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Hi
That point keeps coming up but it best said the other way around
80% of MSO almost never gets used.
/snip/
How many people know how to mail-merge? Not as many as know how to use
bold!!Regards from
Tom
What the heck is a mail merge? I use Thunderbird, i wouldn't have any idea
how to do any kind of mail in a word processor. And I don't know why I'd ever
want to.--doug
Mail-merge is using a Write document as template and inserting data into various fields in the template from a spreadsheet, table, or database. The final set of documents can be mailed or more rarely emailed to the recipients.
not knowing what it is, it's understandable why you'd not know why you'd want to. <g>
you want to send mail (usually printed stuff) to 1000 individuals but personalized so each letter has the individual's name, address, perhaps a personal greeting like "good morning, doug!"
you can modify each letter by hand a thousand times or use mail merge.
I would love to do it, also for emails, but for my purposes I probably need to set up a database instead.
F.
Say you want to send an invitation by mail to your 10.000 friends. You simply write the letter once with "holes" within. Then you merge (hence the name) the letter and the missing data which is stored in a seperate "database" (LibO uses the "datasource" term). As a result you get 10.000 different letters, from just one.
Of course, a private person might not use that feature frequently, but any company which wants to advertise does this very often.
What the heck is a mail merge? I use Thunderbird, i wouldn't have any idea
how to do any kind of mail in a word processor. And I don't know why I'd
ever want to.Say you want to send an invitation by mail to your 10.000 friends. You
simply write the letter once with "holes" within. Then you merge (hence the
name) the letter and the missing data which is stored in a seperate
"database" (LibO uses the "datasource" term). As a result you get 10.000
different letters, from just one.Of course, a private person might not use that feature frequently, but any
company which wants to advertise does this very often.
Especially if we talk about 10 000 friends. I don't even know ig I met
10 000 people all together in my whole life yet… I think I have like
10 friends…
Johnny Rosenberg
Thanx everybody. Now I know what mailmerge is. I don't think I would ever need it. If I send mail to more than 5 people at once it would be a lot.
--doug
I believe they are called TeX (for word processing) and R (for
calculations[1]).
But there is a reason they never get substantial mainstream market share. Most
users simply do not care if software is bloated and slow as long as it gets
work done. Only professionals are ever interested in investing time into
adjustments that will benefit them in longer run.
[1] Yes, I know that calling R "program for calculations" is radical
oversimplification.
As I think about software evolution, there was little consistency back in
the DOS days. For example, Wordstar had its Ctrl-key combinations that were
hard to learn but, once learned, made touch typists *very* proficient.
WordPerfect preferred the Function key commands.
Yes, but people who used WordPerfect extensively (as I did in the
early 1990s) knew all 48 functions (plain function, Shift+function,
Alt+function, Ctrl+function) and were, indeed, very proficient. Even
though I only typed about 90 wpm, I could crank out stuff as quickly
as much faster typists.
Because I knew the function keys, I did not use WordPerfect's menu
card which was designed to sit on the top of the keyboard over the
function keys — but when I was away from my desk people would use my
PC for printing because I had a faster and nicer printer and would
bring their menu card so they could print and whatever else they
needed to do .... and frequently leave it behind. I'd return to my
desk, find the menu card and toss it in the overhead bin — had quite a
collection of those things!
One of the Windows selling points was that all of the programs could have a
consistent UI. All programs followed the same basic menu structure (File,
Edit, Format, Tools, etc.). While each program had its own quirks (page
layout under "File"?), the general consistency of menus made programs
relatively easy to figure out.
I always wondered why MS Word had the Page Format under the File
command instead of under the Format command, but got used to it. Until
the ribbon, I typically used the Alt key plus keystrokes as I do in
LO. It just doesn't make sense to me to move from the keyboard to a
mouse whilst typing text. I've become accustomed to the ribbon (I
teach MS Word classes), and the Alt key plus keystrokes is still
there, but it seems much harder to use. However, I must have (in both
LO and MSO) my keyboard shortcuts and create keyboard shortcuts for
things I frequently use. The more I can keep my fingers over the
keyboard, the better.
More often-used commands could be attached to icons streamlining the
process.
Or to keyboard shortcuts.
But, the icon toolbars, while quick and easy, were never intended
to *replace* the menu structure, just supplement it.
I don't look at it that way. What I stress in all my classes is that
there are multiple ways to do things and none of them are more correct
than the others. I recommend users find a way with which they are most
comfortable and stick with it. I may think it a waste of time to move
my hand to the mouse, move it until my eye picks up the pointer on the
screen, move it to the bold format icon and click on it and then
return to the keyboard (and repeat to turn it bold formatting off),
but that doesn't make it more right. Just as different people have
different ways of learning, I think different people have different
degrees of comfort with the various ways to execute commands.
Toolbars are, by their
nature, very much subject to user preferences. When installing LO, I
immediately customize the toolbars to eliminate icons I never use.
I would encourage everyone to do this. Working with the default
arrangement rarely makes sense. It should be viewed as a starting
point.
It's like the introduction of the mouse with the keyboard number pad. Taking your hand off the mouse to enter numbers is a waste of time so you have to learn to be left moused to keep productivity up.
Steve
There is a downside to the extensions/plugins idea. It's who creates them.
I run into this problem all the time with Firefox and Thunderbird. Many of the extensions and plugins are developed by folks outside of Mozilla. You find X number of them that allow you to add specific features that make the program operate the way you like, do what you want, etc.
Then, the developers make changes to the core code, breaking X number of your extensions and plugins. One or more of those extensions/plugins were developed by 3rd party individuals who no longer support the extensions, for whatever reason.
Now, your workflow/habits start to get screwed. Things you used to do, you can no longer do. Features that used to be easy for you, now become a pain. You have to find another way to get the same job done. Or, you can't do it at all. 
This is very true. The only way to ensure compatibility is if you control all the extensions, which would be a nightmare.
Sticking with the paradigm of upgrading software breaks a lot of uncontrolled X, Microsoft did this on a larger scale. When they introduced Internet Explorer 10 they broke X number of websites (including our gradebook website). The fix is simple, just click the compatibility icon, but try explaining that to hundreds of parents of students who don't even know the difference between Chrome and Internet Explorer.
Anyway, my point is that complaints will pile up. Like it or not, breaking plugins and extensions will make people feel less secure with LibreOffice. People always reach higher up on the chain for something to blame.
Hi 
There could be a core group of Extensions/Add-ons that are maintained as part of the program. Official add-ons. Then a bunch of 3rd party or experimental ones. Encourage all to be made as OpenSource so that if/when the original maintainer vanishes then others could take over.
Regards from
Tom
This assumes there will be someone interested in taking the extensions over.
If you were at 3rd party developer, how would you feel about competing with "official" add-ons, especially if the one you wrote was superior? If it's not official, maybe there's something wrong with it.
Hi
Hmmm, i was thinking of the official ones covering certain fairly commonly used functionality and the 3rd party ones tending to go for interesting oddities. But if a 3rd party one was directly competing with an official one and doing it better then it would be great to have some mechanism for it to swap places and become the official one.
Anyway, all this is idle speculation. Possibly a great idea in theory but unlikely to happen.
Regards from
Tom
For me, the "fairly common" features are not what I'm looking for. Why? The fairly common ones tend not to push the envelope presenting new features, ideas, and methods of working with XXXXXXXXXXX.
And the very reason I'm sitting here actually reading the 540 page Scrivener manual! LOL
no longer conflict with document panes.
I.e. split panes for a document window.
When they introduced Internet Explorer 10 they broke X number of websites
(including our gradebook website).
These websites were broken in the first place. Just stick to web standards and
you won't have any problems with IE10.
The fix is simple, just click the compatibility icon
Just put this:
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=9">
in your <head>.
More about it:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288325(v=vs.85).aspx