News in OpenOffice.org 2.3

It won't be long now. In a few weeks you can expect to see OpenOffice.org 2.3 on the street. But witch new features can you expect to find when you get your hands on it ?

This version is what's called a major release. Several new features is revealed here. Lets see now...

First of all, you will find a brand new way of creating charts. You can create very comprehensive charts from a various of data types.

You can find more information about the new charts here: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Chart2/Features2.3

The next thing you will find, is the report builder in Base. From now on, it's very easy to create nice reports from your data tables in Base. Read more about the report builder here: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/SUN_Report_Builder

A very small, but useful new feature is the ability to export a text document as MediaWiki text. If you are writing Wiki text from time to time, I think you will find this little feature very useful.

Extensions are now capable of creating additional settings in OpenOffice.org.

When ?
Well, the release is planned for medio September. Lets hope that the plans hold.

Project management with open source

A few days ago I saw several blogposts about an new project management tool OpenProj (www.openproj.com). The application is released as beta on Linuxworld. Solveig Haugland wrote this post (http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/08/openproj-open-s.html). Bob Sutor also blogs about it here: http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1780 .

I rushed to see what this was all about, thus I am a project manager and I been looking for an alternative to 'you-know-who'.

I have tried to use GanttProject (www.ganttproject.org) for some small projects in the past. But GanttProject doesn't actually solve my needs. So I was excited to see whats in this new program. GanttProject is a Java application based on the Eclipse platform. My experience is, that there is some minor problems with the graphical interface and sometimes it's very difficult to keep control with all elements in the grahical gantt view. GanttProject has several export filters, e.g. pdf and bitmap. But there is no support for ODF in any way. I tried to download and install a new beta version today, but unfortunately it wouldn't start (some java exception or what ever).

I tried OpenProj today too. Well knowing that it's only a beta release, I was actually surprised. This application is also a java program and it loads quite fast. It seems as a much more comprehensive project management tool to me, contains both resource management and also, and this is important: Financial tracking and several reporting capabilities. Thus I found several problems in the graphical display, it was rather easy to control the items on the graphical gantt screen.

I'm looking forward to see a release in the future.

I'm just a little confused about all the different names. The application is called OpenProj but in the title bar, it's suddenly called Projity. If you ask for on-line help, you are directed to a web page with help for Project-on-demand. Well, I guess that the company is Projity and the open source software is OpenProj. And the Project-on-demand must be another program.

Why is project management tools so important ?

Managing large projects has several serious issues that all have to be dealt with. We need to keep track of all the contracts and specifications. We must be able to register and maintain project roles and resources and as the project planner, I need a planning tool that corresponds with a database with all available resources (people) and their skills. My manager needs to keep track of the economy and my customers wants to know if we're late or on time.

What can I wish of OpenProj: I want to see the use of open standards like Ical and XML/ODF. As far as I can see, the file format is actually a proprietary binary file format.

Still translating

We are still working on the Danish translation of OpenOffice.org 2.3. Right now we have 545 strings that needs translation or approval. The bad thing is, that a lot of these strings are still english text, that needs to be translated into Danish. This takes a lot of time.

However, I have just installed the latest snapshot on my computer, and it was nice to see some of the new screens with Danish text.

OpenOffice.org 2.2.1 has been approved

The QA team has approved the current release candidate as ready to go. So we can expect the software to be released tomorrow Tuesday June 12th.

This is a version with bugfixes alone. You will not find any improved functionality or new features here. Next release is planed for September 4th and will be numbered 2.3. New features (among many others) will be implementing of a new chart in Calc spreadsheet and a new reporting tool in Base.

Congratulations to all teams.

Solveig Haugland on the new Chart module

Solveig has made a brief introduction to the upcoming new chart module in Clac spreadsheet. Look at this blogpost. Remember to see the reference she made on this occation.

New chart integrated in OpenOffice.org 2.3

The new chart module is now being integrated into OpenOffice.org 2.3. You can find a developer snapshot here: http://ftp.linux.cz/pub/localization/OpenOffice.org/devel/680/SRC680_m213/Build-1/

Rather interesting to see the the new charting system as a part of the new version.