OpenOffice.org 2.2 released [LWN.net]

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 29, 2007 21:53 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: OpenOffice.org 2.2 released by dskoll
Parent article: OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

AT my work I use a Linux desktop (thank god), but other people don't.

I use OO.org on Linux, my boss uses OO.org on Windows, and his boss uses OO.org on Windows and he is a Excell freak (as in uses it for _everything_ and has godlike powers over it).

At work we have to update a big database by state and we always had paper trail to log what has happenned with this and that. They wanted to move to spreadsheets to contain the logging information, but I dislike spreadsheets entirely.

So instead I used OO.org 2.x's new database features to make a new hsql database, with a couple tables and rows and such. Then I built a couple little forms for making data entry applications, a couple example queries for making reports and my boss like it quite a bit.

Simple little thing. The biggest problem is that documentation is _literally_ non-existant. I had to look up microsoft access documentation to figure this or that point out.

But it's coming along.

To have the same functionality with MS Office would require a purchase of the top of the line 300-500 dollar version, which just isn't going to happen at my work.

I would of prefered to use some other database frontend application, but stuff from koffice or gnome office doesn't work on Windows, so my bosses wouldn't be able to copy it over to their machines to play around with it.

So OO.org was the only realistic choice.

I think that in lots of places it is now a actual viable alternative for MS Office.

Not everywere, but most places you can probably start introducing it.

Once place I heard of already had MS Office on every machine, but wanted to hopefully migrate away from that. What they did was simply install OO.org to all their Windows machines, and changed the default from MS Office to OO.org for file associations and locations in the menus. The people that cared most went out of their way to use MS OFfice, but they were the vast minority.

(Log in to post comments)

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 30, 2007 22:55 UTC (Fri) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]

WHAT? You made the OO.org Database WORK?

I happily use OO.org for a lot of stuff, but I've had nothing but trouble with the database part, couldn't change order of rows, it crashed if I looked at it the wrong way, and opening forms was asking for a lockup (Not that I used them for anything, just wanted to experiment at bit)...

Oh well, I wanted to use it for designing a MySQL database, so I used the MySQL backend, maybe it really was the binding that harikiri'ed, not the OO.org database itself... Gonna take a look at it again, now that I know it can actually be a successful venture, thx! :D

Dennis

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 31, 2007 2:49 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Ya..

The OO.org 1.x base stuff was complete shit. I tried to get that to work after a Access class I took to see how it compared. I struggled for a couple days with the unix-odbc connectors and different versions of this or that and when I finally when I got it to work.. it didn't work that well.

Utter shit.

(I took the access class by mistake. It was 'database fundamentals', which apparently means 'Learn how to use a propriatory database front end for a psuedo sql database that you will learn nothing about'. I didn't drop out because I figured 'what the hell, people say Access is hot shit so I'll learn it')

The OO.org 2.x base stuff is completely new. It has it's own SQL database now, HSQL as well as a native Mysql driver and ODBC support.

I couldn't get it to work well with GCJ java stuff though. It'd mostly work, but it wasn't reliable and random stuff would fail. (namely the forms wizard).

I had to use Sun java to get it to work well.

Probably the best approach is use the native built-in database support before trying out mysql support.

I found this as a nice way to get my head wrapped around it:
http://sheepdogguides.com/fdb/fdb1main.htm

Now Access is crap. It realy is. Documentation is very poor and it's non-intuitive and difficult to use.

OO.org base is worse, although this has mostly to do with (lack of) documentation. But it works and that is what counts.

The reason I used it is because it runs on Windows, otherwise I think that there are probably better database front ends.

I actually recommend learning OO.org or some details of MS office to learn what sort of thing regular users have to put up with and get used to. It's a eye openner.

OpenOffice.org 2.2 released

Posted Mar 31, 2007 6:37 UTC (Sat) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link]

It was 2.0 (Edgy's reporting it as 2.0.4, though that could have changed), but it was probably the gcj version at the time.

Thanks for the links, I'll take a look! :)

Dennis