Author Topic: First looks at OpenOffice 3.1 (Read 23882 times)

Edvard · « **on:** February 26, 2009, 03:15 PM »

The folks at OOoNinja have posted a round-up of all the shiny new bits of OpenOfffice 3.1
Looks quite cool

OpenOffice.org 3.1 is 65 days away, and developers are finishing up more than 1000 issues targeted for this Microsoft Office killer packing an army of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.

http://www.oooninja....31-new-features.html

from someplace I forget now...

fenixproductions · « **Reply #1 on:** February 26, 2009, 03:42 PM »

Definitely: must have lecture. I hope they will make Draw usable

* fenixproductions starts reading...

f0dder · « **Reply #2 on:** February 26, 2009, 03:57 PM »

* f0dder yawns.

Are they going to cut down the bloat a bit and speed it up?

J-Mac · « **Reply #3 on:** February 26, 2009, 11:32 PM »

When 3.0 was first available a few months ago I was all ready to download and install it but then I read all the stink about how the installer automatically associates all Microsoft Office files with Open Office - without asking and without offering any facility to change that from within OO. A lot of folks were unhappy and very vocal about that but OO was not looking to change that behavior. Basically a stance of - if you're going to use it, do it all the way.

Ballsy, I admit, but a bit over the top! I wonder if they finally decided to relent and stop that?

Jim

Edvard · « **Reply #4 on:** February 27, 2009, 10:21 AM »

wat?

My 3.0 installation didn't do that... they must have changed it.

fenixproductions · « **Reply #5 on:** February 27, 2009, 10:26 AM »

First 3.x release removed all associations from 2.x too (I had to restored them manually) but newer updates did nothing wrong. Well.. they did nothing at all with assocs. I've deleted DOC filetype from my system and nothing changed after upgade

.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #6 on:** February 27, 2009, 10:29 AM »

Why no just use Open Office Portable 3.0.1 - doesn't do anything to your system - just unzip and run.

The only issue I have found with it is that if you put it in a folder way down the tree it doesn't like the path lengths involved. Shove it in a folder in a partition root and it is fine.

fenixproductions · « **Reply #7 on:** February 27, 2009, 10:42 AM »

Why no just use Open Office Portable 3.0.1 - doesn't do anything to your system - just unzip and run.
-Carol Haynes (February 27, 2009, 10:29 AM)

For me it loads slower than standard version and I can't just use Enter on files. At least last issue will no longer be valid with TC 7.5

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #8 on:** February 27, 2009, 11:34 AM »

It is easy to set up a file association if you just want to double click a file to load it.

It doesn't seem to load much slower from a hard drive partition than the installed version IME.

Ehtyar · « **Reply #9 on:** February 27, 2009, 03:25 PM »

Once again John Haller had made an application "portable" that can be made so by a few configuration file modifications. If anyone's interested I'll post the instructions. They would remove the delay fenix mentioned because there would be no importing of settings and registry keys.

Ehtyar.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #10 on:** February 27, 2009, 03:39 PM »

Ehtyar, Please do post it.

J-Mac · « **Reply #11 on:** February 27, 2009, 03:45 PM »

wat?

My 3.0 installation didn't do that... they must have changed it.
-Edvard (February 27, 2009, 10:21 AM)

I didn't experience it - I think it was still in beta or pre-release and when I went to look at it there was a lot of turmoil at their forums about it, so I just stuck with the version I had - think it was 2.3.x or 2.4.x - can't remember.

Jim

Ehtyar · « **Reply #12 on:** February 27, 2009, 05:17 PM »

In the interest of simplicity, use the portable version of OOo for this as there's some DLL hell that needs to be sorted out which Haller has already done (stupid fsking visual c++ 9).
1. Take the 'App\openoffice' folder from the portable installation and place it where you want your OO installation to be. Rename it if you like.
2. Go into the 'program' folder inside the 'openoffice' folder and delete 'setup.ini'.
3. Open 'bootstrap.ini' and change the line 'UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/OpenOffice.org/3' to 'UserInstallation=${OOO_BASE_DIR}/../Settings'.
4. Done

Your settings will now live in 'openoffice\Settings'.

Note: This does not take into account use of Java as the way OOo handles finding it is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLS**T.

Ehtyar.

Edvard · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2009, 11:30 AM »

Thanks for the tip, Ehtyar, but has anyone tried OOo 3.1?

I think I'll try portablizing my current 3.0 install and give 3.1 a whirl, I'd love to know how it's coming along.
BBL with comments...

Ehtyar · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2009, 05:45 PM »

I haven't tried 3.1. I'm usually a bleeding-edge man, but OOo is unstable enough IMO.

Ehtyar.

Edvard · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2009, 06:40 PM »

Whoa...
It is faster...

The initial startup with the splash screen and all took less than a count of 10 (minus the 'Registration' part)
After the quickstart loads, the start-up is darn near instant.

Damn.

I haven't had much time to play around, but it looks very nearly the same, with a few 'perks' as mentioned in OOoNinja's article.
I'll keep poking around and see what I find...

J-Mac · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2009, 10:17 PM »

I've always hated the QuickStart thing; why are we required to open the whole office suite just to work on a Writer document? I think that's a poor implementation. I prefer only opening what I need at any time.

Jim

tomos · « **Reply #17 on:** March 03, 2009, 04:30 AM »

In the interest of simplicity, use the portable version of OOo for this as there's some DLL hell that needs to be sorted out which Haller has already done (stupid fsking visual c++ 9).
1. Take the 'App\openoffice' folder from the portable installation and place it where you want your OO installation to be. Rename it if you like.
2. Go into the 'program' folder inside the 'openoffice' folder and delete 'setup.ini'.
3. Open 'bootstrap.ini' and change the line 'UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/OpenOffice.org/3' to 'UserInstallation=${OOO_BASE_DIR}/../Settings'.
4. Done Your settings will now live in 'openoffice\Settings'.
-Ehtyar (February 27, 2009, 05:17 PM)

I tried this with the portable apps version
it does start very quickly (amazingly quickly for OO)
Only used it very briefly the other night
the first couple of uses it wouldnt close properly and I had to kill the process but it seems to be okay now

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #18 on:** March 03, 2009, 04:54 AM »

I've always hated the QuickStart thing; why are we required to open the whole office suite just to work on a Writer document? I think that's a poor implementation. I prefer only opening what I need at any time.

Jim
-J-Mac (March 02, 2009, 10:17 PM)

You don't have to use quick start - jusrt click on the application directly.

Edvard · « **Reply #19 on:** March 03, 2009, 10:03 AM »

Yes, the quickstart I'm referring to is the thing that sits in your tray and has some OpenOffice components pre-loaded into memory. It's supposed to reduce start-up time and, well, with this version it actually works.
You can start up any component you want from your start menu (draw, writer, etc).

J-Mac · « **Reply #20 on:** March 03, 2009, 03:48 PM »

I've always hated the QuickStart thing; why are we required to open the whole office suite just to work on a Writer document? I think that's a poor implementation. I prefer only opening what I need at any time.

Jim
-J-Mac (March 02, 2009, 10:17 PM)

You don't have to use quick start - jusrt click on the application directly.
-Carol Haynes (March 03, 2009, 04:54 AM)

Oh, I do! But it is the default so on a new installation - or at least it used to be. Opening a document or any of the individual apps triggers the QuickStart. Maybe they changed it in this version? Hopefully.

Jim

Edvard · « **Reply #21 on:** March 03, 2009, 05:52 PM »

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?

J-Mac · « **Reply #22 on:** March 03, 2009, 06:05 PM »

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

Edvard · « **Reply #23 on:** March 03, 2009, 06:16 PM »

Aha, I understand now.

Yes, the new OpenOffice 3.1 starts up much faster even with the startup load.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #24 on:** March 03, 2009, 07:46 PM »

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.