Comments:
Suse binarys - KDE user - 2001-07-30
Where is the Suse binarys..
Oh! there they are (overachievers). Just like I like them.
RTF...? - philmes - 2001-07-30
I've read some discussions on the mailing lists, but when will RTF *import* be supported in KWord (I'm guessing after 1.1 now)? It's quite important for round-tripping - I can export RTF docs fine, but I can't import them again.
Anybody have any clues...?
Looks Great! - Moritz Moeller-Herrmann - 2001-07-30
But kword is still missing essential features.
Or am I just blind? I can't find footnotes or hyphenation.
Re: Looks Great! - David Faure - 2001-07-30
That's for after 1.1.
We have to stop the features at some point, and get the baby out. Otherwise people would still judge koffice from koffice-1.0, where KWord wasn't useable. At least koffice-1.1 is useable for many many common tasks. Those two features are necessary in the long run but not so much "essential" to get some basic work done.
Footnotes are definitely coming some time after 1.1.
Hyphenation is a very tricky problem due to the different rules in various languages, I have no idea how to tackle that one. Does abiword do hyphenation ? :)
Hyphenation - Moritz Moeller-Herrmann - 2001-07-30
I guess the best thing would be to somehow make use of the Latex hyphenation code, convert/implement it to kword somehow. Latex claims to have excellent hyphenation and it has very good support for many languages.
Don't know how hard that would be, but good hyphenation is hard to do, so why not build upon the works of others?
Re: Looks Great! - Andreas Pietzowski - 2001-07-30
Just a suggestion:
For every document the user should be able to set the language (which is saved within the document) it is written in. So there can be different "KOffice-Plugins" in this specific laguage for the hyphenation.
What do you think?
Re: Looks Great! - Anonymous - 2001-07-30
The problem is, if you have several languages in one document. Since KOffice uses xml, one could use a tag like <language=de> bla bla bla </language> for defining a language for a paragraph, a sentence or even a single word!
Re: Looks Great! - Evan "JabberWokky" E. - 2001-07-30
Since KOffice uses xml, one could use a tag like <language=de> bla bla bla </language> for defining a language for a paragraph, a sentence or even a single word!
First comes the observation that country codes do not equal languages. Some countries have several very different languages, some of which have the same name: America has dozens, perhaps hundreds of languages within its borders. I have a friend who used to correspond with her father in the language of the Seneca tribe. While KDE as a whole will probably never be translated to the vast majority of these languages, they *will* be word processed. I don't know of any language code, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is an ISO standard.
Second comes the question: is this an appropriate forum for such discussion? Maybe yes, maybe no. I know the developers read the dot, as several are regular posters. Maybe a vote is in order, just to gague people. (Personally, I like such discussion - I think many users of KDE are people like me, developers who have too heavy a work load to take on a KDE project, or sysadmins with programming experience).
--
Evan
Re: Looks Great! - Per - 2001-07-31
> First comes the observation that country codes do not equal languages.
No, butr in this case Germany (country) and German (language) happens to have the same code. Some others don't: se=Sweden, sv=Swedish.
> I don't know of any language code, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is an ISO standard.
You're correct. You can find it here: http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html
> Second comes the question: is this an appropriate forum for such discussion?
If you want to discuss this more thorough you should head to the I18N mailinglist.
Re: Looks Great! - Andreas Pietzowski - 2001-07-31
Ok, then lets define _one_ language at the beginning of the document and this language is the language for the whole document. (If you have multiple languages you have to make your own hyphenation).
Is it a big problem to count all languages all over the world (not all dialects!) and give them different names in the <language>-tag?
Re: Looks Great! - Thomas Piechocki - 2001-07-30
This is the point.
Hyphenation (or at least the possibility to set a 'soft-hyphen') *is* an essential feature of word processing. Without hyphenation, kword (and abiword of course ;) are more editors then word processors. And for KWord soft-hyphenation is extremly important, because the text of the printed page never looks like the text in the kword window.
A KOffice final release without any kind of hyphenation will never be an alternative to commercial word processors. I don't know *one* word processing application for Windows or OS/2 without this feature.
Thomas
Re: Looks Great! - Bob Jones - 2001-07-30
Implement it yourself, ye old windbag. Where they currently are at 1.1 is not a bad position--remember when this project started, and how far it has come since 1.0. They cannot make a full-blown word processor capable of competing with Lotus or MS Word in a few months.
Vent your anger towards their ineptitude by implementing hyphens and sending them the patch. That is at least a little more productive than vainly blowing your creaky vocal bagpipes, exasperating that kword "will never be an alternative" to Windows-based word processors. Next I expect some foul, rotting lizard to crawl half-dead out of your gizzard to inform the world that "KDE will go bankrupt" due to "uncompetetive offerings." Spare us the pleasure.
Re: Looks Great! - not me - 2001-07-31
>blah blah blah hyphenation blah blah
What the heck is everyone going on about? I've used MS Works 4.0 for years and never bothered with hyphenation. For your average guy writing a letter or term paper, hyphenation is waaaay down on the list of desired features (in English anyway, is it different in other languages?). If you're writing a newspaper or something, well that's different. But KWord isn't ready for that anyway.
I hardly think hyphenation is more important than, say, footnotes or WYSIWYG printing. Fix those first!
BTW, MS Works 4.0 and all its predecessors (possibly some of its sequels too) belong on your list of Windows word processors without hyphenation.
Re: Looks Great! - Daniel Molkentin - 2001-07-31
WYSIWYG is already almost done in a Branch which will be merged to HEAD after the 1.1 release.
Cheers,
</daniel>
Re: Looks Great! - Alain - 2001-07-31
> If you're writing a newspaper or something, well that's different. But KWord isn't ready for that anyway.
I feel that KWord wants to be both MS Word and MS Publisher, and it seems possible. I think a minority of Word users use hyphenation, but a majority of Publisher users use it. KWord will be a tool for writing "newspaper or something" as you say, so hyphenation is necessary and important.
> I hardly think hyphenation is more important than, say, footnotes or WYSIWYG printing. Fix those first!
You are right, there are priorities, everything can't be done at the beginning. I see there is a great work on Kword, things are going better and better and, continuing in this way, it is going to be a great tool !
I am less confident with some other KOffice apps. For example I don't see arrows coming in Kivio, I fear that Krayon will continue to stay as bad as today... Yesterday, I have tried a "drag and drop", and then a "copy-paste" from Konqueror to Krayon (beta3), both were impossible, these KDE applications don't work together... I wish that the KWord developpment (as the Konqueror one and some others) is an example to follow...
Re: Looks Great! - Carbon - 2001-08-01
KOffice is not ready for general use yet. No one is saying that any of these featues is unimportant, but the whole point is "They're getting to it"
Besides, DnD and C&P operations are both being majorly worked on in QT3, iirc.
Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - Alain - 2001-08-01
> Besides, DnD and C&P operations are both being majorly worked on in QT3, iirc
I am surprised, I thought it was one if the first things to do...
Worse : there are confusions between the copy/paste use and the use of Select + the mouse third button.
Examples :
- In KMail : I make Ctrl C on "Bla1", then I select "Bla2". I do Ctrl V and "Bla2" is appearing. Bad !!
- In KWord, idem : "Bla1" is appearing. Good.
- In Kmail : I make Ctrl C on "Bla1", then I select "Bla2". I do third button and "Bla2" is appearing. Good.
- In KWord, idem : "Bla1" is appearing. Bad !!
Such things are VERY VERY important to work quietly. It needs a global policy in all KDE for doing the same things when using Copy/Paste, Select/Third button, Drag&Drop and others reflex that all users need...
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - Carbon - 2001-08-01
I think you misunderstand. What I mean by "It's being majorly worked on in QT3" is that it'll be in the first stable QT3, (at least, I'm pretty sure it'll be). KDE 3 will be exclusivly based on QT3, meaning you'll get a global policy at the QT/X level, including support for copying and pasting imagery, rich text, etc.
Also, about c&p operations and the third mouse button : those are seperate buffers, by design. The select & middle mouse operation is low-level X stuff, with only support for text.
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - Alain - 2001-08-01
> KDE 3 will be exclusivly based on QT3, meaning you'll get a global policy at the QT/X level, including support for copying and pasting imagery, rich text, etc.
Very good. But I did not misunderstood : today it is badly done, there are many incoherences. I am glad it will soon being better (however 6 months is a little long...)
> The select & middle mouse operation is low-level X stuff, with only support for text.
Yes, but, as I said in my example about Kmail, there are bad interactions with copy/paste. Are you sure that Qt3 will correct such a thing ? Is'nt it a bug, and have I to post it in bugs.kde.org ?
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - Carbon - 2001-08-02
Well, it's not really a bug, imho. The X clipboard, which is the middle mouse thing, is inherently text based, and has quite a few limitations (I believe there is an arbitrary size limit, could someone with more knowledge about XFree check?). The new clipboard in QT3 (as well as the current KDE clipboard) is, iirc, totally seperate from the X buffer.
I suppose though, that many people would like the features of the X clipboard (i.e. instant selection) while still keeping consistency and only one clipboard. Maybe KDE could interrupt the whole process, but I don't know much about it (again, could someone check?)
Actually, there was a debate quite a while ago about this on #kde, whether or not to have two clipboards or one.
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - x_fan - 2001-08-02
Actually X has more than one Clipboard already
So Qt3 will be now just using the exiting one based on selection as well as one which will be compatible with windows model of clipboard
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - Carbon - 2001-08-02
Er, I may have misread that kmail thing. Idem. means what?
And are you sure that when you paste, the paste itself isn't selecting it and adding it to the x select buffer?
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - Alain - 2001-08-02
> And are you sure that when you paste, the paste itself isn't selecting it and adding it to the x select buffer?
I think that pasting don't have to select text and fill the X buffer (as in Netscape, Gedit and usual non KDE programs...)
- In my first test (bad for Kmail), I copy first, then select then paste.
- In my second test (bad for KWord), I copy first, then select then middle button.
About Kmail, it seems there is only one buffer, but it would be two buffers without interactions. So I think it is a bug. But, as any KDE program has not the same behaviour...
Kword uses two not independant buffers. Now I try Konqueror, I see it is like KMail... For me all are bad, there would be two independant buffers for copy/paste and select/middle button (as in Netscape, Gnumeric, Gedit and many other programs).
So I think it is a bug at the level of whole KDE. I wish it would be updated with KDE 3, perhaps before, if it don't need Qt3...
Re: Copy/paste and mouse third button : very bad - not me - 2001-08-03
Whoever said that the current KDE clipboard is supposed to be seperate from the X clipboard was wrong. That's a QT 2 thing and can't be changed; there's only one clipboard, and selecting some text overwrites whatever is in the clipboard. As soon as KDE 3 comes out this will be fixed, because it is already fixed in QT 3. There will be two clipboards: One that is replaced whenever you select something and is pasted with the middle mouse button, and another one that is only replaced when you do a Ctrl-C or 'Copy' and is only pasted when you do a Ctrl-V or 'Paste.' Two independent buffers, just like you want.
kdesupport required? - Rob - 2001-07-30
I thought the kdesupport module was deprecated. Shouldn't this dependancy now be removed and the individual libs outside of the KDE project be included in the requirements instead?
How much doesn't work under KDE 2.1.2? - Dr_LHA - 2001-07-30
Hi,
Just compiled under KDE 2.1.2 and RH7.1 and was wondering how many of the problems I see are due to it being compiled under 2.1.2. I knew I'd lose the decent printer support, but what about the following:
1. I can only start applications under koshell, selecting kword from the menu or typing kword in an xterm just exits (same for all other components). I had this problem with previous betas of Koffice 2.1 as well.
2. I can't import any thing, including an old kspread file from koffice 1.0. HTML, abiword, Excel, etc. imports all do nothing for me.
3. Inserting formulas or using kformula doesn't work properly. If I type a long line of text I can only see the bottom few points as if the window over the text is positioned too low.
Cheers.
Re: How much doesn't work under KDE 2.1.2? - Dr_LHA - 2001-07-30
I just noticed that I'm completely unable to save in any format as well! Is this something to do with mimetypes not being setup/recognised properly?
Re: How much doesn't work under KDE 2.1.2? - Protoman - 2001-07-31
I had the same problems when I was using koffice beta3 compiled from source on rh 7.1.
The solution I found now was to install the mandrake rpms for kde 2.1.2, they work exelent here on my redhat box....
Seems like once Redhat dosen't care about rpms anymore that I'll be forced to use mdk ones :)
Re: How much doesn't work under KDE 2.1.2? - Dr_LHA - 2001-07-31
Here's what I did:
I managed to fix it by installing bero's daily koffice build with --nodeps, it depends on CVS KDE 2.2, which I don't want to install until it's released (production system). I then went to my koffice build and did "make install", which copied over the RPM, so I could actually run the binaries without getting library failures.
Everything now works.
Bizzare way of doing things I know :-)
new KChart ? - Krame - 2001-07-31
Who are they ? - "Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB (which contributed the new KChart to KOffice)". What is the license ? I didn't noticed kchart on the list of new features. Any screenshots ?
Re: new KChart ? - reihal - 2001-07-31
It's the KDE-veteran Kalle Dalheimer's company.
Don't worry.
Staroffice is now open source and does hypens [1] - Speak to me softly - 2001-07-31
... so steal the code from there why doncha ;-) ??
---
[1] They also do footnotes!
Re: Staroffice is now open source and does hyphens - Speak to me softly - 2001-07-31
And spellchecking!!
s/hypens/hyphens/g
Re: Staroffice is now open source and does hyphens - Rajan Rishyakaran - 2001-08-01
Actually, OpenOffice doesn't have SpellChecker, its third party :(
Hyphenation - Spelling Guy - 2001-07-31
I think it should be implemented at the level of Qt's rich text widget for Qt 3.0 ... I mean if they can do bi-directional text what's so hard about hyphenation? ;-)
But yeah likley TeX or LaTeX are the places to look. AFAIK Abiword has none of this either.
Its open office, and there is Klyx - Rajan Rishyakaran - 2001-08-01
staroffice is not open source, open office is, that is until staroffice 6 comes out, which would have a propeitry front end, because openoffice is lgpl. plus, code base is very different.
Also, heard of Klyx, Lyx version for KDE? Its a latex word prossecor.
What about... - Carbon - 2001-07-31
What happened to Krayon, anyways?
Who started this KPlato thing that's mentioned loosely on the KOffice site, and when do they think it will become usuable and in KO? (Sounds very cool, by the way)
Were there absolutely no changes to Kugar and Kivio between beta3 and rc1?
Re: What about... - Evan "JabberWokky" E. - 2001-07-31
>> Who started this KPlato thing that's mentioned loosely on the KOffice site
Curious, I looked it up. Anybody who wants a bit more info, read:
http://www.koffice.org/kplato/
and from the linked docs:
http://www.koffice.org/kplato/docs/
"The purpose of the K PLAnning TOol (KPlato) project is to develop a Project Managment tool for Linux that will allow people to effectively plan and schedule projects in many different fields, including software development, manufacturing processes, and construction."
Interesting.
--
Evan
Re: What about... - reihal - 2001-07-31
Kool! I need one of those! *sigh*
This is terrific - Mark Grant - 2001-07-31
I'd like to thank absolutely everyone involved with this release. I don't seem to need StarOffice for much anymore and kword and Kontour are extremely nice to use.
Thanks to all.
Regards
Is this really correct? - Claes - 2001-07-31
<i>...find any remaining bugs before we are stuck with them until the 1.2 release </i>
This does not sound like a successful road to a stable product. It seems KOffice will remain in constant development, where bugs are common and not fixed until new ones are created together with new features. I hope I got it wrong though.... What about fixing bugs until it is stable, and then start developing 1.2?
Re: Is this really correct? - Evan "JabberWokky" E. - 2001-07-31
> This does not sound like a successful road to a stable product.
You're new to software development, aren't you? That's what beta testing *IS*... finding any bugs that the developers missed. The idea is that the actual release has no bugs, but that can only happen if all bugs are reported. This is just a friendly reminder that, if you find a bug, report it.
--
Evan
Re: Is this really correct? - Claes - 2001-07-31
No I'm not. I have used Linux since 1996. And - I think Linux has a better development model with the stable and development versions. I guess you are the new one. Ever heard the phrase "it will be released when it is ready"?
Re: Is this really correct? - Evan "JabberWokky" E. - 2001-08-01
>> No I'm not. I have used Linux since 1996. And - I think Linux has a better development model with the stable and development versions.
And I've been using Unix since 1979, and the guy I had lunch with a few hours ago was using punch cards in the 1960s. It doesn't matter. The only reason I mentioned it was because you're objecting to the statement (paraphrased): "We'd better find all the bugs before the release so we can fix them".
What is your alternative? Not search for bugs, or not fix them? Linux has the exact same development cycle - Add features (in major.odd), debug them, release a "stable" version (major.even), and then say "oops! we missed this bug" and release fix versions (major.even.revision). As someone who runs many SMP machines, I can tell you that the 2.4.x series is in no way bug free yet. Heck, on my home machine, I have to append="" a few paramaters to fix some bad assumptions made about power management.
Think of the b and rc series in KDE and KOffice as the dot odd versions of linux. If anything, KDE uses a versioning system that is much more in line with industry conventions - and it works the same (functionally) as linux releases.
--
Evan
Try it before speaking! - thierry - 2001-08-01
>This does not sound like a successful road to a stable product.
Many bugs reports are in fact feature not yet implemented.
Before speaking like this, try kword!
regards.
Glad KDE user - Jason Spisak - 2001-07-31
I would like to thank Thomas Zander, Shaheed Haque, David Faure, Laurent Montel, Igor Janssen
Werner Trobin, John Califf, Andrea Rizzi, Ulrich Kuettler, Stephan Kulow for making Koffice, especially Kword a usable office alternative. I have been using it for my office suite, printing letters, envelopes, making budgets, preparing presentations, since 1.1beta. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Re: Glad KDE user - John Marttila - 2001-08-02
I have to second that!
I'm a brand new Linux user. I have been running Mandrake 7.2 and KDE as a trial for about three months (Actually bought some Mandrake disks last fall but didn't try it much until recently. I may also try SuSe and Debian soon too.). KDE is nice, and I find the KOffice suite plenty full featured and stable enough for my needs. And I work from home and use the computer extensively for my business.
I'm amazed that this great software is available and I can now make the switch without paying exhorbitant Microsoft upgrade fees. I have no problem paying for good software, but it's Microsoft's tactics and monopoly that have sent me to Linux. This "smart links" feature they are talking about with the browser in the XP system has made up my mind. I have a few more things to try tonight and then I suspect I am going cold turkey and eliminating NT from my system.
Thanks for a beautiful set of KOffice apps! Hopefully I can contribute in the future. If not programming, maybe with docs.
Thanks again!
Krayon? - Rk - 2001-08-01
Is Krayon being maintained?
If so, how many people are working on it?
Just one?
There are no changes listed since the last release
(.beta3).
Re: Krayon? - Lukas Tinkl - 2001-08-01
Yes, it's unmaintained. Do you want to join the development and eventually become the maintainer?
Re: Krayon? - Alain - 2001-08-01
> Yes, it's unmaintained.
Wow, there were 5 mainteners (see "about"...) , now 0 ! It seems there is a very big problem...
> Do you want to join the development and eventually become the maintainer?
I hope that Rk is a developper...
Is it really necessary to put Krayon in KOffice 1.1 ? It can't open a .jpg or .png... It has many defaults...
In page 1 of www.koffice.org, it is said that Krayon is "a pixel-based image manipulation program like The GIMP or Adobe© Photoshop". Today, it is ridiculous !
It is bad for KOffice to have such a bloated app. I think it would be better to remove it from 1.1, and wait some developpers ...
What a pity, because a such app would be very useful...
Re: Krayon? - Rk - 2001-08-02
Alas, I am not a developer, I merely wanted to know whether it was being maintained or not.
Re: Krayon? - not me - 2001-08-03
Actually, it can open .jpg and .png files, it just has a bad user interface. You can't use the File->Open dialog, there's a separate menu option "Import" to import non-Krayon files.
Re: Krayon? - Alain - 2001-08-03
Wow, yes, in the middle of the menus, Image-import... It is the only way to open a jpg (no drag & drop, no copy/paste...)
And to save you have only to do Image-export, without any button or default key shortcut...
Bad user interface, as you say...
Now, I search to resize and rotate the image, I don't find in the menus... (strange, 5 menus are empty...)
And I have to be very carefull when exiting Krayon, there is no message when you have forhotten to save the file...
P.-S. : I succeed in resizing the image. I had to understand that zooming means resizing...
KOffice for Mac OS X and Windows - Rajan Rishyakaran - 2001-08-01
Isn't QT available for Mac OS X and Windows? Why not we make a version for it? Just a few simple UI change would do, and interegration with Windows Explorer (for Windows) and Finder (for Mac OS X) instead of Konqueror, etc. Isn't that better to get more users? The more users, the developers, the more developers, the more features. It would only help KOffice. Plus Krayon would be the first Photoshop-like app on Mac OS X.
Re: KOffice for Mac OS X and Windows - KDE User - 2001-08-02
isn't gimp available on MacOSX ?
Re: KOffice for Mac OS X and Windows - Lesly - 2003-09-20
only under x11
not so good - KDE User - 2001-08-02
Excuse my english..
I have just installed the Koffice RC1 on my suse7.2 box and I'am quite disapointed with this release.
It has many bugs with the language used (french) and often crashed (when trying to include a Kchart doc in kword for example).
I hope there will be some improvement before the final release.
Does anyone have such troubles or is it my installation ?
Thank you for your nice work...
Red Hat RPMS - Richard - 2001-08-02
According to the release note, rpms for Red Hat should be available on July 31.
Today is Aug 02.
Who is in charge of the rpms for Red Hat?
Yes, yes I know it isn't the KDE team...
Red Hat is one of the largest distributions if not THE largest. If the koffice team want people to test it then release rpms for Red Hat. Since a *lot* of users use Red Hat.
If there already is someone preparing or will soon prepare the rpms but hasn't had the time, then I apologize.
If there isn't any maintainers then the KDE team should *actively* go out and try to find someone. Not put a notice on the note-about-binary-maintainers, which few people read.
I unfortunately already maintain 3 programs for Redhat RPMS, and work 70 hours a week....
I don't want to sound ungrateful, but it's better just to write in the release notes that "No Red Hat packages are going to be released by anyone as far as we know."
Other than that. The KDE and Koffice teams are doing a GREAT job!
/Richard