KDE Ships Release Candidate of Integrated Office Suite

The KOffice team yesterday announced the release of KOffice 1.2 rc1. It marks the last test release before
KOffice 1.2, scheduled for early next month, hits the Net.
Highlights since last month's beta2 release include a substantial number
of fixes and stability and performance enhancements, including important
corrections to the KWord and KPresenter WYSIWYG display, It also features new
read-only Konqueror plugins for
each KOffice component, a new WordPerfect export filter for KWord, and
improvements to the KWord RTF import filter. You can view a more detailed
list
of changes
at the KOffice website, head straight to the
download
directory, or read the release announcement below.

 

DATELINE AUGUST 9, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Release Candidate of Free Integrated Office Suite


Konqueror Read-Only Embedding, WordPerfect Export Filter and Improved
Stability Highlight KOffice Release Candidate for Linux and Other
UNIXes

August 9, 2002 (The INTERNET).
The KDE Project today announced the
immediate release of
KOffice 1.2rc1, the third
preview release for KOffice 1.2,
scheduled
for final release early next month. KOffice is an integrated office suite for
KDE, the leading desktop for Linux. KOffice utilizes free and open
standards for its document formats, component communication and component
embedding.

This release is a public testing release to resolve any
remaining stability issues prior to the final release next month.
Besides a substantial number of fixes and stability and performance
enhancements since the KOffice beta2 release last month, including
important corrections to the KWord and KPresenter WYSIWYG display,
KOffice 1.2rc1 features new read-only
Konqueror plugins for
each KOffice component, a new WordPerfect export filter for KWord, and
improvements to the KWord RTF import filter.
A more detailed
list
of changes
and notes about
the release
are available at the KOffice
web site.

This release, available in
36
languages, includes
a frame-based, full-featured word processor
(KWord);
a presentation application
(KPresenter);
a spreadsheet application
(KSpread);
a flowchart application
(Kivio);
business quality reporting software
(Kugar);
and two alpha-quality vector-drawing applications
(Kontour and
Karbon14).
Additionally, KOffice includes robust embeddable charts
(KChart)
and formulas
(KFormula)
as well as a built-in thesaurus (KThesaurus)
and numerous import and export
filters.

KOffice 1.2rc1 complements the release of
KDE 3.0.2,
last month. KDE is an international, powerful and easy-to-use
Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes, and together with
KOffice constitutes the only Open Source project to provide a complete
desktop and productivity environment for Linux/UNIX.

KOffice and all its components (including KDE) are available
for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE
http
or ftp mirrors.

Installing KOffice 1.2rc1 Binary Packages

Binary Packages.
Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of
KDE 3.0 for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases
community volunteers have done so.
Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's
http or
ftp mirrors.
Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now
available, may become available over the coming weeks.

Please note that the KDE Project makes these packages available from the
KDE web site as a convenience to KDE users. The KDE Project is not
responsible for these packages as they are provided by third
parties - typically, but not always, the distributor of the relevant
distribution - using tools, compilers, library versions and quality
assurance procedures over which KDE exercises no control. If you
cannot find a binary package for your OS, or you are displeased with
the quality of binary packages available for your system, please read
the KDE Binary Package
Policy
and/or contact your OS vendor.

Library Requirements / Options.
The library requirements for a particular binary package vary with the
system on which the package was compiled. Please bear in mind that
some binary packages may require a newer version of Qt and other libraries
than was shipped with the system (e.g., LinuxDistro X.Y
may have shipped with Qt-3.0.0 but the packages below may require
Qt-3.0.3). For general library requirements for KDE, please see the text at
Source Code - Library
Requirements
below.

Package Locations.
At the time of this release, pre-compiled packages are available for:

Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other
distributions. More binary packages may become available over the
coming days and weeks.

Compiling KOffice 1.2rc1

Library
Requirements.
KOffice 1.2rc1 requires the following libraries:

  • kdelibs 3.0, though kdelibs 3.0.2 is recommend. Both release can be
    downloaded following the instructions in the respective press releases
    (3.0,
    3.0.2)
    at the KDE website. For more information on these kdelibs releases, please
    see the KDE
    3.0 press release
    .
  • Qt 3.0.3, which is available in source code from Trolltech as
    qt-x11-3.0.3.tar.gz, or later.
    and
  • For reading help pages and other KOffice documentation,
    libxml2 >= 2.4.9 and
    libxslt >= 1.0.7.

Compiler Requirements.
Please note that some components of
KOffice 1.2rc1 (such as the Quattro Pro import filter
and KChart) will not
compile with older versions of gcc/egcs,
such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required.

Source Code/SRPMs.
The complete source code for KOffice 1.2rc1 is available for free download
via one of the KDE
http
or ftp mirrors.
Additionally, source rpms are available for the following distributions:

  • Conectiva 8.0
  • Mandrake Linux 8.x
  • RedHat Linux 7.3
    (unofficial)
  • SuSE Linux 8.0, 7.x

Further Information.
For further instructions on compiling and installing KOffice, please consult
the KOffice installation
instructions
. For
problems with SRPMs, please contact the person listed in the applicable
.spec file.

Corporate KOffice Sponsors

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the
KOffice developers
themselves, significant support for KOffice development has been provided by
MandrakeSoft (which sponsors
KOffice developers David
Faure
and Laurent Montel),
theKompany.com (which has
contributed Kivio and Kugar to KOffice), and
Klarälvdalens
Datakonsult AB
(which has contributed KChart to KOffice). In addition,
the members of the KDE League,
as well as individual
sponsors
(donate),
provide significant support for KDE and KOffice. Thanks!

About KOffice/KDE

KOffice is part of the KDE Project.
KDE is an independent project of hundreds of developers, translators,
artists and professionals worldwide collaborating over the Internet
to create and freely distribute a sophisticated, customizable and stable
desktop and office environment employing a flexible, component-based,
network-transparent architecture and offering an outstanding development
platform. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, a full, component-based
office suite (KOffice), a large
set of networking and administration tools and utilities, and an
efficient, intuitive development environment featuring the excellent IDE
KDevelop. KDE is working proof
that the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model can yield
first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex
commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the
KDE FAQ,
screenshots,
KOffice information and
developer
information
.
Much more information
about KDE is available from KDE's
family of web sites.

Release Coordinator: Thanks to
David Faure for
his excellent services as release coordinator.

Press Release:
Written by Andreas
Pour
from the KDE League, with the
invaluable assistance of numerous gifted volunteers from the KDE Project.

Trademarks Notices.

KDE, K Desktop Environment and KOffice are trademarks of KDE e.V.
Incorporated.

Adobe Illustrator and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems

dBASE is a registered trademark of dBASE Inc.

Corel, Quattro Pro and WordPerfect are registered trademarks of Corel
Corporation or Corel Corporation Limited.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Trolltech and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech AS.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are
the property of their respective owners.

Press Contacts:

United States:

Andreas Pour
KDE League, Inc.
pour AT kdeleague DOT org
(1) 917 312 3122

Europe (French and English):

David Faure
[email protected]
(33) 4 3250 1445

Europe (German and English):

Ralf Nolden
[email protected]
(49) 2421 502758

Europe (English):

Jono Bacon
[email protected]

Southeast Asia (English and Indonesian):

Ariya Hidayat
[email protected]
(62) 815 8703177

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by ac (not verified)

Don't worry, I'll file a bugreport on this, but...

When I try to open any Word document, I get "Could not import file of type application/x-msword".

The problem is that KWord sniffs MIME-types, and if the MIME-type is not on the "I have a filter for this" list, KWord doesn't even give you the option to choose the filter yourself (it doesn't even display it in the file-open dialog!). Thus, even though it has an "application/msword" filter, KWord isn't smart enough to know that "application/x-msword" and "application/vnd.msword" (I think) mean EXACTLY the same document format. There may be even more variations. Multiple MIME-types should be able to point to one filter.

At the very least, KWord should provide SOME sort of method by which a user can open their documents when KWord does have an appropriate filter, but the MIME-type sniffer doesn't know this. Along those lines, the file-open dialog should give the user the option to show all files regardless of MIME-type, so that they can choose the filter manually.

As the administrator of my home machine, I know I can work around this myself. However, I think KWord is far too confident in its MIME-type sniffer, and the need for manual per-MIME-type workarounds should be removed.

by ac (not verified)

What's your work-around anyway ?

by ac (not verified)

David answered this further down the thread. Go to KControl File Associations, create a new file association called application/msword and give it the same extension, applications, and embedding options as application/x-msword, then delete application/x-msword. Then log out and log back in again and you have it!

Unfortunately, this may need to be done for every MIME type you need to change. Fortunately, application/x-msword may be the only one you need to change.

by Nicolas GOUTTE (not verified)

In short (for long, see: http://bugs.kde.org/db/46/46328.html ):

- The official KDE3 mime type for MS Word is application/msword
- Therefore it looks like a distribution problem.
- KOffice as KDE is based on mime types.
- The MS Word import is done by the OLE import filter. It needs to know what kind of file to expect.

Have a nice day/evening/night!

by David Faure (not verified)

SuSE bug, IIRC. They renamed the mimetype.
Rename it back (file associations kcontrol module).
IIRC this is already fixed in SuSE.

by matthias (not verified)

The problem is NOT suse.

>At the very least, KWord should provide SOME sort of method by which a user
>can open their documents when KWord does have an appropriate filter, but the
>MIME-type sniffer doesn't know this.

That is the bug.
If the user wants kwort to open file_xy with the word-filter then kword should do that. (In most cases the user is more intelligent then kword)

by ac (not verified)

I hate to disagree with myself on this, but I think it's not necessarily a "bug" in the strictest sense of the word. If you want to push this idea, go ahead, but I think you should refer to it as a "feature" or an "enhancement".

Basically there are tons of MIME types, many of them totally erroneous, or at least outdated. As it was explained to me by one of the smart folks at KDE (who I actually believe!) there are only IANA-approved MIME types and then there is crap. KDE really only recognizes the IANA-approved MIME types properly.

Thus, with a properly-configured OS, this is not a bug at all. What we're talking about is a compatibility feature to deal with misconfigurations. Which is fine, too, if that's what you want. But it's certainly lower-priority than an actual bug. I'm quite satisfied with my bugreport being "closed". Feel free to differ.

by Zyzstar (not verified)

Have you someone tried Kontour in this KOffice version? It seems that this package is totaly broken. I can't draw any lines, curves, bezier... - there are also tons of screen update bugs. Is the develompent of this application frozen or I'm missing something?
I'm using MDK-8.2 rpm package.

by Jarl E. Gjessing (not verified)

The RedHat packages's kontour works just fine.
I'm sorry to say this since this either means that it is the MDK packages or dependency problems on you're mahine

by Jarl E. Gjessing (not verified)

Ups I have to modify my comment.
Yes the lines dont work, I just read the header as if kontour did not work at all, so I tried it and I used everything BUT lines sorry.
I can see, that the status bar still shows the last selected, e.g. if you draw a reactangle and them select line, then the status bar still says rectangle mode.

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

Same with the SuSE packaged version. No lines work, and if a polygon crosses the bottom border as you drag it a large black rectangle rises up from that border.

--
Evan

by Julien Olivier (not verified)

Well, on Mandrake 8.2, I can't draw lines in Kivio 1.0 neither. So maybe it's a problem with QT (3.0.4) ? I didn't have this problem on Kivio 1.0 on Suse 7.3 (QT 3.0.3).

by James Richard Tyrer (not verified)

I downloaded KOffice from CVS KOFFICE_1_2_RC1 and I get this when I configure:

configure: WARNING: Could not find libwv2 anywhere, check http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/wvware/

{all one line}

Well, I have checked SF and this is only available on CVS.

Is this correct that it requires this??

Or, did somebody goof?

Or, was it my mistake to use CVS to download it??

--
JRT

by David Faure (not verified)

Ignore that warning. This is a very alpha development (of a new msword import filter) that's not part of this release. Ok, warning disabled for 1.2-final.

by ac (not verified)

Can KSpread now import CSV files of 100,000+ lines without locking up?

by Peter (not verified)

I haven't seen a bug report on this, so it doesn't seem to be a problem to anyone.

BTW: KSpread does only support 32,000 Rows, so how would you put in 100,000 lines?

by ac (not verified)

Thats the problem. It never imports them. When I tried to import a CSV file with about 100,000 lines, KSpread stopped responding (wouldn't redraw the window) and started using 100% CPU. I let this go overnight thinking it was just going to take a while to import, but in the morning, eight hours later, it was still using CPU and the window wasn't responding.

by David Findlay (not verified)

I've often noticed the KDE's error handling leaves a lot to be desired. For instance when my IMAP server was broken, any attempt to use it in KMail wyould crash Kmail. It would be nicer if it would provide an informative error message. Thanks,

David

by Peter (not verified)

Thanks for filing a bug report (I'm sure you did that!)

by Matt (not verified)

Hi,

I agree about the error handling, but really, to handle more then 20k lines of data, you don't need a spreadsheet, you need a database. A lot of people I'm sure would agree with that statement.
But then again, you'd need a tool to get this data into a database table.
On top of that, you probably want to manipulate that data.
To make a long story short, you need tools in between the data-file (csv, text, xml, ...) and the database table. Not just residing on mySQL, Oracle, or whatever, but on any database.
These type of conversions are done routinely in data warehouse projects. The converions are called ETTL: Extraction Transformation Transportation & Loading.
I'm proposing to write (in fact a large part of it is done) a tool for KDE called Kettle. Send me a mail by the end of september and we'll start hacking.
Until then I'll be off on my honeymoon.

Cheers,

Matt
http://www.ibridge.be/kettle/

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Does anyone know why this page is so wide? Can't spot anything that would cause it.

by Nils (not verified)

At the top of the press release (line 56 of the page source), it says "". Removing the width attribute seems to fix the problem.

Nils

by Julien Olivier (not verified)

Line 58:

Just replace 780 by 100%.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Thanks to both of you!

by Tommy (not verified)

Hmmm, has anyone seen this error:
"Mutex destroy failure: Device or resource busy"
What does it mean?

by lescrh (not verified)

And krita??
Is included in the last release?

by Evan "JabberWok... (not verified)

Not in the SuSE package, likely not in any. :(

Incidently, KThesaurus crashes on launch. I'm assuming that something that big is known.

--
Evan