I'm not thinking file formats at all.  The open-source file formats are 
an advantage.  Mostly I use spreadsheets & word processing.  I used to 
work in Access a lot, but since a 2008 job change am just maintaining a 
few databases I use at home.

For what I do in word processing, Writer already works fine for me, and 
I use it almost exclusively.  But I'm mostly doing individual letters 
(no mail-merge or other heavy-duty stuff).

For spreadsheets, I'm more finicky.  All the functions I used in Excel 
work now in OOo v3, but what I think of as convenience features are 
still lagging.  I'd like to see things like "Insert Cut (or Copied) 
Cells added to the right-click context menu, for instance.  (That was 
discussed in another thread recently.)  Another thing I'd like is to be 
able to crop objects (like screen-prints pasted into a spreadsheet) 
using the mouse, instead of having to try to make adjustments in a small 
cropping window where it is very difficult to see what you're doing.  
I'm sure others who've used both MSOffice and OO/LO will have other 
areas in mind where things could be made easier.

I think what really gets me about the "purists" approach is the idea 
that OO/LO ought to be different just to be different.  That reminds me 
these days of Microsoft's approach to their "Ribbon".  If there's a 
better way of doing things, great.  But if not, then adopt what's 
already been successful elsewhere.

And I focus on MS Office 97 because I see MS Office as the main 
competition, and because of all the versions of MS Office I've used, I 
like that one the best.  v2003's help system is less helpful, and I hate 
v2007's ribbon.  v2010's ribbon feels a little better, but I'd still 
take the traditional menus any day.

-- Tim

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