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  KOffice 2 Alpha 5 Released
KDE Office Suite Posted by Inge Wallin on Thursday 22/Nov/2007, @13:05
from the I-think-therefore-I-release dept.
Immediately after the release of KDE 4.0 RC1, the KDE office suite KOffice today announced the release of version 2.0 Alpha 5. As with the previous alpha versions of 2.0, this is a technology preview more than a version for users to test out. Nonetheless there are some exciting new features and developments here. Read on for more information.

KOffice for Bairns

In addition to enhancements in all the applications themselves which are too many to mention here, there are a few particularly important improvements.

More Shared Infrastructure

The general libraries saw several enhancements. First, there is improved sharing by making resources like gradients and strokes shared. All applications are now using the same implementation of these features, something that will reduce bugs and heighten the users feeling of a unified application suite. Another change is that the basic routines for handling the OpenDocument Format have been broken out into its own library. This is not a user-visible change, but important nonetheless because it is this library that was suggested will be made available for other KDE developers in kdelibs 4.1.

Simplified Word Processor: Kids Office

Over two years ago, Inge Wallin proposed a simplified word processor to be used in school for kids. Thomas Zander, the KWord lead developer, made a proof of concept of this using the infrastructure of KOffice 2. This proved simpler than even Thomas would have believed, and KOffice 2.0 Alpha 5 now contains a first version of the KOffice for kids. Note that only the GUI is simplified, and that it still contains the full power of KOffice. This means that it can save and load the OpenDocment Format, which will make it easy to interact with other users of OpenOffice.org or the full KOffice suite.


Krita's Chinese Brush

New Drawing Tools in Krita

The Krita team is working hard to make Krita the best free pixel based image editor in the world. This version introduces so called Chinese Brushes and a new Path Tool. It also now has all the filters that Krita 1.6 had again, as well as a first-cut implentation of on-canvas filter previews.

More information about this release can be found in the full announcement or the release notes.



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Over 40 comments listed. Printing out index only.
ODF Library
by Kevin Krammer on Thursday 22/Nov/2007, @15:21
I am sooo looking forward to having at least basic ODF I/O capabilities available in a common library.

ODF spreadsheet tables instead of all the parsing, escaping/quoting and type guessing currently involved with CSV I/O. *sigh*
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Goal of Krita
by Grósz Dániel on Thursday 22/Nov/2007, @15:21
"The Krita team is working hard to make Krita the best free pixel based image editor in the world."

I propose to change the goal to make Krita simply the best pixel based image editor in the world.
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what about tables
by Rudolhp on Thursday 22/Nov/2007, @16:31
in koffice1 working with tables is really painfull, what about koffice2 ???
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Q Note.
by AnonymityIsGreat on Thursday 22/Nov/2007, @23:05
This version introduces so called Chinese Brushes and a new Pat...


So called? Bad choice of wording here Inge. Makes it sound ... hyped ... fake ...
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Alpha Version
by Anonymous on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @00:11
Thanks for giving it a realistic release state label.
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Release notes?
by T on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @02:57
It looks like very impressive work. I know my kids will benefit from the Kids Office.

For me, the link to the release notes doesn't work.
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Kids are the future
by Bruno Laturner on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @05:03
Honestly, I believe this Kids Office will help KOffice as a whole, improving its usability.

Often a very simple interface, for a very different mindset of people, helps a whole class of applications to reach a breakthrough.

Some legends tell that GUIs, mouses and OOP(to code them) where developed for kids use.
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Thanks, KOffice team, for your continued work
by Sum Yung Gai on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @10:27
Hello KOffice team,

I am currently a major user of OpenOffice.org, chiefly because of the MS Office file format compatibility issues that I have to deal with at work. Yes, I actually do like OO.o. However, at home, I've started to use KOffice here and there, and due to the shared library nature, it is far less memory-intensive than OO.o. I have run it on a 400MHz Power Mac G3 with 256MB DRAM, and it's actually quite functional (Kubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake") and snappier than I had expected. The PDF editing functionality of KWord already has proved handy at least a couple of times.

The OpenDocument support is, as far as I'm concerned, a major plus. It's taking a while for GNU/Linux to show lots of numbers on the desktop, sure. Note my choice of words: "show" lots of numbers. However, it's happening, and thus truly open standards like ODF will have to be paid attention to; the days of "Microsoft Word required" or "submit resume/proposal in MS Word format only" are numbered. Your work helps to further this goal.

Not that I care for MS Windows, but I've also come around to the decision that it was a good idea for KDE to support MS Windows with KDE 4. Here's why. If we can get folks to actually run KDE on MS Windows, then they'll have KOffice, among many other things (KTorrent, AmaroK, K3b, etc.). This is yet another vector to make it easier for folks to migrate to Free platforms like GNU/Linux and *BSD.

--SYG
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"KOffice for Bairns"
by Odysseus on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @11:40
Rofl... :-)
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Kids Office
by Christie Harris on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @16:10
Wanted to say thanks for this, it's sorely needed... and sometimes adults prefer simple interfaces too.
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Remember Creative Writer 2?
by Ruben Schade on Sunday 25/Nov/2007, @20:41
I remember when I was going to primary school in the 90s we used Microsoft Creative Writer 2 in the labs to type up our letters, reports and other projects, it was a lot of fun. I think this Kids primer interface will help to do the same thing: help make computers more accessible and fun to people at an earlier age.

This could also mean that for some when they're old enough they'll start demanding KDE based machines instead of Windows ones, which can only be a good thing right :)?
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Formating icons
by Fri13 on Monday 26/Nov/2007, @09:23
I hope those formating icons wont be so huge on Koffice2. I understand those should be big on kids version but c&#8217;mon, for normal usage those are HUGE sized.

I loved smaller ones on wich came with KDE4 RC version but when i opened formation panel, i got almoust heart attack because they toke almoust all the space what my 1280×800 monitor allows on vertical space.

So do we get them smaller size and im just missunderstand or will they stay as that?

1/4 size of those could be ideal&#8230;

I liked version what came with Mandriva 2008 cooker but there is so much missing so i cant get good touch for it.
There are many things what i would like to see on final, but i dont know are they currently left away (like many things are because there is missing so much menu entries) or has them disabled or leaved.
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