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  The Importance of KOffice
KDE Office Suite Posted by Raphael Langerhorst on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @08:36
from the human-resource-management dept.
KOffice is built on KDE. This advantage brings enormous potential in terms of integration, performance, scalability, and with the coming full support for the OASIS Open Document Format, even portability. All these factors are vital for business deployments. The KOffice team is looking for contributors and developers to significantly increase and utilize the potential of KOffice even further.

The functionality KOffice has already reached in its short life is significant. And still, KOffice has good performance and is fully usable on low-end hardware, which makes it suited for organizations and individuals. This could even save costs when upgrading or migrating the office software and old hardware can be reused.

Because KOffice is built directly on KDE, it can offer the best office experience on a KDE desktop. Many excellent technologies already present in the KDE Framework are available for KOffice at almost no cost. Examples are:

  • Automation via DCOP
  • Document location abstraction (remote file editing) via KIO
  • Fully object oriented design through the Qt and KDE Frameworks
  • Application Embedding through KParts

Additionally KOffice extends the application embedding capability (KParts) of KDE to allow highly integrated documents. Such a close KDE integration also results in fast application load time, while still having all these features available.

Even full OASIS Open Document Format support is being worked on which is the same file format as OpenOffice.org 2 will use. This will make data exchange with OpenOffice.org seamless while being a fully integrated KDE office suite. Building on an approved and open document standard is a key feature today.

Much work has already been done and central office components like KWord, KPresenter, Kivio and KSpread are quite stable with only a few glitches here and there.

And KOffice has many more applications to offer that will be included in next major releases:

  • Krita (Pixmap Graphics)
  • Kexi (Database Frontend)
  • KPlato (Project Management)

All these applications are in development and have a huge potential. Additionally some smaller utilities such as KFormula and KOffice Workspace are available.

As you can see, KOffice is close to offer a very complete office environment, completely integrated into your KDE environment and completely free.

The development of so many additional office components has of course raised the number of developers needed. We are looking for additional contributors to offer all KOffice components in a fully stable and feature complete state.

If you are interested in helping to make this happen, feel free to have a look at the webpage and contact the developers mailing list. Both, developers and documentation writers, are very welcome. There are also easy-to-get-started jobs available. And in case you have special interests of any kind feel free to contact us.


References:



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  Related Links
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Over 40 comments listed. Printing out index only.
Scripting in Kexi.
by kb on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @09:12
In many applications logic is added to widgets and controls depending on selection. So what language will be used in adding business logic in Kexi?

Cb..
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koffice is a copy.
by undo on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @09:13
copying bad concepts sucks. change the way of editing documents. i for myself dont want another word. i dont like the concept of it.

and by the way - the complete koffice is just a complete copy of msoffice and - dor krita adobe...

mod me as troll if you want :(...
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OpenOffice.org + KOffice = KDE OFFice :)
by Fast_Rizwaan on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @09:14
KDE integration of OpenOffice.org is better...

it would be better to add frame and other koffice features to OpenOffice.org and merging it with koffice for a better Office suite.

I find OpenOffice.org with KDE integration more useful than KOffice alone or just OpenOffice.org.

So, Please instead of reinventing the wheel for koffice, add KDE components to OpenOffice.org and make it useable bothways, as openoffice.org has more developers and userbase.

OpenOffice + Koffice + KDE fancy stuff (DCOP, embedding etc). will be the best thing for KDE and Unix.
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KOffice presentations
by Raphael Langerhorst on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @09:22
FYI, I'm doing a presentation mainly on possibilities of KOffice automation and KDE integration at the http://www.itnt.at (Vienna) on the 17th of Feb.

And if nothing stops me I'll be at FOSDEM and doing a similar talk on KOffice, particularly on automation and integration (DCOP,...), focusing on developing such automation (with Kommander, etc.). This will be held in the KDE Developers Room - see http://www.kde.me.uk/index.php?page=fosdem-2005 for details.

I feel like this is really a significant potential of KOffice that needs a bit of awareness.

Cheers,
Raphael
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Some thoughts
by mikeyd on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @10:31
Firstly, koffice's modifications to the way kparts work should be added to the "real" kparts as fast as practical, because they're really useful. It's got to the stage that new applications tend to provide koffice kparts rather than "normal" ones. While this is not really a problem, IMO it shows that koffice kparts are simply what kparts should be.
Secondly, KSpread needs a lot of work. It's so far behind Excel, Gnumeric and OOo Spreadsheet in terms of formula support. Would it be practical to use the engine from one of those? If not, someone code in more functions, please, because at the moment it's really not useable for advanced spreadsheet stuff.
Thirdly, Kexi could really be the 'k'iller app if it stabilises and is reintegrated. There is nothing like it on linux, and the lack of an Access replacement is a real problem for some people who would otherwise be willing to move.
All in all, everyone program more for koffice.
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KOffice Rocks!
by secretfire on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @12:12
//Begin rant

I guess I'm the only poster who actually thinks KOffice is a good thing. I believe KOffice can integrate with KDE better than OpenOffice.org will ever be able to. KOffice is also a very high-performance suite. OO.org is sluggish. Also, have you ever thought that KDE devs might actually LIKE working on KOffice and not OO.org?! Just because you want them to work on OO.org integration doesn't mean THEY want to. If you want to have OO.org integration, why don't you code it yourself?

//End rant
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Go KOffice!
by Pedro Fayoll on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @13:05
I don't use KOffice much myself, since I'm not really an office software user, still I love KDE and love to see something like this under development. I do have the latest KOffice installed though, and always install new releases and give a try to every package just to see its state. Most apps open in a blink and seem quite stable, at least for the small jobs I've used them for.

I'm really impatient about Krita this time, hope it becomes as good as the GIMP with time. Also, I don't know if Karbon14 is still mantained, but having a full-featured vector graphics app for KDE surely wouldn't hurt.

All in all I think KOffice is already quite good but most importantly it has great potential to become a top office suite. Let's see what it is like by KDE 4 with all that Qt4 has to offer :)

Big thanks to all the great developers!
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koffice should get inspired by iWork
by Magnus on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @13:15
Let me start with saying that KOffice is really great! However, it can always be better.. :)

I think it would be really nice with the same kind of integration between koffice and other application, as apple has between iwork and ilife. Apples solution seemes really nice thanks to the good integration. Watch the keynote speech (from apples webpage) and see for yourselves! :)
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Reuse of OOo file filters?
by Jakob Petsovits on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @13:17
As far as I can see, a main reason that people stick with OpenOffice.org is its superior .doc file support. I wonder if it's a lot of work to port the OpenOffice .doc filter to KOffice (maybe the other ones are as useful too?) in order to enable KOffice users to abandon OOo. If I remember right, there's even a command line tool in OOo, so if this is not too much work to separate it should bring more users (and maybe also developers) to KOffice.

Of course, it would be better if the OpenOffice.org developers would split their file support into a separate library which would enable other Open Source office suites to keep the same high standard for importing files and work together on file support. Well, I don't want to know how long I have to wait for that.

But even without library, there's still the same destination format (OASIS) that both can use, so it can't be that difficult to import some "foreign code", or is it?
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When will KDE get it?
by Tom on Monday 17/Jan/2005, @17:02
Perception is reality.

Currently KDE is not marketing itself well and it is not creating the momentum such an excellent piece of software should have.

The website does not look attractive enough, there is not enough press and the fund raising efforts are pathetic. Take a page from GNOME on this, they are getting the corporate support and $$$ at a greater rate than KDE. Or are they? It doesn't really matter because that is the perception and business executives will make decisions baesd on these perceptions.

1. The GNOME.org website is easy to use, clean and with a graphically intensive layout. KDE looks like any other lame and arid website. It doesn't please the senses and it doesn't entice new users. The fact that most KDE websites such as for Konqueror and Kmail are either out of date or terrible unappealing does not help either.

2. KDE needs to better show off its corporate support and features as GNOME has. It needs to be obvious without searching past the front page.

3. Fundraising sucks to. There was actually a wish on this http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=63868 which got lots of votes. It proposed a way to make KDE more attractive to donate to. However, the developers kust didn't care about this issue.

To quote Stephan Binner:

"Nobody on kde-www sees a reason why this should stay open."

And then it was marked as fixed, all the while, nothing changed.

Meanwhile, GNOME has 1/3 of their front page dedicated to the GNOME Foundation and approximately half of the page is comprised of a graphic asking people to help out and support the project. They also have distinguishing names based on the amount you donate and also gifts. They make sure donors feel happy and people have an incentive to donate.

SpreadFirefox also has very solid marketing efforts and as 20 million people will tell you, it's working.

KDE needs to understand that half of what makes a successful product is marketing. (which creates momentum and acceptance) Please don't let KDE become the next great technology that never really saw the light.

BTW: Please don't ask me to do my part and help. I have. Saying taht "shut the hell up and do something" type of remark won't solve the problem.
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Pls. use a good timing for spreading KOffice
by Roland Wolf on Tuesday 18/Jan/2005, @12:28
There are two deadly errors for marketing open source software:
1. Not to market it at all.
2. To tell it is production ready when it is not.

KWord will be a productive tool as soon as the kerning problem is solved (QT4!). I am writing mainly simple office letters. Still the print result of KWord is too ugly to be sent to clients. As soon as this is fixed KWord will be my primary text processor. Occasional crashes will not stop me from using it.
Please be careful with pushing the use of KOffice today because people might not give it a second chance.
KOffice has a bright future. The vehicle which will bring a critical mass of users however is a production ready KWord. I am convinced that we will have this in a couple of months. This should be the time to sprad KOffice.
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kopenoffice ala firefox mozilla
by Anton Velev on Wednesday 19/Jan/2005, @19:09
hey,

kopenoffice is out there and already working, even a kpart exists. interface is already kde native (via the OOo native widget framework). i think the best bet would be a stripped down kopenoffice ala firefox for mozilla where the things can be un-bloated.

meanwhile a better effort could be put on integrating current koffice offerings into OOo. that way the two projects will integrate and probably unite/merge.

just imagine if OOo could have the already working office modules that OOo has no analogue (especially kexy).

kword however as a mature and stable lightweight wordprocessor can still be kept as just a light weight processor for simple docs like M$ still keeps MS Write but offers the advanced MS Word.

both projects will benefit this way, on one hand all improvements to all modules available to both worlds, and on another will keep kde office apps portable to other platforms and even more platform and toolkit independent.

i haven't checked in details the koffice parts code, but i beleive that if the 'design' is good it will as easy as OOo was ported to kde the koffice kparts to be ported to OOo architecture.

just a suggestion
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The importance of ports
by Adam on Friday 21/Jan/2005, @05:43
If kOffice is to suceed, it MUST work on multiple platforms. I mean sure, you can get it to work on windows, or mac OS, but it's a hack. It's slow and it's weird. I for one stopped using koffice as I switched to mac not because iWork was better, but because koffice is not avaiable for that platform. Port it and it will spread. I think it has the potential, koffice is a much better piece of software than OO.org, so please make it available for those of us who don't use Unix/X11.
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KOffice sucks.
by Turd Ferguson on Saturday 22/Jan/2005, @11:40
Development should quit on it since it is so far behind Abiword/Gnumeric and OppenOffice.org

KDE is the best desktop environment for Unix, but not its office suite.

Take the rules for instance. Very ugly.

Also, document rendering is the worst of all of the office suites for linux.

Nobody cares about the OASIS Open Document Format, so don't waste your time supporting it.

Usually I am one of the biggest KDE supporters around, but I think that KOffice is an embarrassment to the project and developers should quit wasting their time on it.
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