First looks at OpenOffice 3.1

[J-Mac]

Quickstart should only open once and sit in your tray, or you can set it to open on startup.
If it goes everytime you open a file, maybe you have it actually disabled and so it loads every time you open a OO file?

-Edvard (March 03, 2009, 05:52 PM)

I don't want it open, taking memory for no good reason, at all! So I would close it - completely. And, yes, it will open again and again if you close it. I have to end up disabling it altogether - and users shouldn’t have to figure out how to do that. Even Microsoft doesn't keep the entire Office suite open in the background by default so individual programs load faster.

Jim

-J-Mac (March 03, 2009, 06:05 PM)

Actually MS Office does startup an application at startup - they just don't put an icon in the system tray. Also MS loads all sorts of modules into memory with Windows at startup too support all kinds of software (whether you use it or not) - check you task manager.

As I understand it OpenOffice do not load the whol application into memory at startup they just load a helper which appears in the system tray - which many many programs do and given that it is a cross platform app it is not surprising that it has to rely on non-MS libraries etc. to run.

-Carol Haynes (March 03, 2009, 07:46 PM)

I have - and I cannot find anywhere near as much memory used by MS Office as I see with OO, though I do prefer some parts of OO more than MS Office. In other areas OO still has a ways to go to catch up. I really wish that they could get Draw working better; I love it but it manages to bite me most of the time!!

Thanks!

Jim

[Carol Haynes]

The trouble with MS is it is all smoke and mirrors - you won't see a massive memory usgae because most of MS's 'preload' isn't specific to MS Office (but if you look in startup you will find MSO). A lot of the support required for MS Office is shared support for other apps and loaded as various DLLs with cryptic names even when Office isn't installed.

OO doesn't have that luxury. It is written to run on Windows, Linux, Mac (and others) so it has to have libraries written for specific support for OO. There is no way round that.

Having said that if you want to see how bad MS Office can be try using Outlook (any version since 2002) and you will find out what slow is. Not only is it horrendously slow to load but when you check your emails it freezes up periodically until it has finished downloading.

It is interesting that you single out OO Draw for improvement - MSO doesn't even have a draw feature!

Have you tried inkscape

[fenixproductions]

It is interesting that you single out OO Draw for improvement - MSO doesn't even have a draw feature!

-Carol Haynes (March 04, 2009, 04:23 AM)

And OO does not have mail client. We can quarrel and say: MS has Visio and OO - Thunderbird.

I think that Draw is the worst part of OO but it pushed me into Inkscape's side (and Scribus a little bit). Maybe that was its creator idea at the first place?

I can't also get one thing off my head when it comes to Draw: a sentence that when 3 pretty girls go to party they always take ugly one with them...

[Edvard]

Gee, I kinda like Draw.

Sure, it's no Inkscape, but when I need a quick layout with a few pasted-in logos and large text, it works a peach! This new version has a few tweaks that are nice, so I'm looking forward...

[J-Mac]

The trouble with MS is it is all smoke and mirrors - you won't see a massive memory usgae because most of MS's 'preload' isn't specific to MS Office (but if you look in startup you will find MSO). A lot of the support required for MS Office is shared support for other apps and loaded as various DLLs with cryptic names even when Office isn't installed.

OO doesn't have that luxury. It is written to run on Windows, Linux, Mac (and others) so it has to have libraries written for specific support for OO. There is no way round that.

Having said that if you want to see how bad MS Office can be try using Outlook (any version since 2002) and you will find out what slow is. Not only is it horrendously slow to load but when you check your emails it freezes up periodically until it has finished downloading.

It is interesting that you single out OO Draw for improvement - MSO doesn't even have a draw feature!

Have you tried inkscape

-Carol Haynes (March 04, 2009, 04:23 AM)

I only know what I can see. 

Regarding Outlook, I was just using it (once again - it's an on and off, love/hate - or more like a hate/really hate relationship!) and had to stop again; it now closes immediately after opening. Arrgghh! Tried Detect and Repair - didn’t help at all. So it is in the can again. Back to T-Bird for now.

Carol - you seem to think I am attacking OO and pushing Office. Not so. I mentioned the one thing I don't like about OO and you are on me like, well, you know! Take it easy - I am not besmirching your beloved OO! Regarding my comments on Draw, I know full well that MS has no such app. I just want OO's Draw to work better - and I am not alone!

Jim

[Carol Haynes]

Sorry if I gave you that impression - actually I use MS Office 2007 almost exclusively.

I did have a play with OO 3 and am generally impressed with what they have acheived and I have recommended it to a number of people as an alternative to spending money.

No software is without its irritations but as far as free software goes I think OO is an admirable effort to meet a need. I just think sometime people can be rather critical of a product that is being given away for free. It happens here some times (rarely) when people get uptight when something isn't quite right in software produced by Mouser and others.

WRT MS Outlook - I seem to be in a hate relationship too but I actually prefer it (when it works) to the alternatives. I like some of the new features in Outlook 2007 but I just wish they would make the whole thing run more efficiently and not have such a clunky feel in use. I presume it is in line for the ribbon treatment in the next version - which I am not against in principle - I just hope they focus on some of the practical issues.

[Midnight Rambler]

Have been using OO since 1.14 and biggest drawback is still that user has to download full file even for minor version update.  Not as big an issue since broadband but FF finally got it right so why can't OO?

Also, installation of 3.0 over 2.X corrupted some components of my Vista SP1 laptop.  Luckily, had TI 11 image and restored.

And what's up with OO's funky real-time spell check function?  Still haven't figured out how it works.