That was done right, good amount of features added and was fast.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Still not much compared to M$ Office (although you get AppleWorks with a Mac for free, unlike M$ Office of which they charge you an arm, a leg, and a kidney).
Well for one thing it would be nice if Apple followed their own gui standards i.e use sheets. But besides that, what if apple developed a version of Open Office under their own name. They could use the underpinnings of the open source code, and write a new gui in cocoa, similar to Chimera. Use the "engine" of open Office and give it the Apple treatment. This would give them a level of functionality and compatibility of Office, but include it for free with every Mac. The bonus of this solution is that they don't have to write it from scratch and offer a full Office solution for every mac user, not just those willing to shell out $500 dollars for Office X. Let existing users download it for free. Name: iOffice
If Microsoft offered the Word + Entourage Special Edition again for $150 that would satisfy the needs for most users.
Most people want to be able to do a few things on their computer including browsing the web, checking their e-mail, and word processing.
Microsoft Word is an very solid choice for a word processor for many reasons. Microsoft Entourage is one of the top e-mail and PIM applications.
It would be awesome if Apple worked out a deal to bundle Word + Entourage for the iMac/iBook and Office for the Power Macs and PowerBook but it may be unrealistic.
<strong>If Microsoft offered the Word + Entourage Special Edition again for $150 that would satisfy the needs for most users.
Most people want to be able to do a few things on their computer including browsing the web, checking their e-mail, and word processing.
Microsoft Word is an very solid choice for a word processor for many reasons. Microsoft Entourage is one of the top e-mail and PIM applications.
It would be awesome if Apple worked out a deal to bundle Word + Entourage for the iMac/iBook and Office for the Power Macs and PowerBook but it may be unrealistic.
Those are just my thoughts.</strong><hr></blockquote>
How 'bout facilitating plug-ins? Everything from file converters to spell-checkers/dictitionaries/translators, to paint plug-ins. Maybe have different 'packs' of plugins that could mold your Apple works to anything from a simple web-page/presentation builder to a fully office compatible M$ killer. You choose the amount of simplicity/features you can afford/need.
Matsu: Exactly. Start with a basic page (something like TextEdit) and some rules for interaction and design and provide different plug-ins and packages of plug-ins. And see how much their so-called "Open Source community" can help out.
This way Apple can make a package of "approved" and nessesary plug-ins for the average customer and those who want more/different spell checker/Table/seek-n-replace/aso can download what they want.
that sort of flexibility is exactly what opendoc was trying to accomplish. since it was rather abruptly axed, i doubt we'll see apple walking that road again any time soon (shame, that...). but the cocoa-izing of openoffice sounds like a good idea. if they could keep it properly maintained and compatible, so we didn't end up laughably behind the "real" opensource version.
Apple should toss Appleworks out an have a few engineers work on the OSX OpenOffice port instead. Make it aquafied, and cash in on the open source developers making it.
Release it for free w/ every mac as one more incentive to use Mac.
It has Word (and Excel?) interoperability, and is the best competitor for Office, and sells for the attrctive price of free.
I'm under the assumption that AppleWorks is getting a major overhaul for version 7.
Why? It needs to be the replacement for Microsoft Office if MS jumps out of the Mac market this August.
You can go on and on about how Office v. X is the greatest Office suite ever, but if MS decides to jump out of the market, then Apple or Nisus are your choices.
Will there ever be Star Office and Corel Word Perfect Suite products for the Mac?
Both have gotten good reviews as PC alternatives to Office -- especially Corel's latest offering which was rated as a very good replacement to Office by more than one PC outlet. They've got their creative apps and procreate series for the mac, but no business app line-up. When? If ever... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong>I'm under the assumption that AppleWorks is getting a major overhaul for version 7.
Why? It needs to be the replacement for Microsoft Office if MS jumps out of the Mac market this August.
You can go on and on about how Office v. X is the greatest Office suite ever, but if MS decides to jump out of the market, then Apple or Nisus are your choices.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I hope they are overhauling it for v. 7. As it is now, I use AW just for simple client notes that don't really require anything fancy. Even then, it can be a chore. I would love to be able to get rid of MS Office, but until AW will work flawlessly with office docs, I can't. I've got too much of my academic life tied up in .doc formatted documents. I don't have the time to try to figure out where my formatting was correctly presevered or not.
That said, I feel that we have more choices than just AW or Nisus. Right now, the options are limited to programs that run in X11, but they will be ported to OS X shortly. (No real information, but why would anyone want to use X11 on OS X if they could get their programs to work natively?) Then we'll have some real alternatives. Who knows, maybe they'll be an XML based word processor that's completely platform independent some day. Hey, a fella can dream, can't he??
Comments
That was done right, good amount of features added and was fast.
<strong>Remember version 5.0?
That was done right, good amount of features added and was fast.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Still not much compared to M$ Office (although you get AppleWorks with a Mac for free, unlike M$ Office of which they charge you an arm, a leg, and a kidney).
Besides, AW has the features I use most often not like Office where I get ten zillion useless features, for me anyway.
I liked AW 5 and hate AW6. It's total crap.
1) Spell check doesn't work on selected text any more. That is it spells the whole thing and not just the selected.
2) Get rid of those grabbable buttons that move instead of click when I try to click them.
Most people want to be able to do a few things on their computer including browsing the web, checking their e-mail, and word processing.
Microsoft Word is an very solid choice for a word processor for many reasons. Microsoft Entourage is one of the top e-mail and PIM applications.
It would be awesome if Apple worked out a deal to bundle Word + Entourage for the iMac/iBook and Office for the Power Macs and PowerBook but it may be unrealistic.
Those are just my thoughts.
<strong>If Microsoft offered the Word + Entourage Special Edition again for $150 that would satisfy the needs for most users.
Most people want to be able to do a few things on their computer including browsing the web, checking their e-mail, and word processing.
Microsoft Word is an very solid choice for a word processor for many reasons. Microsoft Entourage is one of the top e-mail and PIM applications.
It would be awesome if Apple worked out a deal to bundle Word + Entourage for the iMac/iBook and Office for the Power Macs and PowerBook but it may be unrealistic.
Those are just my thoughts.</strong><hr></blockquote>
$150 is still way too much...
<strong>
$150 is still way too much...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, but it's better than it is now.
to be rewitten
pay OmniGroup. Obviously Apple doesn't want to allocate sufficient resources
This way Apple can make a package of "approved" and nessesary plug-ins for the average customer and those who want more/different spell checker/Table/seek-n-replace/aso can download what they want.
Release it for free w/ every mac as one more incentive to use Mac.
It has Word (and Excel?) interoperability, and is the best competitor for Office, and sells for the attrctive price of free.
Please Apple, if you are reading this, DO IT NOW!
Greatly improve the database feature to rival Microsoft Access and the ability to import Access databases.
(Notice how MS doesnt port Access to the Mac)
2. "Everything is an object."
3. push Appleworks Applescripting and other plug-in packs
4. integrate better with Homepage, iMovie, etc.
5. better Windows file translation/interoperability
6. KISS, (let Office be the whiz-bang package) and install it on ALL new Macs, even the pro models.
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
Why? It needs to be the replacement for Microsoft Office if MS jumps out of the Mac market this August.
You can go on and on about how Office v. X is the greatest Office suite ever, but if MS decides to jump out of the market, then Apple or Nisus are your choices.
Both have gotten good reviews as PC alternatives to Office -- especially Corel's latest offering which was rated as a very good replacement to Office by more than one PC outlet. They've got their creative apps and procreate series for the mac, but no business app line-up. When? If ever... <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
<strong>I'm under the assumption that AppleWorks is getting a major overhaul for version 7.
Why? It needs to be the replacement for Microsoft Office if MS jumps out of the Mac market this August.
You can go on and on about how Office v. X is the greatest Office suite ever, but if MS decides to jump out of the market, then Apple or Nisus are your choices.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I hope they are overhauling it for v. 7. As it is now, I use AW just for simple client notes that don't really require anything fancy. Even then, it can be a chore. I would love to be able to get rid of MS Office, but until AW will work flawlessly with office docs, I can't. I've got too much of my academic life tied up in .doc formatted documents. I don't have the time to try to figure out where my formatting was correctly presevered or not.
That said, I feel that we have more choices than just AW or Nisus. Right now, the options are limited to programs that run in X11, but they will be ported to OS X shortly. (No real information, but why would anyone want to use X11 on OS X if they could get their programs to work natively?) Then we'll have some real alternatives. Who knows, maybe they'll be an XML based word processor that's completely platform independent some day. Hey, a fella can dream, can't he??