LibreOffice 5 -- pretty cool

[Tom_ZeCat]

I went ahead and upgraded to LibreOffice 5, and I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. I was really worried that LO would copy Microsoft's infamous Ribbon. The Ribbon was the reason I dumped MS Office in favor of LibreOffice. I already had an efficient way of working by hitting the Alt key to pull down a menu and then the letter that issues the command. I hated the Ribbon that would have forced me to unlearn all that just to use a new allegedly better system that actually slowed me down my making me hunt for what I wanted. Unfortunately, IMO, the Ribbon has caught on and there's a whole generation of young users who only know that.

IMO LO 5 has come up with a smart compromise. It retains all of the pull-down menus and commands that it had before. However, it also put some icons in a right side panel that can pull up Ribbon-like interfaces. I can see one that would be useful to keep up while formatting. It brings me back to my days of using Lotus Smartuite, which allowed you to keep formatting menus on top so that you could see what you're changing while you're changing it. It's quite useful to be able to do that. Plus, with LO 5's pop-out menus being placed on the right, it's a way more economic use of space with today's widescreen monitors. When you hide them, there's just a small panel of icons there so that you can easily access them when you want to. If for any reason you hate that panel and don't want to use that interface, you can simply hide it. It's pretty slick. The people who designed the new LibreOffce get major kudos from me. They've taken into account that old-time power users like myself might want to keep doing what's working for them, while they've added an unobtrusive ribbonesque interface on the right side that will likely appeal to younger users. Even as an old-timer, ex WordStar / CP/M user myself, I might sometimes use that right panel when it suits my needs. The point is they give you the choice. The new interface isn't thrust upon everyone with an "our way or the highway" attitude. That's what had made me the most angry about Microsoft's Ribbon. MS just assumed that people would be delighted to relearn everything and that doing so would not have a negative effect on their productivity. The all-volunteer organization, The Document Foundation, has shown itself to be much more in-tune with the needs of the individual user. And, btw, I don't necessarily think it's impossible to be productive using Microsoft's Ribbon interface. I just objected to having it thrust upon me with no choice.

It's not in the standard *buntu repositories yet, so here's how to install it from the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install libreoffice

More info: http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/...tu-linux-mint/

And here are some screen shots. (Note: Some of the icons are my own customizations, namely, the half American/half British flag, the German one, and the French one -- those are tools I made myself for writing in other languages.)


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[Teunis]

Thanks for the interesting screenshots.

[jlittle]

Thanks for the heads-up about this.

... about Microsoft's Ribbon. MS just assumed that people would be delighted to relearn everything...

IMO that's a very generous take on MS's motives. I would say they knew quite well how a lot of long time users would dislike the ribbon, but its value as something that could not be copied exactly by competitors trumped that.


Regards, John Little

[Tom_ZeCat]

Thanks for the heads-up about this.

IMO that's a very generous take on MS's motives. I would say they knew quite well how a lot of long time users would dislike the ribbon, but its value as something that could not be copied exactly by competitors trumped that.


Regards, John Little

I guess my sarcasm didn't come through. What a actually think is Microsoft didn't give a rat's bo-hiney that a lot of old-time power users would be upset. They just expected them to learn the new interface anyway because they're big-bad Microsoft and they can do whatever they please. It didn't work with me. I was willing to move on and use another product, maybe because I was not such a long-time user as many people. I had used other software before MS Office (WordStar + Lotus 1-2-3, and then Lotus Smartsuite). If I'm not happy with software, I'm perfectly willing to move on to something else. My biggest disappointment was that so many other people didn't do the same. Many people just did what MS ordered them to do. They just accepted the new interface as if they had no choice. I would have loved it if MS Office had lost popularity. It seemed a no-brainer to me when LibreOffice is totally free.

[Qqmike]

Tom_ZeCat: I guess my sarcasm didn't come through. What a actually think is Microsoft didn't give a rat's bo-hiney that a lot of old-time power users would be upset. They just expected them to learn the new interface anyway because they're big-bad Microsoft and they can do whatever they please. It didn't work with me .... so many other people didn't do the same. Many people just did what MS ordered them to do. They just accepted the new interface as if they had no choice.

NOT to get off-track here with your thread, but ... Interesting and amazing how companies like MS have that attitude. That's not exactly a marketing plan in today's innovative markets--to take your customers for granted and expect them to let themselves be taken for granted again and again. I've noticed this also with Toyota: As an owner, you are in the Toyota family and are expected (with high sales pressure) to sign on the dotted line for another model in 5 (or in x) years. On that note, it didn't work for me--I went to Honda. I think your perceptions of MS are probably more accurate than not. It is a business model for the past and probably won't work with today's more tuned-in, fast-moving, informed consumers.

[Fintan]

Hi Tom

Thank you for the post.

Could you share how you got those flags in the menu bar:

-- those are tools I made myself for writing in other languages.)

I have been looking for something like that. Cool feature

[Tom_ZeCat]

NOT to get off-track here with your thread, but ... Interesting and amazing how companies like MS have that attitude. That's not exactly a marketing plan in today's innovative markets--to take your customers for granted and expect them to let themselves be taken for granted again and again. I've noticed this also with Toyota: As an owner, you are in the Toyota family and are expected (with high sales pressure) to sign on the dotted line for another model in 5 (or in x) years. On that note, it didn't work for me--I went to Honda. I think your perceptions of MS are probably more accurate than not. It is a business model for the past and probably won't work with today's more tuned-in, fast-moving, informed consumers.

Yes, you would think they would have an attitude like, "Let's give our customers what they want" instead of "Let's make our customers do what we want them to do." It boggles the mind.

Hi Tom

Thank you for the post.

Could you share how you got those flags in the menu bar:

I have been looking for something like that. Cool feature

Sure. Those flag icons represent macros that change the language that the spell checker checks with for whatever paragraph the cursor is in. If you don't have a particular language, you can google it and download it and then install it with:
Tools ===> Extension Manager

I wrote one macro each to change the spell check to English, French, or German respectively. That was:
Tools ===> Macros ===> Record Macro

While recording the macro, it was:
Tools ===> Language ===> [whichever language]

That gave me my macros (which I'll cut and paste at the end of this post). So I have macros named:

ParaToFrench
ParaToGerman
ParaToEnglish

To put each flag icon in the toolbar and assign each macro to it, it's:
Tools ===> Customize ===> [click on toolbar tab]
You'll have a drop-down list where you can choose which toolbar to edit. In my case, I chose “standard.” Under “Toolbar content” it lists all the icons that are already in the toolbar. The checked ones are visible. You can check any command you want to show up. You can also add a command not listed. That's what you'll need to do for the macros by clicking on the “Add” button. An “Add commands” menu pops up. You choose:
LibreOffice Macros ===> My Macros ===> Standard ===> Module 1
(Assuming you've saved your macros in Module 1, the default)

Choose whichever macro you want (ParaToFrench or whatever) and then click on “Add” and then “Close.” This puts your macro into the toolbar, but it won't have an icon yet and it may not be where you want it. The Customize menu should still be open (if not hit Tools ===> Customize). There are some up and down arrows to the right of “Toolbar content.” You can use those arrows to move the command to wherever you want it.

Now you can give your macro an icon. You'll need a square icon, for best results a 16x16 pixel one. You'll be able to find the French flag, the German flag, or whichever one you want easily enough in a Google images search, then just edit it down in an image editor like Gimp. I don't remember whether I used png, ico, or bmp files, but Gimp should be able to convert to any of those. I THINK they were icos. Anyway, you use:
Tools ===> Customize ===> [click on your command from the Toolbar Content list] ===> Modify ===> change icon.

A list of ready-made icons will come up. Ignore those. Instead click on “Import”. A menu pops up that lets you surf to wherever you have your icon. If you try one data type and it doesn't work, just convert it to another and try again. Again, I think the ico datatype is the one that worked for me.

I also assigned the hot keys Ctrl+Alt+E for English, Ctrl+Alt+F for French, and Ctrl+Alt+G for German.

To do that, I did:
Tool ===> Customize ===> Keyboard ===> LibreOffice Macros ===> User ===> Standard ===> Module 1

And then I picked my macros just like I did with the toolbar.

.....................

Here are my macros. You should just be able to add them to yours and they'll work as long as you have the respective languages installed:

sub ParaToFrench
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem define variables
dim document   as object
dim dispatcher as object
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem get access to the document
document   = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame
dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")

rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
dim args1(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
args1(0).Name = "Language"
args1(0).Value = "Paragraph_French (France)"

dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:LanguageStatus", "", 0, args1())


end sub


sub ParaToEnglish
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem define variables
dim document   as object
dim dispatcher as object
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem get access to the document
document   = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame
dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")

rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
dim args1(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
args1(0).Name = "Language"
args1(0).Value = "Paragraph_English (USA)"

dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:LanguageStatus", "", 0, args1())


end sub


sub ParaToGerman
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem define variables
dim document   as object
dim dispatcher as object
rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
rem get access to the document
document   = ThisComponent.CurrentController.Frame
dispatcher = createUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")

rem ----------------------------------------------------------------------
dim args1(0) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
args1(0).Name = "Language"
args1(0).Value = "Paragraph_German (Germany)"

dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:LanguageStatus", "", 0, args1())


end sub

[Fintan]

Great Tom
thanks for that very detailed how-to

[Tom_ZeCat]

One more thing:

I came in here to report that LibreOffice 5 does still have some bugginess. Sometimes when I start it up, it brings up an error message saying, "Do you want to recover your document." If I click yes, it complains again that it could not recover the document. This is when I'm right-clicking from Dolphin to open a document.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Hey, Fintan, I see you're in Switzerland. I used to live there, in Wil, St. Gallen. I have hundreds of relatives in Canton Bern and some in Geneva. Now you know why I've learned to speak German and French. Anyway, I'm back to bed. It's early morning in the US. I had insomnia.

[Fintan]

Great!

In that case : Bon réves

Bthw if your relatives like jazz, Funk, soul, Blues and New Orleans food I may have something for them and you when you come to CH to visit.