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IBM to launch MS Office for Linux


spinynorman
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Guest Adriano

I recently had to clean up and redesign a friend's website. Some of it was made (undone, some would say) by frontpage. Appalling. I had to look carefully for the few delicate bits of content in a mucky brown sea of crap. You can visit the new website (it's in spanish, though) at Buanzo.com.ar.

 

Not forgetting the word one creates a new directroy with the images and makes a new image for every representation of the same image....

 

Actually, there's a "sensible" reason for it:

-Word saves a copy of each image embedded in a document

-Users get used to that fact, so they delete the originals, but the document is still usable

-If you now change the file format to not save images, users will complain.

I read about this very issue on Joel on Software. Sorry, I ain't got the link for that exact article. HE was designing a webpage creator app (citydesk) and had to think about if and how to save images embedded in html.

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Yes, but see what happens about the html export!

 

What we are (or I am pointing out) is maintainability of the 'documents' when turned into a web page.

 

Usually documents get typed up then put onto some sort of intranet.

The problem here is that they are all but unmaintainable.

 

Try a half page document, anything longer and ....

If you or your company need to edit this to reflect changes to the document then your lost. In effect the intranet gets made u of thousands of word generatede documents all referencing each other.

 

Its like building a house of cards, the whole thing just gets shakier and shakier until it eventually falls apart.

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Gowator,

 

companies who do that are seriously on crack! Sure I know of some companies who use frontpage on their intranet. It's kind of justifiable 'cause of the 'ease' of creating pages by diff. persons and setting up an intranet with it ... and the fact those pages will actually never leave the company, but using WORD to produce the html pages, that's downright CRIMINAL...

 

And I'm not even going to start about how they set the progress of the internet back by at least 5 years (and that's an optimistic estimate)... with their browser wars, custom tags and crappy code-producing programs... MSHTML anyone... every time I see that I get a heart-attack...

 

now with CSS this could all change a lot, which is why I find it important to see tools like e.g. Dreamweaver and Nvu pay attention to that and implement it correctly (although to my tastes current Nvu code is still very difficult to maintain, since it inserts all style definitions inline... but still it will be better across different browsers and force browser vendors to follow the rules...).

Edited by Darkelve
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Hmm even FrontPage is poor, I have an example right now Im editing BUT i can't really post it! (work)

 

However, I understand HOW and WHY....it happens.

 

Someone makes a nice memo and their boss says, hey get that put on the intranet. So they save as html, mess about a bit on the formatitng and send it to whoever is responsible. It looks like you just saved some time AND put something worthwhile for your colleages. In reality you just created an admin maintainance nightmare!

 

Frontpage is the same MS philosophy, EASY IN and PAINFULL OUT. Hey just make a nice backend database etc. EXCEPT is creates little msjet (access databases).

 

It really makes a mess! Even when you stay away from the BOTs and stuff.

Plus the license is restrictive. If you create an Intranet with Frontpage then the license prevents you from for isntance discussing the merits of using WORD to create web pages since the LICENSe states that ANY USE OF FRONTPAGE TO CREATE A SITE WHICH DISPARAGES MICROSOFT, MS-NBC ...... etc. is IN BREACH OF THE LICENSING AGREEMENT.

 

In other words MicroShaft can shut down your site !

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Hmm even FrontPage is poor, I have an example right now Im editing BUT i can't really post it!  (work)

 

However, I understand HOW and WHY....it happens.

 

Someone makes a nice memo and their boss says, hey get that put on the intranet.  So they save as html, mess about a bit on the formatitng and send it to whoever is responsible.  It looks like you just saved some time AND put something worthwhile for your colleages.  In reality you just created an admin maintainance nightmare! 

 

Frontpage is the same MS philosophy, EASY IN and PAINFULL OUT.  Hey just make a nice backend database etc. EXCEPT is creates little msjet (access databases). 

 

It really makes a mess!  Even when you stay away from the BOTs and stuff. 

Plus the license is restrictive.  If you create an Intranet with Frontpage then the license prevents you from for isntance discussing the merits of using WORD to create web pages since the LICENSe states that ANY USE OF FRONTPAGE TO CREATE A SITE WHICH DISPARAGES MICROSOFT, MS-NBC ...... etc. is IN BREACH OF THE LICENSING AGREEMENT. 

 

In other words MicroShaft can shut down your site !

I never said Frontpage was any good... but the code has 'improved' a little bit over time , and it's less desastrous than word. Then comes Dreamweaver, then good-old handcoded Html... still no editor can beat it! Have to see about Nvu though... I've mixed feelings about that. It's good, but it could be better. Like I said, it doesn't seem programmed for maintainability.

 

When you think about, M$ must have some companies locked in so thight that it is to cry for... I wish they would get outpaced in innovation, be forced to switch themselves because of this, so they could experience for themselves the glorious experience of being locked into an OS and applications that are - and often produce- crappy stuff.

 

That would be the day...

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Being outpaced on innovation isn't really going to help.

 

The problem is the lock-in that they build into their apps.

Companies already have documents, web sites and the like using the perverted standards of MS and the only way they can get free is by slowly getitng rid of them and replacing them.

 

 

Bigger companies have hundreds of thousands of web pages and millions of documents all in MS standards.

 

Now, even converting a mail server is a monumental task, let alone all the documents.

What Ms aim at is you the user having everything in some MS format, be it WMV files, documents or web pages.

If some bright sparjk It guy comes up and says hey we can save $$$$ on our licenses every year AND get a more stable system if we dump windows/Office/you name it and replace it with <insert here>

he will meet opposition from the users AND most importantly probably the CEO who has all his little spreadsheets and presentations.

 

Each step you take to making word/powerpoint any type of standard is a part of this lockin.

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Each step you take to making word/powerpoint any type of standard is a part of this lockin.

Yes,

 

that's why we (will) offer all documents in BOTH PDF-versions (print quality) and RTF versions. Agreed, RTF is not ideal, but it is the closest thing there is to an application-neutral document format. Of course, as I already said somewhere on this board, I would prefer to offer it in SWX or another open, globally recognized and used format.

 

 

As for the 'innovation' thing, I only tried to express my resentment for all the lock-in and imagined a just punishment would be for M$ to be confronted with all the problems their lock-in brings with it, themselves.

 

 

Also, if anyone is interested, our company will launch our new website start of next week. Standards-based, virtually complete separation of content and lay-out (with CSS), accessible for persons with a (visual) handicap and, last but not least, perfectly usable with Explorer as well as Netscape as well as Mozilla (but not Netscape 4 or even Explorer 4).

 

:D

 

Opera should work as well, only I'm not sure about some Javascript stuff in our travel planner. Should work, but 'cause they have their own implemantation of it, you never can tell.

 

All courtesy of clean, lean, mean code ;) ... and of course the cause of a lot of stress... I'll be glad when it's finally online. It also kinda sucks to have to maintain 2 websites at once... on your own... is only in Dutch though.

 

I will post the URL when it's ready. Have a look then if you're intereted!

Edited by Darkelve
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In my experience frontpage doesn't add any unneeded code except the header...I use it because I use tables in my site...and I don't know the HTML for them...don't care...and it'd take time to get them the right size...I've edited my frontpage code in Notepad, and noticed nothing really bad...and frontpage is a lot better than the linux progs I've tried because you can do the edit, HTML, or preview...never used preview, but the HTML is very helpful. Now, I'd never even THINK about using word...simply because it's not an HTML editor...and it sucks at text, which is what it's MADE for...but frontpage is fine by me...I totally revamp my site every few months...and frontpage also makes it easy to simply change the page and re-save it...use the same layout for everything...

*shudder* I'm starting to sound like an M$ ad...but seriously...I think frontpage was one of the few decent..or even GOOD things to come from M$...that and the X-Box :-P

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Urza, I see why you'd think that but that is WHY its so incidious.

I've followed a similar route a few times and it always ends the same way!

(and you doing it for yourself is not the same as a company using it. )

In other words this is what I leanred from my mistakes!

 

 

Firstly, Ill assume its static HTML.

Once you start using .asp (or .net now) things get very messy.

I wish I could find some examples I could post, I have hundreds but they would require very heavy editing!

 

FrontPage makes it EASY to add WebBots, or asp ...

As an individual you are in total control. You and only you is adding to this web site.

In a corporation you get all osrts of random requests (and orders)....

For instance your boss makes a presentation and wants it on the intranet.

You can't really say no, he's your boss!

 

FrontPage intergrates the powerpoint derived MSHTML stuff easily and so long as its all run on a MS IIS server it all looks OK.

In real life these requests come thick and fast. (and like trains and busses often all at once)

 

So sooner or later you end up not being able to control the quality becuase more important people have their own idea's and try as you might to advise them against it they insist on yusing the presentation they made when their secretary showed them how to export as HTML.

 

You argue its not real HTML etc. etc. BUT ultimately they insist on trying it. And of course it works becuase its on a MS IIS server.

 

The problem is it locks you in to sevral products all at the same time....

The IIS server, FrontPage AND Powerpoint. Before you know where you are your lokking at embedded Excel spreadsheets and stuff.

 

Then some smart-arse (like me) makes some dynamic stuff, adding a MS Access database is real easy.

 

Wow, if you embed Excel then you can use an ODBC connection and show live graphed data....and look I can put it on a map by embedding MSMap ....

 

Before you know where you are the 'web-site' is a collection of MS files.

The whole thing becomes interlinked. In the past you could move it away from a IIS server and run it on apache, but now you can't. You'd need to add all the graphing and a different backend database etc.

 

Overall this is the design of all MS products. They make it simple to start off and easy to add dependencies. Like every drug user or smoker everyone starts off thinking they can handle it, just a little webbot here and a powerpoint here to save a bit of time. You can give up any time you want.

 

As I said once on a completely different topic....

Life is full of temptations... learning how to spot them and handle them is a part of growing up. Some things in life are better off not touched. (For me I never have and never will gamble - in the sense of going to a bookmakers and putting money on a dog or horse, doesn't mean i don't have stocks etc. I just draw a line)

 

To me FrontPage and MS were things I tried and thought I could handle, I thought I knew the consequences but it turned out I didn't. Now, I act like a alchoholic, I basically don't touch them, even when its tempting to get my damned TV tuner working I keep well away because I know its a slippery slope .....

 

 

Im not saying don't use it.... just be aware. For home user this is less critical.

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lol...yea...I don't do any big stuff on my site though...like, it's all HTML...occassionally I'll put in a bit of JAVAscript...but I do that myself...I don't know how to do that in frontpage...never works right...I don't know how to do anything on frontpage that isn't typing into the box...it just never works for me :P

Sure, I've tried making submit buttons and such...but they don't work. So I stick with frontpage for plain HTML...and www.bravenet.com for anything else :P

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*slaps Urza*

:P

 

.and I don't know the HTML for them...don't care...

 

ehm.... what was that quote again:

"Those who are willing to exchange freedom for security and comfort deserve neither."

(Thomas Jefferson?)

 

Have you seen/tried quanta? The new version shipping with kde3.2 has near wysiwyg editing, preview along with code, and upon insert table you can get the table the way you want no problem. It's really not rocketscience...

 

OTOH, the only more or less good MS tools are excel and powerpoint,... IMHO. Frontpage is not it.

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*slaps aRTee*

 

OTOH, the only more or less good MS tools are excel and powerpoint,

 

hehe

 

The only good MS tools are those you haven't fallen into the trap yet!

As soon as you start using the lockin... oops advanced features, macro's and VB script you get caught out.....

 

:cheeky:

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