[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by zuschlag When looking af this screenshot I thought about Lotus's old Improv (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv) spreadsheet app, which appeared intially on NextStep. Apparently Steve Jobs was very enthusiastic about it and gave the folks at Lotus a lot of input and feedback during its development. Mayby some of the ideas from Improv will re-emerge in Number (or what they choose to call it).

Dear god I *hope* so. I have a copy of Improv on my NeXTstation, and it still kicks Excel's ass in terms of usability. It's just a really nicely done app, and has been my dream benchmark for new spreadsheets.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by DK-Lach Use NeoOffice! Full-featured, universal and free!

Here's the problem... IT'S JUST MORE OF THE SAME CRAP! I know that is a shot right at those who love it, and I'm sorry, but... it is.

Why go through all the bother of creating a whole Office-replacement suite just to *clone* Office as closely as possible?? (Yes, yes, I know, to make Office migrators feel comfortable, yadda yadda.) Why not make an app (or apps) that *improves* on the user experience in fundamental ways, but keeps the one that *really* matters... data compatibility? In other words, give them a reason to *want* to migrate, other than 'it's free'. A lot of things are free, and worth every bit of the purchase price. You have to give users a taste of that "ooooh, gotta get me some of that" before they're going to make a big jump.

Not to mention that MS just yanked the whole 'familiarity' argument out from under the OSS crowd with the Office 2007 UI shift...

[chucker]

Originally Posted by DK-Lach Use NeoOffice! Full-featured, universal and free!

And best of all, you get what you pay for!

[Koodari]

Originally Posted by Kickaha Not to mention that MS just yanked the whole 'familiarity' argument out from under the OSS crowd with the Office 2007 UI shift...

On the other hand they're forcing people to learn something new anyway which makes the switch to OO.o less of a big deal.

[Kickaha]

True, but now the OSS apps don't have any *advantage*, other than "It's like what you knew". I suppose they'll get some folks with that, but to me that's a bit like selling Model T's to octogenarians because, well, they're more familiar.

This is when someone should have had a solid suite ready with an *improvement* in the UI dept, and be able to show the advantages of that, coupled with the "well, if you have to learn a new UI already..."

Same old same old, when it's a clone of a poor UI, is a losing strategy IMO. In two years, it's just going to look horribly out of date and behind the eight ball. MS played this one well - the OSS folks now have to scramble to recreate the new UI to even look like they're staying current.

[Koodari]

I'd say the move to a new interface has nothing to do with OO.o and everything to do with having to justify yet another upgrade for an office app suite which hasn't had any worthwhile changes in the last ten years.

The point of OO.o is not to be the ultimate office suite, but to make a transition to something-else-than-Office possible. It needs to satisfy the government and business PHB's, be compatible, have a certain checklist of features, and appear safe. That's the way to achieve large scale deployments and build support for ODF.

OO.o doesn't stop someone from building the super innovative apps. Interested folks can replace OO.o with them, app by app, as they're done. But new, cool and innovative does not win the format war by itself. It needs the ugly, sturdy backbone which is OO.o. As long as Office docs are the de facto standard in business, Microsoft has too much control to shut down its small competitors with.

It's true it would be nice if at this point someone already had the innovative alternative ready to fight for the home users' and techies' hearts. I have no idea what KOffice is like, but I know Gnome Office (really just Abiword and Gnumeric) isn't it, and OO.o isn't it.

[Kickaha]

I think you hit the nail on the head. You are right that data format monopolies are the thing that needs to be broken, so explain to me why *THAT* isn't more of the focus? (Point taken about having *a* replacement app for Office... I'm just still waiting with bated breath for ANY alternative that isn't an Office *clone*.)

I understand that a format compatibility layer *by itself* is kind of useless, but imagine if all the work that went into OO.o had been spent instead on *solely* the import/export. Just that. And then released so that any app, on any platform, could use it. Instead of one Office clone, down to the UI, you could have a plethora of smaller apps experimenting with UI feature combinations, but *all* being able to import/export Office files seamlessly.

I dunno, it just seems like the OSS folks were so fixated on 'replacing Office' that they lost sight of the real goal... 'breaking the data kidnapping'. The way you do that is through data migration, and offering a *better* app on the UI end of things. Considering Office's classic UI, that isn't that hard to improve on.

Now, if you look at what Apple has been doing, they've been offering .doc import/export with NSText* in Cocoa, and I suspect we'll see the same thing happen with the other Office formats in Leopard. (PPT at least.) Which means... import/export that anyone can use, and it's up to the developers to come up with interesting, focussed UIs for specific tasks. Pretty much what I wish would have happened in the OSS world.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Wow, that would be excellent to have conversion as some kind of framework or library. Then anyone could translate Office docs.

The one thing I find disappointing in the OSS world is all the work spent cloning closed source programs. Like how KDE mirrored the Win95 desktop with the start bar lookalike, etc. Instead of copying a program (like GIMP with the Photoshop menu add-in) why not work on making it better?

This is one area I think Apple is doing it right. Image import/export is built into CoreImage. Like Kickaha mentioned, you can read .doc files using Cocoa objects. Webkit is an accessible framework as well.

This way instead of every programmer needing to reinvent the JPEG import/display/export wheel, they can use the same routine used by other Cocoa programmers. If there is a problem with the routine (like initial RAW support in Aperture), Apple will get the message loud and clear, and fix it (if it's in their interest, of course).

[Koodari]

It's more about the non-Office apps having a common language with each other than each of them getting Office compatibility. The long term goal has to be not having to open the Office formats. That can only happen when you have another established but open format.

Another reason besides gov't and business approval why it is good to have the "everything and the kitchen sink" app first and the good apps later is that it gives the latitude for the other apps' developers take their time and add features only slowly. If someone absolutely needs some marginal functionality, he can be pointed towards the big app instead of the good app receiving a quick hack to "do that too". The functionality can then be added into the little app once it's figured out properly.

Not unlike what went down with the Netscape browser suite and Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird.

[Kickaha]

See, but having inter-app compatibility (while good) still doesn't solve getting users *TO* that new format. You have to have, at the very basic minimum, stellar import of Office docs. Export is highly desirable as well, unless you can migrate an entire workforce to the new app (or apps).

Office formats are, for better or worse, what most of the world uses. You *have* to have import/export of those before you can be taken seriously at all in an office environment. I'd just much rather see effort and energy being placed there, than on trying to clone the Office UI *one* *more* *time* (with feeling). The latter, I think is just a dead end, especially now that MS has yoinked the UI around in a new direction. While it offers a chance for other apps to say "Well, since you have to a new interface *anyway*...", they don't have much else to offer as I see it. *shrug*

It's all about the data formats. The rest is mutable.