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It's been awhile since I've had to display the equation of an interpolation on a graph, but I remember also being frustrated by Calc's failure to provide an easy way to do that. There's a sort of workaround for it: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=3155&highlight=powe...
But this should be a prominent, easy to use feature- even a high school math/science student would probably abandon Calc if he needed this feature, even more so a professional engineer or scientist. According to the 2.1 release notes, apparently this hasn't been addressed.

Yes, my boss also refused to touch it- we make extensive use of embedded videos in slides, and OOo is very poor in that department.

OK, that did NOT desrve to be modded down.

There's enough wrong with Microsoft/Windows/Office/ClSS and its fanboys already without people modding down constructive criticism of FOSS.

No, that linked comment does not justify modding down of the post in question. Don't the rules say you're only supposed to mod down offensive posts and spam. I don't see how the post is either of those. There's way too many fanboys modding down posts for no reason.

I don't think you're right. This is not offtopic, how did you assume it is? You seem to just try to excuse yourself, nothing else. Besides, there could be more people thinking there is no support for videos and they would see there actually is if they install java.

The rules for modding down also say that if something is factually wrong then you should reply and correct it rather than modding it down.

You're definition of what is off-topic is really a stretch.

I started the thread "Impress AV support". I never said support for A/V did not exist in OOo, but I did say it was "poor", and that my boss rejected OOo partially for that reason. I personally use OOo, and do not own MS Office. But at work, OOo (at least Impress) is unfortunately ruled out. Although the capacity to do A/V does exist in OOo, I feel it is a poor implementation that lacks features that MS Office already has. And it has not been improved in version 2.1 of OOo.

-1 for whining.

You're abusing the voting system.

"You're abusing the voting system."

The voting system is not perfect, but its pretty good. The reality of the post, had at best tentative relevance. Spread Misinformation. It was a poor post. The Post could have gone.

I'd rather use my votes to moderate posts I agree with up than moderate people down for vague reasons. I guess it comes down to personality. I'm the kind of guy who prefer to say what I like about others, rather than complaining about what I don't like.

Edited 2006-12-13 11:50

I wish they would fix impress. Until it can use embedded audio/video, then it is useless to most marketing types. That is the number one preventer of me upgrading our shop to OO.

I don't know what version you're using, but I can embed audio and video into Impress slides perfectly well using OO.o 2.04 that comes with Ubuntu Edgy. It's as simple as clicking on Insert -> Video and Sound.

"I don't know what version you're using, but I can embed audio and video into Impress slides perfectly well using OO.o 2.04 that comes with Ubuntu Edgy. It's as simple as clicking on Insert -> Video and Sound."

When I do that I get "Unsupported format". I am inserting a wav file.

Is it a plain wav file not a ADPCM wav file ?

"Is it a plain wav file not a ADPCM wav file ?"

Yep, it is a plain wav file. After looking through OO.o support this does seem to be an issue, with a couple of bugs already reported on it going back 2 versions. I plan on hammering away at it here to see if I can make it work. If I can, then I can try and save some company money.

When I do that I get "Unsupported format". I am inserting a wav file.

At the risk of going wildly off-topic, a bit of Googling revealed that this feature apparently uses GStreamer (on Linux, at least).

So, theoretically at least, you should be able to import any file that can be played in Totem. Of course you'll need the appropriate GStreamer plugins installed: these are the gstreamer0.10-plugins-good/bad/ugly packages in Ubuntu.

(Yes, I agree, this should be made more clear in OO.o.)

Sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't use OpenOffice much: I'm so old school, I use LaTeX for doing presentations...

Instead I unpack the download and oh boy, a whole slew of rpms! Converting them isn't much fun, nor is waiting for a third party to repackage them. They are such a well known Linux product, why can't they at _least_ distribute different package variations, or go back to that lovely generic installer?!

Ya know, it seems that anytime anyone mentions what a headache it can be installing apps in Linux, people always act shocked at the very idea, and insist that such issue are so 1998. But then I read things like this, and it makes me wonder.

If you just wait a week or two for your distro to package it for you, then everything is extremely pain-free. OTOH, if you like living on the edge and downloading software right off the internet then it can be quite interesting, sometimes.

If you just wait a week or two for your distro to package it for you, then everything is extremely pain-free. OTOH, if you like living on the edge and downloading software right off the internet then it can be quite interesting, sometimes.

So a new version of something comes out, I have to wait 2 weeks for my distro to package it for me? What if they don't? And why is downloading software right off the internet considered to be 'living on the edge'? I do it all the time. Off course, I'm not using Linux either

If your distro does not package an application, file a bug. If that does not work, change distro.

Downloading stuff from the internet *in linux* means you are downloading software not tested for your distro: that's what a distribution is for.

And why is downloading software right off the internet considered to be 'living on the edge'? I do it all the time.

I call it that because it is software that hasn't been QA'd by your distro/OS maker, which means it might not be secure and might not have a lot of the unofficial patches distros make to fix bugs and make it more integrated. Also, if you just wait a couple of days it is done for you so there really isn't any need to get the bleeding edge version that was just released today.

So a new version of something comes out, I have to wait 2 weeks for my distro to package it for me? What if they don't?

Then you are using a pretty crappy distro, to be brutally honest. Either that or you are using something like Slackware and have chosen not to use a package manager. Or you're talking about software that can't legally be distributed by the distros, which does suck, but luckily there really isn't a whole lot of that in Linux.

This post gets a 4 rating, so that must mean Ubuntu is a pretty crapy distro? I say this because to get OpenOffice 2.1, Ubuntu users are going to have to wait till the next version after edgy which is about 5 months away!

Linux needs a way to upgrade programs other than waiting for their distro masters to feed it to them!

I call it that because it is software that hasn't been QA'd by your distro/OS maker, which means it might not be secure and might not have a lot of the unofficial patches distros make to fix bugs and make it more integrated. Also, if you just wait a couple of days it is done for you so there really isn't any need to get the bleeding edge version that was just released today.

You're full of it. And I'll call you on it too!
QA'd by a distro? Are you serious?!
OOo is a general Linux software and is meant to be distro independent. So they should also use a distro independent packaging.
And no, I don't want my distro patching anything for me.
We've had enough of that patching shit with distros like RedHat and Mandrake and the result was that nothing would compile or install on those distros.

Either that or you are using something like Slackware and have chosen not to use a package manager.
And what do you mean by that? Are you calling Slackware a crappy distro? Many would disagree with you.
Yet Slackware neither bundles nor provides official packages for OOo. Although they are available from places like Linuxpackages.
But I prefer the official files from OOo rather then trusting packages compiled by someone else.

So yes, I'd like to see a generic installer from OOo and they realy have no valid excuse not to provide one.
Sun can do it for their Java, Adobe for Flash and Mozilla for their apps so why not OOo?

Skipping the "!?" and moving to the content.

"OOo is a general Linux software and is meant to be distro independent. So they should also use a distro independent packaging."

Why? A distribution is just that not a single program, but a collection of many programs. Many of those programs have dependancies. I'll pick one Java.

"We've had enough of that patching shit with distros like RedHat and Mandrake and the result was that nothing would compile or install on those distros."

I've *never* used those distributions. I cannot comment how they have been patched, but I suspect that those distributions are simply not designed for you to compile stuff yourself, and really if they are any good, you really shouldn't have to. I suspect though you are overstating your case, or your preferance for Slackware.

"I prefer the official files from OOo rather then trusting packages compiled by someone else."

If you don't trust the person you got the distribution from seriously, why did you install it.

"Sun can do it for their Java, Adobe for Flash and Mozilla for their apps so why not OOo?"

And those applications are poor at installing; long live GPL Java, Gnash, and Iceweasel.

Edited 2006-12-13 12:59

"OOo is a general Linux software and is meant to be distro independent. So they should also use a distro independent packaging."

Why? A distribution is just that not a single program, but a collection of many programs. Many of those programs have dependancies. I'll pick one Java.

So a distro is just a collection of many programs, fine. But what if I want to install something that my distro hasn't provided for me? Do I then have to resort to voodoo/sacrificing live chickens, or worse yet, try to find a distro that has the exact combination of programs I want? Either that, or start harassing my current distro vendor to package some app I want to try out, which will probably be done by volunteers who don't get paid.
Look, I'm a power user, and it's not unusual for me to try out 10-15 different flavors of the same kind of app. When I get in one of these kinds of moods to experiment, I need the apps to be available to me. This whole thing of 'distro will provide' is tedious, annoying, and needs to be rethought.

What are you using then? Windows?

--bornagainpenguin

So a new version of something comes out, I have to wait 2 weeks for my distro to package it for me? What if they don't? And why is downloading software right off the internet considered to be 'living on the edge'? I do it all the time. Off course, I'm not using Linux either

OpenOffice.org is a core component of many GNU/Linux distributions.

If you want the latest version of Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player for your OS, you have to wait for the vendor of the OS as well. For example, Windows 2000 users are now waiting for the two I mentioned.

OO.org provides RPM packages, and if they did their jobs correctly it should work fine on any LSB-compliant system. But if you want something that was certified and tested to work on your OS, you should stick to their packages for core components of the system.

"OO.org provides RPM packages, and if they did their jobs correctly it should work fine on any LSB-compliant system. But if you want something that was certified and tested to work on your OS, you should stick to their packages for core components of the system."

You can even get the actual source from the repository and compile the latest version of OpenOffice by yourself - if you have time and space for it. :-)

But I agree, that's only an idea for those who want to do some experiments. For everyday work, the use of the precompiled and tested packages coming from your distribution vendor should be the best solution.

//OpenOffice.org is a core component of many GNU/Linux distributions.

...

OO.org provides RPM packages, and if they did their jobs correctly it should work fine on any LSB-compliant system. But if you want something that was certified and tested to work on your OS, you should stick to their packages for core components of the system.//

This is true.

It would be a tardy distribution indeed if it didn't have the new version of OpenOffice available from repositories within a few days. Perhpas in "extras" repositories rather than the main one, but still available.

If one's distro doesn't have this, then perhaps one should look at changing to another better-supported distro.

Edited 2006-12-13 03:19

If you just wait a week or two for your distro to package it for you, then everything is extremely pain-free. OTOH, if you like living on the edge and downloading software right off the internet then it can be quite interesting, sometimes.

Or you can run Windows or OS X and install programs from wherever and never have it be difficult.... Just a thought.

//Or you can run Windows or OS X and install programs from wherever and never have it be difficult.... Just a thought.//

Of course, at the same time, you would realise that the practice of "installing programs from wherever" is a paradise scenario for infection by trojans.

And when was an office suite upgrade infected by a trojan in windows or mac? This kind of argument is just fud!

It's not FUD - it's a safe practice.
While it may not be true for OO office suite (or signed software downloaded directly from Microsoft/Google/maker/etc), it -is- true for close to everything else.

- Gilboa

Or you can run Windows or OS X and install programs from wherever and never have it be difficult.... Just a thought.

What a load of ****!
If you're using Windows and/or OSX, OO.org already done the packaging for you.
But don't let the facts get in your way.

- Gilboa

"If you're using Windows and/or OSX, OO.org already done the packaging for you."

But isn't that the point? That they can do it for Windows and OSX, but not for Linux? It suggests a deficiency in Linux standardization :/

They can also do it for Linux, they've just chosen not to. Don't know why.

"But isn't that the point? That they can do it for Windows and OSX, but not for Linux? It suggests a deficiency in Linux standardization :/"

Its not a "deficiency in Linux" its simply an major advantage of Windows XP. In reality its a trade-off.

Windows is a "static" platform.
One way of doing things "The Microsoft Way"
Rare updates
No Choice of kernel/shell/Wigets/Desktop/API's etc etc.
Backward compatible.

Linux "dynamic platform.
Many alternatives of doing things
Regular updates
Pick and choose suitable components.
Limited backward compatibility.

The reality is Windows XP is simply the best environment, for deploying a *binary* applications across millions of machines, but the price of this is incredibly high. Microsoft talk "innovation" but little happens. It took almost 6 years between versions, and offers marginal improvements, developed by 70,000 employees. They have to live with bad design choices for years. They struggle to get people to *choose* to move to the next version. Its a security maintenance nightmare. It uses *old* technology, and even its latest offering Vista looks too little too late.

Now I haven't compared Linux vs Vista, or a Package Manager to a Single installer. Or even discussed freedesktops standardization of the desktop

... If you're talking about standardization, you'll have to remove Windows from the List.

Windows does -not- enforce any type of standardization on either software or driver installers:
First, Windows does not control the installer - an installer can add/remove/edit/change what-ever it wants... Heck, it can even change the kernel if it wants to.
Second, a Windows installer (even an MSI one) isn't even required (by the OS) to be able to cleanly uninstall itself. (Try removing Visual Studio 2K3/2K5 and you'll see what I mean)
Third, a Windows installer has zero (in numbers - 0) dependency resolving capabilities - leaving it all to the install itself. People speak about RPM hell... Just count the number of MSVC*.dll, MFC*.dll you have on your system and you'll see what I mean.

On the other hand, Linux distributions usually come with OS based software package management which enforce a clean install and uninstall [*] procedures and does the dependency resolving for you.
You may claim that there are way too many types of package management in the Linux world and I won't argue with you. But I rather have too many package managers, then have no package manager what-so-ever.

- Gilboa
* You may screw the package manager by using post-install scripts, but a package that includes such a script will never find its way into an official software repository.

@giloa I tried not to compare package-managers with windows installers

Package managers are hands down one of the greatest things about linux ever. Its on my list of Why Linux is better than windows.

You would be hard pushed to argue that Windows has anything better. Linux by its nature *needs* a package manager. I wouldn't say the same is true for windows.

I did read that Microsoft were going to put trusted third-parties updates as part of Microsoft update, and I have seen one package manager for open-source programs on windows. I'd give the reference, but it turned out to be disappointing.

"Everytime an OO.org release happens, I keep hoping they will return to their generic Linux installer the <1.0 versions had. Instead I unpack the download and oh boy, a whole slew of rpms! Converting them isn't much fun, nor is waiting for a third party to repackage them. They are such a well known Linux product, why can't they at _least_ distribute different package variations, or go back to that lovely generic installer?!"

Given the choice of updating each of my applications separately, or all at once. I would choose the latter. If *your* third party packager is not updating fast enough I suggest you should change distributions.

BTW the third-party often don't just repackage, but often patch, bugfix, verify before deploying. It should add an extra sense of security. This is definitely worth waiting days for.

"BTW the third-party often don't just repackage, but often patch, bugfix, verify before deploying. It should add an extra sense of security. This is definitely worth waiting days for."

The third-parties also use switches in their compiles which result in OOo crashing every time I try to digitally sign a document. Fedora and Ubuntu users are suffering from this because of a deprecated switch, and the advice I got was to uninstall Ubuntu's OOo and install the vanilla.

"The third-parties also use switches in their compiles which result in OOo crashing every time I try to digitally sign a document. Fedora and Ubuntu users are suffering from this because of a deprecated switch, and the advice I got was to uninstall Ubuntu's OOo and install the vanilla."

Now I'm genuinely interested in that, and surprised by the advise. I use neither of those distributions, but Openoffice's compile sensitivity is well known. I'm going to take your statement with a pinch of salt, without seeing your posted bugzilla or equivalent entries for both.

//Everytime an OO.org release happens, I keep hoping they will return to their generic Linux installer the <1.0 versions had. Instead I unpack the download and oh boy, a whole slew of rpms! //

My suggestion would be for you to install Smart Package manager. That should be available from your distribution's own repository.

Once you have Smart, then just download the OO.org RPMs into a directory, and then add a channel to Smart Package Manager pointing to that directory.

Smart will then happily install the RPMs for you, whatever your Linux distribution is.

Smart Package Manager is (more or less) the equivalent of a generic installer for Linux packages.

http://labix.org/smart
"The Smart Package Manager project has the ambitious objective of creating smart and portable algorithms for solving adequately the problem of managing software upgrading and installation. This tool works in all major distributions, and will bring notable advantages over native tools currently in use (APT, APT-RPM, YUM, URPMI, etc).

...

Channels are the way Smart becomes aware about external repositories of information. Many different channel types are supported, depending on the backend and kind of information desired:

APT-DEB Repository
APT-RPM Repository
DPKG Installed Packages
Mirror Information
Red Carpet Channel
RPM Directory
RPM Header List
RPM MetaData (YUM)
RPM Installed Packages
Slackware Repository
Slackware Installed Packages
URPMI Repository"

Enjoy!

Does Smart's wide support for packaging systems mean I can install .rpm packages on my Debian system? Or .deb packages on my RPM-based system?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: no, unless you have the non-native package system installed in the same machine. Even then, that doesn't mean it would be a good idea.

Smart is not meant as an universal wrapper around different package formats. It does support RPM, DEB and Slackware packages on a single system, but won't permit relationships among different package managers. While cross-packaging system dependencies could be enabled easily, the packaging policies simply do not exist today.

This is not at all different from what you can already do. In fact, Debian has been shipping the RPM package manager for a few years now. "Possible" does not equal "good idea", and everybody should stick to their native package format.

//Does Smart's wide support for packaging systems mean I can install .rpm packages on my Debian system? Or .deb packages on my RPM-based system?

Short answer: no. //

It depends, actually.

OpenOffice packages are designed to have minimal dependencies. OpenOffice is largely standalone.

In that case, for OpenOffice.org, I'm fairly certain that smart would indeed allow you to install OpenOffice RPM packages on your Debian, Mandriva, Fedora, Slackware or SuSe system.

Everytime an OO.org release happens, I keep hoping they will return to their generic Linux installer the <1.0 versions had. Instead I unpack the download and oh boy, a whole slew of rpms! Converting them isn't much fun, nor is waiting for a third party to repackage them. They are such a well known Linux product, why can't they at _least_ distribute different package variations, or go back to that lovely generic installer?!

For better or worse, rpm is the LSB standard format for distributing packages. It's up to the distros to provide tools for installing rpm packages if they're going to be LSB compliant, which most aim for to one extent or another. And there's always alien for converting formats.

Besides, I think the ultimate plan is that OOo will start using delta rpms for patches and updates, which offers a significant advantage over having to download 125MB + every time there's a fix or a patch.

//And there's always alien for converting formats.//

Smart is better than alien.

Smart will do the conversion and the install for you in the one step.

Smart is better than alien.

Smart will do the conversion and the install for you in the one step.

Yes, but I could probably compile OOo from source in the time it takes Smart to load it's cache file for each operation, let alone do a single alien * && dpkg -i * on a command line.

Smart is intended for multi-repo-type package management, it's overkill as a simple package installer. It's like the difference between using synaptic/apt-get and dpkg -i or rpm -i. Doesn't mean it won't work, though. It's just... overkill.

Personally I'd only use a package manager for installing local packages if I was expecting to download required dependencies, which rarely happens with generic third-party packages.

Still, vive le choice.

edit: typo

Edited 2006-12-13 01:20

//let alone do a single alien * && dpkg -i * on a command line.//

AFAIK I think the equivalent would be:
# smart install /path/to/rpm/directory/*.rpm

... except that the alien && dpkg command you give would work only on Debian, Ubuntu or other Debian derivatives, whereas the equivalent smart command line would work for all Debian, Slackware, SuSe, Mandriva, RedHat etc derivatives, and it would be the exact same command (and therefore install instructions) on all of those.

Alien does the conversion and install in one step also.

//Alien does the conversion and install in one step also.//

http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/alien.1.html

My bad. So it does.

Still, alien is Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives only, so that part of the criticism still applies.

You're right that it's not included in Slackware and its ilk by default, but in those systems RPM itself is present and works, and with no ill effects, since they don't use conventional package management anyway.

The only situations where it wouldn't work is if you started getting into the Gentoo and Arch areas, but then you're talking about a relatively small subset of highly technical desktop Linux users.

FYI, Slackware has a working RPM package.
I used it a couple of times to convert FC packages to Slackware.

- Gilboa

Still, alien is Debian/Ubuntu and derivatives only, so that part of the criticism still applies.

Er, no. Alien is a perl app that will run on most platforms, it converts to/from rpm, deb, slackware and solaris. The only dependencies are the rpmlibs, which are fairly universally available in the *nix world. It is not restricted to debian and derivatives, though that is where it is most popular due to the requirement to deal with lsb rpm packages.

I realize you're happy with Smart, there's nothing wrong with that, but really, alien is the tool that was designed *specifically* to do what you're using Smart for. And conversely, while Smart will certainly handle the job, that's not really what it was designed or optimized for.

But like I said, choice is good either way.

Well, if you're running Debian or Ubuntu, all you should need to do is run 'alien -i openoffice.org-*.rpm' instead of 'rpm -i openoffice.org-*.rpm'. What's so hard about that?

//Well, if you're running Debian or Ubuntu, all you should need to do is run 'alien -i openoffice.org-*.rpm' instead of 'rpm -i openoffice.org-*.rpm'. What's so hard about that?//

(1) the instructions apply only to Debian or Ubuntu, they do not apply to Fedora, SuSe, Mandriva or Slackware, and
(2) all that alien does is convert the *.rpm packages to *.deb. Your command example still hasn't got those packages installed yet.

The command 'smart install openoffice.org-*.rpm' answers both of those issues.

(1) Well, it works for Debian, Ubuntu, and Slackware. And with Fedora, SuSe, and Mandriva, you just install the RPM directly.

(2) The command I gave ('alien -i *.rpm') converts the package, installs it, and deletes it afterward, making the whole conversion thing completely transparent.

No - I call it 'Trained by Microsoft.'

He got used to having everything done for him. *snicker*

"You have to install "Java Media Framework" or use a Macro."

This will allow you to embed audio that will play throughout a presentation? It will not, though it will allow you to embed audio for a specific slide. I am talking marketing and e-Training type of stuff here, not basic presentations.

I will give it a try though to see if I missed anything. I would imagine then that the same framework will be required on the target machines when you take your USB key to play it back?

I've noticed much the same. I'm not sure if these are simple bugs or [bad] design decisions.

(Why was the parent post modded down? It's very much on-topic, not spam, and not a personal attack.)

Is this some kind of windows problem? Inserting charts in a new sheet works both in 2.1 and in previous versions. At first I was thinking the grand parent was just trolling (No, it wasn't me that modded him down)

Just select Insert->Chart... and then select "-- new sheet --" from the popdown menu. and then continue to select diagram types etc.

Voila! You have your graphics in a separate sheet.

By specifying the range manually you can even have your graphics in an entirely different spreadsheet document, either from your own computer or a document on the internet.

My guess is that many of the problems that MS-Office users experience when they say that OOo, lacks the features they need just is a matter of being unfamiliar with a new environment.

Not wanting to learn how to do something in a new way is of course a totally valid reason for not switching to another program. I understand that doing so may cost time and money, but it is not the fault of that other program.

Edited 2006-12-13 09:05

"Is this some kind of windows problem? Inserting charts in a new sheet works both in 2.1 and in previous versions. At first I was thinking the grand parent was just trolling (No, it wasn't me that modded him down)"

What the original person meant, although its not clear, is that you cannot insert a chart *as* a sheet, only on one.

This is not a showstopper for OpenOffice but a niggle, and does not affect functionality at all. Its a sign of OpenOffices success that the differences are so minimal. As each version progresses these niggles will become more obscure.

I just selected some data, clicked on the graph icon, selected a different sheet and inserted the graph in that other sheet. The graph was drawn in the other sheet. Would that meet your requirements?

I just read this:

"A day's adventure with a brandnew klik bundle of OpenOffice.org 2.1"
http://lists.freestandards.org/pipermail/lsb-discuss/2006-December/...

Interesting stuff...

Not yet. Anyone know when those patches will be merged into the main OOo branch? Or is politics going to keep them out?