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NeoOffice :: View topic - A few ideas off the top of my head...
A few ideas off the top of my head...
 
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professorsnapper
Blue Pill


Joined: Sep 19, 2008
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:54 am    Post subject: A few ideas off the top of my head...

A few off the top of my head...(along with my thoughts on whether they're priority A, B or C)

1.Writer:
- Compatibility with referencing/bibliography software (priority A). I'm currently using Endnote (closed source). Will happily use an open-source referencing program, as long as that program has a similar or better feature set & ease of use compared to Endnote. the ability to easily migrate my data from Endnote to an open-source alternative would also be a bonus.

2.Presentation:
- Some templates that look more modern and clean/slick in their design. The ones inherited from OpenOffice look a bit dated to me, and there are very few of them. I realise I can use templates from Powerpoint, but that's not really the (power)point. Apple's Keynote has some has some peachy ones to use for inspiration. (priority B)
- I've seen some eye-opening “cinematic” slide transitions and slide animations also in Apple's Keynote software. Certainly not essential, but big on the “wow” factor. Could win many new fans. (priority B)

Again, I tip all of my six thinking hats to you all...

Thanks,
Snapper.

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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 8:10 am    Post subject: Re: A few ideas off the top of my head...

professorsnapper wrote:
1.Writer:
- Compatibility with referencing/bibliography software (priority A). I'm currently using Endnote (closed source). Will happily use an open-source referencing program, as long as that program has a similar or better feature set & ease of use compared to Endnote. the ability to easily migrate my data from Endnote to an open-source alternative would also be a bonus.


The desire to support Endnote has come up many times. The problem is that, as you noted, Endnote is a proprietary product and despite widespread usage of NeoOffice on the Mac and OpenOffice.org on Windows, the developers of Endnote have not pursued releasing their product as an OpenOffice.org extension. Like Microsoft Office, NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org allow software companies to develop extensions. However, it seems that the vendors for many of the most popular extensions (Endnote and MathType come to mind) do not want to invest in anything but Microsoft Office.

Creating a replacement for Endnote is a fairly massive project and since the NeoOffice project is funded entirely by user donations and, as a result, funding and developer resources are very limited, we need our user community to help us determine if a proposed new feature will be valued by enough users that if we invest our limited funds and developer resources to implement it, donations generated by the new feature will pay back the funds spent. Given our current user donation levels, I suspect that creating an Endnote replacement would, at a minimum, use of a year's worth of resources so I have to be honest and tell you that this feature is very unlikely to be implemented given our current donation-based operations.

As a result, the choices for high-end bibliographic support in donation-ware like NeoOffice is pretty thin. I have heard that Sun Microsystems' OpenOffice.org engineers (NeoOffice is based on OpenOffice.org) have enhanced bibliographic suppport in their upcoming OpenOffice 3.0 release. I do not know how those improvements compare to Endnote, but what we can promise is that any improvements in OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be available in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access which is currently planned to be released in November 2008.

professorsnapper wrote:
2.Presentation:
- Some templates that look more modern and clean/slick in their design. The ones inherited from OpenOffice look a bit dated to me, and there are very few of them. I realise I can use templates from Powerpoint, but that's not really the (power)point. Apple's Keynote has some has some peachy ones to use for inspiration. (priority B)
- I've seen some eye-opening “cinematic” slide transitions and slide animations also in Apple's Keynote software. Certainly not essential, but big on the “wow” factor. Could win many new fans. (priority B)


Another open source project called OxygenOffice has already done this. At their site, you can download an extension that you can install in NeoOffice or OpenOffice.org that adds thousands of templates.

To install their template extension, download the first item listed in the following URL (note: it is nearly the size of the NeoOffice download) and then install the downloaded .oxt file by selecting the Tools :: Extension Manager menu in NeoOffice. In the dialog that appears, select My Extensions, press the Add button, and select the .oxt file that downloaded:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170021&package_id=208656

Patrick
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sardisson
Town Crier
Town Crier


Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588

PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 8:12 am    Post subject: Re: A few ideas off the top of my head...

professorsnapper wrote:
1.Writer:
- Compatibility with referencing/bibliography software (priority A). I'm currently using Endnote (closed source). Will happily use an open-source referencing program, as long as that program has a similar or better feature set & ease of use compared to Endnote. the ability to easily migrate my data from Endnote to an open-source alternative would also be a bonus.

Be sure to have a look at this page in our wiki. None of those may be viable for you at the moment, but there are some options (as well, be sure to express to the Endnote folks your desire to see them become compatible with NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org). I haven't played around with the bibliography stuff in OOo 3 (which will appear in NeoOffice 3 Early Access later this year), but supposedly it was going to be greatly improved. Like all development plans, that's subject to change, so it may have missed the cut.

professorsnapper wrote:
2.Presentation:
- Some templates that look more modern and clean/slick in their design. The ones inherited from OpenOffice look a bit dated to me, and there are very few of them. I realise I can use templates from Powerpoint, but that's not really the (power)point. Apple's Keynote has some has some peachy ones to use for inspiration. (priority B)

Ed's had a bug open for a while on having Neo ship some quality templates by default if there were a freely-available package that was also reasonably small in size. This lists some of the collections we are aware of; some of the new template extensions (last link in the section) might be good.

Smokey

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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 8:19 am    Post subject: Re: A few ideas off the top of my head...

sardisson wrote:
Ed's had a bug open for a while on having Neo ship some quality templates by default if there were a freely-available package that was also reasonably small in size. This lists some of the collections we are aware of; some of the new template extensions (last link in the section) might be good.


There is no open bug for this. What did happen was a year or so ago we looked at bundling OxygenOffice's template package in NeoOffice. However, we found that size of OxygenOffice's template extension package would nearly double the size of the NeoOffice download and that would be cost significant bandwidth costs for us and our mirrors.

Patrick
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SteveRead
Operator


Joined: Jan 14, 2007
Posts: 46

PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:31 am    Post subject: Bibliography software

There is a Firefox extension called zotero that integrates with NeoOffice and OpenOffice. It is explicitly designed as bibliography software. It can be found at:

http://www.zotero.org/

I'm pretty sure it can both import and export EndNote files.

It looks pretty good and is getting a lot of development support.
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:47 am    Post subject: Re: Bibliography software

SteveRead wrote:
There is a Firefox extension called zotero that integrates with NeoOffice and OpenOffice. It is explicitly designed as bibliography software. It can be found at:

http://www.zotero.org/

I'm pretty sure it can both import and export EndNote files.

It looks pretty good and is getting a lot of development support.


I saw that in my quick Google search this morning. The download link for the NeoOffice extension is a bit hidden, so here is the direct link:

http://www.zotero.org/documentation/openoffice_integration

Patrick
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Kiwisteve
Agent


Joined: Oct 09, 2008
Posts: 12
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:32 am    Post subject:

Hi.

I have used Zotero a little.. I find it pretty good actually with some really cool features.

The only things that let it down for me at the moment is the output styles are a little limited and the process of creating them seems a pain for a non- programmer type.

The ones provided are pretty good however.. I use Chicago 14b mostly and the version provided is pretty close and works for me just fine.

I do wish there was a few other capabilities including the availability fro entries for music scores etc but even Endnote (which I use when in a Windows environment) has issues with that so that is just life for us muso's

Steve
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Kiwisteve
Agent


Joined: Oct 09, 2008
Posts: 12
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 2:01 am    Post subject: Re: A few ideas off the top of my head...

Quote:

Another open source project called OxygenOffice has already done this. At their site, you can download an extension that you can install in NeoOffice or OpenOffice.org that adds thousands of templates.

To install their template extension, download the first item listed in the following URL (note: it is nearly the size of the NeoOffice download) and then install the downloaded .oxt file by selecting the Tools :: Extension Manager menu in NeoOffice. In the dialog that appears, select My Extensions, press the Add button, and select the .oxt file that downloaded:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170021&package_id=208656

Patrick


Thanks for the suggestion..
Installed this as above but I don't see any new templates.
Where do they get hidden??

Steve
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Kiwisteve
Agent


Joined: Oct 09, 2008
Posts: 12
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 2:14 am    Post subject: Re: A few ideas off the top of my head...

professorsnapper wrote:
A few off the top of my head...(along with my thoughts on whether they're priority A, B or C)
.......

2.Presentation:
- Some templates that look more modern and clean/slick in their design. The ones inherited from OpenOffice look a bit dated to me, and there are very few of them. I realise I can use templates from Powerpoint, but that's not really the (power)point. Apple's Keynote has some has some peachy ones to use for inspiration. (priority B)
- I've seen some eye-opening “cinematic” slide transitions and slide animations also in Apple's Keynote software. Certainly not essential, but big on the “wow” factor. Could win many new fans. (priority B)

Again, I tip all of my six thinking hats to you all...

Thanks,
Snapper.


For additional templates check out..
http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/openoffice_org_power_tools
& check the two templates links lower in the document.

There are some pretty cool templates here.
Just install the downloaded OTX files using the Extensions Manager.
Restart NeoOffice and you will see new templates and backgrounds magically appearing..

Steve
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Kiwisteve
Agent


Joined: Oct 09, 2008
Posts: 12
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:06 pm    Post subject:

Kiwisteve wrote:
Hi.

I have used Zotero a little.. I find it pretty good actually with some really cool features.

Steve



In addition ref the following thread.. especially the latter entries..
https://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=6473&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Steve
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