TextMaker?

[Tony Alfrey]

On Saturday 24 May 2003 07:23 pm, Joel Hammer wrote:
> Sounds great, but why give up old linux stalwarts like
> openoffice? Openoffice (staroffice) is the only linux wordprocessor I
> have used since day one. Others,like wordperfect 8, abiword, applix,
> WordperfectOffice Suite, koffice, have all dropped out and/or have
> proved inadequate.

I agree, but the word "inadequate" may have had something to do with 
that.  I would just love to use koffice for everything, but it's not 
soup yet, and it's been not soup yet for awhile.

>
> If we linux users are so fickle that we quickly dump old friends for
> the newest pretty face on the scene, we will not be seen as a very
> desirable target audience for developers. Constantly looking for the
> newest greatest thing instead of improving what already works seems
> counterproductive. For example, it would be great if staroffice got
> volunteers to improve its version of visual basic.

It would be great if staroffice would fix its version of visual basic 
itself and I would pay for it (as I did for Star Office 5.2) when they 
fixed it.  Frankly, I am not what I would consider quick to dump old 
friends (I still use Quick Basic on my 9 year old ~030 processor 
Macintosh) but if something works well on linux, I'm willing to give it 
a try.

>
> And, openoffice does fine with excel spreadsheets.
>
> And, openoffice has been supported by a large corporation for years,
> so the users have some hope that it will be around for years to come.
>
> Joel

If it is a superior product and it improves, I think that the market and 
Linux users will support it.  I had mixed opinions about StarOffice 
(not the least of which was its size) and I'm willing to see what 
somebody new has to offer.  If the product from SoftMaker doesn't cut 
it, I won't continue to use it.  So far, they've done several things 
right.

Just my 2 cents.

-- 
Tony Alfrey
tonyalfrey at earthlink.net
"I'd Rather Be Sailing"