I use GNOME to work on GNOME documentation, but it’s mostly the only thing I use GNOME for.
My two main computer activities are using the web, and word processing. I sometimes do use GNOME for the former, but the latter never happens. And there’s a very simple reason. It’s called OpenOffice.org Writer.
I’m not claiming MS Word is wonderful, far from it. It crashes a lot, and it has a great number of bugs and irritations. But OOo is missing features I consider essential.
For a long time the biggest problem was the lack of a word count. No, it’s not April 1 any more.
Now it’s the lack of what I’ll call ‘Normal View’. Looking at the comments, I’m not the only one who considers this a problem. This is a showstopper, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t just hate typing in Page Layout view, I can’t do it. It wastes space, and it’s distracting to see page breaks go by when I type.
Then there are niggles. Things like the absence of an italics pointer. The developer comments that the toolbar tells you what formatting is currently in place, but could they tell me how tell where my cursor is in Homer’s Iliad? In an italicized, sans-serif font?
We have more Frank Sinatra metabugs when it comes to behaviour that, right or wrong, is now part of the standard word processing landscape: removing paragraph formatting, or clicking in the left margin of text to select lines or paragraphs, or not highlighting empty space, or being able to copy a wordcount into a document.
All this adds up to making OOo Writer a frustrating experience. I’d like to use it, but I can’t.
If OOo wants to take advantage of Microsoft’s delay, its developers have some work to do. There’s a big group of users out there whose hearts are already with OOo. We just need a little bit more so we can make the change.
You can use the HTML editor as a ‘Normal View’. This might be what you are looking for.
However please remember that OpenOffice.org don’t want to be a MSO clone. So far most of the characteristics you mention come from a user that want MS Word experience on OpenOffice.org. This is not our community final goal, since we don’t think every feature on MSW is the best possible and some things simply don’t fit our view of good or essentials in word processing.
Once sayed that, yes, there are many things that could probably be change and improved on the following version of OOo. For example, positioning on Writer has a bit more restrictive positon which put a learning curve.
For the ‘removing paragraph formating’ is done throughthe stylist. We have ‘Predetermine’ style and the ‘Body text’. Usually body text should be the style that should have the default paragraph formating and predetermine should have the most vanilla format.
The frustrating experience that you mention might be more in the sense of lack of documentation and tools to learn the ‘openoffice.org way of things’.
Fortunately some people have already taken actions and we already have an extremely good book to properly using and learning about OpenOffice.org diferent modules.
Making OOo look like MSO won’t really help us that want to innovate rather than immitate within the community.
No, the HTML view isn’t it: it expands the text to fill the whole window.
I — like a large number of people — want to see my text as it will be on the page, with line breaks in the right place, and paragraphs a comfortable reading width, but without the distraction of page break graphics.
I think OOo is too hung up about not becoming an MS Word clone. It’s like a big monster under the bed you’re scared of.
Margin-clicks to select things have been part of the word processing landscape for decades. In that time, Word has gone from a DOS app with fake box graphics, to the unwieldy word for windows, to the current incarnation with clippy & friends. Following a simple convention that is quite logical to boot would not make you a clone.
Software should be intuitive. There shouldn’t have to BE a “learn the ‘openoffice.org way of things'”. Don’t make the same mistake as GIMP, which invites its users to twist and staple their brains to understand the ‘fun!’ of GIMP.