gobeProductive Linux Preview
LWN,
I'm writing to let you know that Gobe Software has released a preview of our
gobeProductive for Linux. We think this product will increase interest in
"mainstream" Linux desktop acceptance.
gobeProductive is a productivity suite, from the team that initially
developed ClarisWorks. It offers word processing, spreadsheets, graphics
and illustration, image processing and presentation. These can all be used
in the "traditional" way, but can also all be brought to bear on a single
document - for example, you can "draw" a working spreadsheet into a page of
text, and you can link into the spreadsheet so that numbers in the text
change when numbers in the spreadsheet change. More information is
available at http://www.gobe.com.
Please take a look (see below), and let me know your thoughts about
gobeProductive.
Regards,
Dave Johnson
VP Marketing
Gobe Software, Inc.
917 SW Oak Street, Suite 412
Portland, OR 97205
503-228-6308 x 831
davej@gobe.com
www.gobe.com
Here's the announcement we sent out:
We are making available a pre-alpha preview of the Linux version of
gobeProductive. We hope you can help us by providing general feedback,
especially regarding interoperability with Linux, the X Window System,
window managers, and Gnome (but please don't send bug reports yet). If you
would like to try this preview product please read the information included
below.
Thank you,
The Gobe Team
http://www.gobe.com
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The download link is located at the bottom of this message. This message
contains important information so please look it over.
After installing, please visit gobeProductive Online (via gobeProductive's
Help menu or <http://gobe.com/gp/>), especially Tips & Tricks. For
continuing announcements of preview or beta versions, please sign up for our
Announce Mailing List, accessible under Mailing Lists at gobeProductive
Online. There is a Linux version discussion area on our gobeProductive
forum, also accessible from gobeProductive Online.
About this version:
This is the pre-alpha 1 preview release of gobeProductive 3.0 for Linux. We
would like general feedback, especially regarding interoperability with
Linux, the X Window System, window managers, and Gnome. We are currently
considering switching to using Gnome 2.0, which is nearing release. Please
send your feedback to <linuxfeedback@gobe.com>. We are not currently seeking
bug reports so please don't send them.
For system requirements, please see the bottom of this document.
This software is not yet beta quality and is intended solely as a preview.
Pre-alpha means that there are areas of functionality which are not yet
usable and that the user interface will change before the final release.
There are several known bugs which cause crashes.
That being said, much of the application is quite usable. It is mostly
areas like dialogs and floating palettes which are unfinished. We are
currently in the process of reimplementing the dialogs and palettes using
Glade, a GUI construction tool for GTK and Gnome. Interface objects such as
the Preferences Dialog and the History panel (palette) are examples of
dialogs which have been converted. Dialogs which have not yet been
converted may exhibit problematic behavior (e.g., the Bullets and Numbering
dialog has overlapping OK/Cancel buttons), and in some cases, crashes.
Other known problem areas and some remedies:
If you are using Sawfish as your window manager, you may encounter non-modal
dialogs (such as the dictionary and thesaurus) which have no close box. To
dismiss these dialogs, you can usually use the ESC key or the Sawfish window
menu (typically invoked via right-click on the window title bar).
Alternatively, the Sawfish Appearance preferences has an option "Decorate
dialog windows similarly to application windows" which will generally cause
dialogs to have close boxes.
If you are using KDE, many panel/palettes will sink below document windows
rather than float. The window appears to disappear, but you should be able
to find it behind the document window.
The ink popup menus will not go away unless you select something.
Currently, the Alt key is used for menu key equivalents, and there is no
user preference to change this.
Image Processing plugins do not work.
--------------------
Licenses:
This installation includes the library libart, which is covered by the LGPL.
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.txt>. Source for this library is
available at <http://www.gobe.com/downloads/LibartSrc.zip>.
This installation includes libGL and libOSMesa, which are covered by the
XFree86 license <http://www.xfree86.org/current/LICENSE1.html#1>.
Copies of these licenses are installed in /usr/share/gobeProductive
--------------------
Installing:
To install, expand the download file: gobe_install.tgz, and run the
installer
$ tar -xzf gobe_install.tgz
$ cd gobe_install
$ ./install_gobeProductive
You will be prompted for the root password (if not already root), and then
asked to read and agree to the end user license.
--------------------
System Requirements:
gobeProductive requires the following software already be installed:
gnome 1.4.1
gnome-print 0.35
libglade 0.17
Freetype 2
This list is preliminary and may be incomplete.
gobeProductive does not require any particular Linux distribution, and
should work with most x86 versions.
--------------------
This pre-alpha preview version of gobeProductive is available at:
http://www.gobe.com/downloads/gobe_linux_x86_install.tgz
