KOffice 1.4 Released

The KOffice team is pleased to announce the next version of the lightweight, integrated and complete office suite. With exciting highlights like two new components - Krita and Kexi - and support for the OASIS OpenDocument file format, the KOffice 1.4 release is a large step forward. Even a Live-CD featuring the latest release is available so you can try before actually installing anything. You can also take a look at screenshots at OSDir to get a first glance. Read the full announcement and the changelog for further details!

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by fast_rizwaan (not verified)

True that KRITA is not usable (workable) at 800x600 resolution. Hey guys try krandr and switch to 800x600 resolution and try working with krita! I'll bet that you won't find it a good experience.

Due to my monitor which can't have high refresh rate like 85 Hz at 1024x768, which is only available at 800x600 resolution and my monitor can have 60Hz at 1024x768 which causes much eye-strain and sore-eyes. I am stuck at 800x600 resolution.

You guys have to consider 800x600 resolution for all kde applications, because 800x600 *is the supported KDE resolution*.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

As I said, if you close the dockers, hide them push them down the bottom of the screen, roll them up or use the kivio-style dockers you'll have as much space available as possible for any application. You can disable the rulers, remove most of the toolbars -- that only leaves the window decorations and the tools toolbars.

But in the end, 800x600 is never going to be good enough to work with images, whether you use the Gimp, Kolourpaint or XPaint. Most _images_ are bigger than that.

by Illissius (not verified)

I use the Kivio-style dockers myself and they make Krita quite usable on my 1024x768 screen. However, if I may request that their positions be remembered, instead of having to rearrange them from the top left corner each time... ;)

by Boudewijn (not verified)

Working on that... The first beginning of that code is already in svn.

by Illissius (not verified)

thanks

by TIM.. (not verified)

Useless, because Tool Dialogs always stay on top, and on your way, this is terrible, I don't want to deal with tool dialogs and roll them up every time for a litle more space, the UI its a mess and need to be more intuitive. to me Krita is still on alpha.

by other ac (not verified)

You're still here?

by Fab (not verified)

Please be nice ...

Fab

by ExKritaUser (not verified)

Unfortunately, he/she is correct. Another example of the kind of software that is a road paved with good intentions... and never hath hell so much fury. Grossly over complicates the simplest things.

Ex. an eraser is a concept I thought I was familiar with. Used 'em like crazy, no doubt (i.e. yes, I make plenty of mistakes--BUT I ERASE THEM!). But thanks to krita, it's like meeting the eraser all over again. Click on it, touch your picture, and presto!, the whole thing turns purple. Huh?

This is why Microsoft, bad as it is, still makes sense to 80% of the world's computing population. And they PAY for it.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

Er...

I think you accidentally clicked, two or three years after the posting you replied to, on the "selection eraser" tool. Which erases bits of the current selection. If you want to erase bit of your painting, choose the eraser from the combobox in the topmost toolbar. (And yes, that's similar to the way a famous Windows application works.)

by Boudewijn (not verified)

So you basically want to have your cake and eat it? Have all the necessary options (layers, tools, colors...) in view all the time, and all of your image, and no separate windows, and all that at 800x600? And the Gimp gives you this? I must admit I am slightly puzzled, because when I work with the Gimp I don't have enough pixels for everything and my image on my 1600x1200 screen... But no doubt you can suggest a solution.

by TIM.. (not verified)

Im complaining by the fact the Main Windows (you know, the one containing the image) is covered by the tool windows in that resolution, you cannot send to back and you cannot roll them up while they are floating, so it covers your work space and only 40% of the image is usefull, that's the problem, maybe you should try it and really try to work in such situations and you will se how unusuable Krita becomes.

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

Ah, in that case, if even the kiviostyle dockers don't satisfy you (and you _have_ tried that, haven't you, you aren't just complaining about something you haven't worked with?), then I'm sorry. I won't make a style of tool windows that can disappear behind the image window. So Krita will never be usable for you.

by TIM.. (not verified)

I couldn't spec less.

by Brandybuck (not verified)

Let's get it working and functional before we start tweaking it to death. All the usability in the world won't make a non functioning application work. Krita has had a long and rocky history (I even worked on it at one point), so I'm extremely happy that it's finally released.

Just be glad they didn't copy the GIMP interface :-)

by younker (not verified)

the codes has some problem when built with gcc-4.0.1-rc2,
need do some forward declaration.

one is kexilabel, and the other is AiParser to AIParase.

by fast_rizwaan (not verified)

gcc 4 is not officially supported by KDE. you've to wait for gcc 4.x release which compiles KDE code flawlessly. strangely though Fedora core 4 has KDE 3.4.x with gcc 4 ;)

by Anior (not verified)

Well, we all remember them shipping "gcc" 2.96...

by superstoned (not verified)

most likely they have compiled kde 3.4.x with GCC 3.4.x! gcc 3.4.x and 4.0 are binary compattible, afaik. and fedora is thus a mixture of gcc 3.4-apps and gcc 4.0-apps.

by stephan (not verified)

Krita actually has the potential to become better than the venerable photoshop, and that is the first time for a free software image manipulation program. Gimp usability still remains poor after _years_ of criticism and development, and it is not even well integrated into gnome. Krita integrates into KDE perfectly and now gets all the power from the underlying KIO etc. subsystems and is also very usable. Veeery good work!

Now I'm going to try out Kexi... :-)

by aurelius_barzano (not verified)

After educating myself on KOffice a bit (being locked in Windows world for now makes it hard to test) and having a tryst with my friend's Adobe Creative Suite 2 (bought recently for a web design studio) I'd say there is one thing KOffice would benefit from, and I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement:

A honest summary view.

I fell for Adobe Bridge, honest. IMHO, that's one of the things that Adobe did right (overbloat in PS isn't one of them, personally I prefer 7.0, heck, even 5.5 to CS anyday) and it would be one more killer thing that would make KOffice stand out. What would it look like? I'd say cloning Kontact summary first would be a good start, only this time it would show things like recent documents, recent projects, maybe would also be tied to a file browser via Konq KPart AND would be the first thing user would see after starting KOffice in its entirety. Add to it the possibility of customizing the summary panels (like views in 3D Studio, for instance:
______________________
| | |
|________| |
| | |
|________| |
| | |
|________|_____________|

or
______________________
| | |
| | |
|___________|__________|
| | |
| | |
|___________|__________|

(sorry for craptastic ASCII art, and it's mangled anyway - just add spaces), where each panel would show, for instance, recent files, recent projects, todos, file browser etc., et. al. Just like Kontact, most important things at a glance.

So, what would you people think?

by Boudewijn Rempt (not verified)

A kind of web-portal like thing for KOffice? Could be quite a good idea to expand koshell to do this kind of thing.

by aurelius_barzano (not verified)

The whole idea is to give the user a way to remind oneself what he was supposed to do at a glance. Imagine this scenario: a user, annoyed due to the fact that it's Monday, weekend is over, comes back to work. Starting KOffice he sees the summary view with all recent files, todos, recently visited sites, projects running, all data necessary to continue working. Without leaving the Office shell, he may launch all necessary programs, heck, also programs outside the Office, such as web browser or communications system (by means of customizable toolbar or maybe a set of quasi-hyperlinks). In essence, KOffice remembers, what he was working on and adjust the Summary to reflect it, thus making those comebacks easier. Also, it would benefit people who have files they return to - a separate field, where user would put "favorite files" to have them just a click away would be also an interesting feature.

As for expanding koshell this way, frankly, I am no software engineer, so maybe I should not throw any ideas around, lest I show my ignorance, but I'd say koshell is, at least from what I have seen, more like a common framework, a container for component applications. I'd keep it that way, as, well, a sandbox of sorts, while building Summary module as an independent application, maybe not available without koshell, but still not merely a set of features for it.

Treating all structured apps like that would be a good idea. Heck, structuring similar apps might be a good idea. That would turn loosely connected programs into systems. A common shell for office programs, another for multimedia, another for the web, all applications available outside the shells, independent, but still ready to be combined into larger entities. For one thing, it would shorten start menus rather drastically. Each shell can be extendable with additional programs designed to fit, each program is able to use plugins, where necessary. And the user would just place, like, two or three shortcuts on his desktop and have everything, every bit of data within his grasp.

Just add a file indexing system like GDS or Copernic Desktop Search, and watch chaos turn into order.

By the way, since my knowledge of K programs is rather mediocre, is it possible to open multiple documents (spreadsheets, text files, images etc.) in tabs? That, if not implemented, would be a great idea. Or allowing split windows a'la Konqueror to make quick comparisons. I'd say apart from limited functionality in Word, there is nothing like that in commercial software. Though i might be wrong.

Anyway, I have a few ideas I'd like to contribute. I'm no programmer, have no idea how to code (might change that in the future), but when it comes to usability and similar stuff, maybe I could do something. Blast, I have a few ideas that need some good-looking mockups. Who knows, a free weekend...

by Jakob Petsovits (not verified)

KOffice includes the KOffice Workspace (also known as koshell) which does most of the things you just described. It has got a Kontact-like sidebar with all the KOffice apps, tabs for switching between documents, and a standard File menu including recent files. So, don't long for it, it already there :-)

I'm not sure if customized views would be such a great idea, though.