From: Jonathan Drews <j.e.drews@worldnet.att.net> Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 00:43:57 -0600 Message-Id: <00112601230500.02745@linux> Subject: Re: [SLE] Balsa, mahogany, kmail...Summing up
Word processing is another application that needs looking at.. but that is off-topic here I guess :)
Keep on rocking, this is an important thread, so I hope it is being heard :)
Cliff
As for word processors, Abiword is just terrific. Even though it is beta software, I think it works extremely well. The real benefit to Abiword is that it is very easy to insert subscripts, superscripts and mathematical symbols, a must for technical reports. MS Word is very clumsy in this respect. It is not as good as Abi. To be sure, Kword also has this feature and once the stability issues are resolved it too will be a valuable WP. I have used Corel WP, Star Office and Applix and I must say they are not as good, nor as intuitive, as the open source word processors. For starters both Corel WP and Applix have buggy mathematical formula frames. Star Offices formula frame, while not buggy, is not pleasant to work with; too many sub menus to plow through. In contrast Kword and Abiword are very easy to learn and master. I don't want to read an entire book on how to operate my editor. I have more important things to do. If I am going to undertake any detailed study of editors it would be of VI or Emacs. The GUI ones are supposed to be intuitive. Finally IMHO, I don't want my Linux software to emulate Microsoft Windows. I want it to be distinct with it's own methods that are adapted to extract maximum benefit from the UNIX operating system. A case in point is the inclusion of Visual Basic in Helix Gnome. It makes sense that Microsoft uses VB because Basic was a component of Microsoft products back in the days of DOS. In a similar way, it makes sense to use C, C++ or, in the case of Kspread macros, Python as the preferred macro language in Linux.