> I'm far away from using any of the feature which LibreCalc or Excel offers.

;-)

> I claim that a port of LibreOffice is either very slow or even not useable at all
> on PPC hardware.

LibreOffice 5.2 works fine on my PPC hardware running Leopard.

Quote:

I was using (or actually are using) NeoOffice. Which is a more native version of Open-/LibreOffice for Mac.
But on my PPC hardware I remember that scrolling large Writer or Calc documents was quite slow.
Well, UI rendering in general wasn't as snappy as it should have been.


Manfred

> I believe Draw is part of 3.x and Math and Base are added since 4.x and present in 5.x.

Draw and Math have been there since 1.0, Base was added in 2.0.

Quote:

Then why even load it up in MorphOS? Just print it from your phone. Dont need morphos if you need to jump thru hoops.

*** Warning - long a$$, rant mode post below :) ***

I think the focus on Word / Excel etc formats might be part of the problem in the discussion. Personally I don't use / care about them too much. IMO focusing on the work I need to do and not a particular format or program is what _I_ need to do.

I use WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 formats and they interchange just fine. For that Amiga wordprocessors and spreadsheets work just fine. Since I don't particularly like Word and Excel, WordPerfect and Quattro Pro on the PC does what I need. For DTP Pagestream or even ProPage are more powerful than I need and with a Postscript printer I don't care about taking it to a PC.

For presentations, as silly as it may sound, I still use AmigaVision Pro for a lot of it. Sure there's no way to transfer it to other platforms but who cares? It works just fine on an Amiga to do presentations, the interface is drop dead simple, I can pull material from many sources. After all this time it is powerful and flexible enough to do everything I need it to do.

For databases I still use SuperBase - in large part because of the image field type. I never understood why MUIbase doesn't have that. Fully relational and the programming language is damn powerful - you can make SuperBase jump through any hoop you want. If I REALLY want it on a PC for some reason, that's what I have SuperBase for Windows for.

For graphics work, there's a ridiculous abundance of options on AmigaOS. Sure there aren't plug-ins so you have to do the fancy stuff by hand and it's "a bit" slower but I still get there and what's available is fast enough for what I need to do. Personally the interface on the Amiga programs are so much simpler, faster and more intuitive for me. Not having to deal with menus nested 27 layers deep is real nice.

For video work, Lightwave with plug-ins and the Flyer or Draco with MovieShop 5 does what I need. Yes, Amiga Lightwave is much slower but I still get there. I might not be able to do HD video but the Flyer is so darn fast it's nuts. Throw Millennium on a Flyer system and you've got a good system. MovieShop 5 is no slouch either.

And let's not forget the wonders of ARexx. I can replicate a lot of those graphics plug-ins and have just as much one button access to the features. Tying everything together with ARexx works wonders. I sure wish it was updated to latest REXX features but as it is, it's still the bee's knees :)

I don't get the speed of the newest products on the other platforms and the latest features may be lacking. But honestly, how many people use more than 10% of the features of the modern programs? And again, ARexx makes up for a lot of it.

I get the features that _I_ need and platform transferability that _I_ need. Most of it works on MorphOS and AmigaOS 4 and for the rest 3.1 still works :) LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, etc compatibility is possible with some creativity.

That's a long winded way of saying that, for me, I don't care if LibreOffice never comes to Amiga-ish operating systems. Of course YMMV :)

> there's no way to transfer it to other platforms but who cares?

Anyone who needs to transfer it to another platform ;-)

> how many people use more than 10% of the features of the modern programs?

That's irrelevant if the particular feature required is among the other 90% :-)

> LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, etc compatibility is possible with some creativity.

I doubt that, except for very basic documents.

I'm waiting for "I don't use computers to create documents, I prefer a pen or pencil".

Hey, I use Office365, and pay a monthly subscription fee to do so.
For Word and Excel (I have no real use for the rest of it unless I'm required to use PowerPoint).

And no, I don't find LibreOffice to be an adequate substitute.

SO, no matter what solution gets dropped on us, I'll still require a PC (or a Mac).

Its not that I am overly fond of Microsoft, but as in the past, I've always tried to use the proper tools for any job I am doing.
And this is the best tool I've seen thus far.

So...if 8/10ths is good enough for you, go for it.

Under MorphOS, all I require is a decent editor, because for something more complex...

FinalWriter, and especially Ignition, StarAm Plan (even though not public domain) I would hate to see those huge efforts wasted.


Manfred

Quote:

The rest of your rant is irrelevant. Well, really all of your rant is irrelevant to everyone except you.

What is the point of using a word processor or spreadsheet, or any other parts of an office suite, just for yourself that you can't share your work with 99% of the rest of the population (without jumping through a bunch of hoops to convert your work), and also you are not able to import anything from the rest of the population into your proprietary office suite software? I guess that is okay if you are a hermit who never has contact with other humans and doesn't care about the rest of the human race, but most of us are not that way, and we want to easily open documents and presentations from our friends and family, simply by clicking on them within our office suite of choice on MorphOS.

I dislike Word and preferred WordPerfect, just like you, but even on the PC in 2017, some Word users might have problems with WordPerfect documents, if the user of WordPerfect doesn't choose a Word format to save their work, before sending it to someone else. As great as you and I think WordPerfect is/was, IIRC, it is dead, and 99.999% of the world uses Word, or Open Office/Libre Office and sends documents in the doc, or docx format.

So, this discussion on exchange formats is very important and appropriate, for almost all MorphOS users, and not in any way part of a problem.

Quote:

I used all of the Softwood productivity programs, with my purchase of FinalCopy, FinalCopyII, FinalWriter (all versions and updates) FinalCalc, & FinalData at full retail price when new and first released.

I liked FinalWriter, even if it looks quite dated compared to some modern word processors. If it gets a good port to MorphOS and includes support for .doc/.docx formats, I'll definitely buy it again.

I haven't looked at Ignition or StarAm Plan yet.

I am of the opinion that we 'desperately' need an office suite that is modern and has low enough system overheads to be useable for our OS. It would be great if other applications come along later on, but if we can adapt an Open Licence Office package to MorphOS to get us started that would a first step, so my hopes are reasonable - at least I consider them to be so, and if Libre Office gets ported to our OS then that would be a great initial step, IMHO.

MorphOS should have its own Office Suite. MorphOS should have this office suite completely integrated into MorphOS. Replace Legacy with an Office Suite. It should be MorphOffice. A Bounty Project for Morph, GmbH to create MorphOffice would also be useful.

I don't know of any free options but what about Pagestream??
It is still going as far as I know. I have the Amiga version on my MorphOS system.

Quote:

I did say a few times that I was talking about me :) For me, the need for a specific target format of MS / Libre Office isn't that important, getting done what I need to do is more important. For most of what I do, I'm able to use an Amiga-ish system as my primary system so the inter platform is less necessary. I know that I could very well be unique in that.

For me, what I'd love to see is full featured, currently developed / supported native applications so that everyone could do all their work on one system without having to care about transferability.

I realize that that is a bit of a pipe dream. Unfortunately, because of the size of our platform and the resources / developer time available, I don't really see a lot of hope for getting a full Libre Office port anytime soon. It's been talked about and attempted for years but with a handful of developers working on it part time, I'm guessing we'll probably see a complete, fully bug fixed x64 MorphOS much sooner.

Sure Trevor has talked about a working beta of Libre Office but what does that actually mean? Bold, italic and underline work or something more? And that's just for OS4 where I guess it's probably another case of him throwing his money at it because he wants it. Not that I'm complaining about his efforts, I like my X1000s and X5000s but who has the money, time and skills to do the same for MorphOS?

I'm just not sure how practical it is to wait and expect it to happen "some day". Without a good office suite and a Firefox / Chrome level browser, our platform will become less and less capable of being a primary system for users. Will it eventually be relegated to playing classic games for those who want to play them on "real" hardware or even simply abandoned to play the games with emulators on our real computers that also happen to be able to do real work?

I like the platform, particularly the OS, too much to give it up so I use the native tools to do what I need to do. I'm a retired old fart not having to produce anything for anyone else so, again just for me, I don't need or care about the inter platform as long as I can do what I need to do with the tools available. The above is how I'm able to do it without having to resort to other platforms.

Once again YMMV if your needs are not similar. If they're not then none of this applies to you and you're safe to just ignore it and do what you need to do to do what you want to do. It's no skin off my back either way :)

> Morph, GmbH

Who?

> so that everyone could do all their work on one system without having to care about
> transferability

I guess for most people requiring transferability, it is needed because the files *must* also be read (or even written to) on other systems (and maybe even by other people).

> Will it eventually be relegated to playing classic games for those who want to play them on
> "real" hardware or even simply abandoned to play the games with emulators on our real
> computers that also happen to be able to do real work?

For the vast majority of "classic" games, MorphOS needs an emulator (UAE) as well. Playing those games is better done on Windows/macOS/Linux than on MorphOS anyway. And I doubt any "classic" Amiga fan considers PPC Macs to be "real" hardware.

Quote:

If such an office suite is only useful for you, and not the 99.999% of the rest of the MorphOS community who needs, or wants format exchange capabilities, why would any developer bother to work on such software?

Quote:

FinalWriter, when it is ported to MorphOS, might meet your needs for a word processor, as the new owner claims that it will be further developed with new features, and should work on PPC MorphOS soon (or maybe it already does now, but I don't think the port is past its beta stage yet).

Quote:

Yes, I agree that we might see a port of MorphOS to x64 before AmigaOS4 gets a complete and working port of Libre Office, and I think that there is only one programmer working on it, unless his twin brother is also helping him complete the port. I think that AmigaOS4 has more work done building into the OS the dependencies needed for the port of Libre Office, and since the programmer(s) working on it have zero interest in MorphOS (and maybe a dislike for MorphOS developers or users), we are even less likely to get Libre Office ported to MorphOS from the current work being done on the AmigaOS4 port.

Quote:

If you have multiple "X1000s and X5000s", maybe you have the money to fund a port of Libre Office to MorphOS? I don't know of anyone else who has more than one of each.

Quote:

The best hope for MorphOS users to be able to run modern Office Suite software is if the MorphOS Dev. Team builds the ability to run x64 Linux software directly on their x64 MorphOS systems, once MorphOS for x64 is completed, or if they make it very easy to port Linux software to MorphOS for x64, so we can quickly have tons of ported x64 Linux software, soon after MorphOS for x64 is finished.

Quote:


Why try to steer this conversation toward solutions that only satisfy your needs, instead of what will meet every MorphOS users needs? You can use what is already available to produce your documents, spreadsheets, or picture files. Either native PPC MorphOS software, or 68k Amiga software that runs on MorphOS with or without EUAE.

I doubt we will see a capable office suite in the nearer future for MorphOS.A native program could be doable as can be seen from Carsten's approaches, I mean: he came a pretty long way with his approch. The program has many flaws and limitations, but some things work and he's doing it alone. I imagine a team could progress to a way better quality. Problem is: I don't see that team, at least I cannot contribute much to it (rather lousy on C++ and you probably don't want a Hollywood office suite...).

But my best hope is with MorphOS x64 and some virtual machine. All on MorphOS would be great, but that is just not realistic, but all on one machine - that is a realistic perspective at least. Hence I still repeat myself: put all efforts to the x64 port. Once running on these machines get more software to the MorphOS side of it.
But i doubt we will see MorphOS x64 before 2020 (if at all).

all this talk about LibreOffice..

I dunno if you guys know or not,but the 'dir' and 'ls' commands for x64 MorphOS have been optimized. I heard from a top secret Dev that its so fast, right as you hit enter, a directory listing shows up.. No delay. They even wrote a timer that times the instant your finger touches the enter key and it activates the logic for the Enter key, it was 150% faster response. Its so fast, there is an easter egg in the command. Supposedly if you can hit Enter "T", MorphTRIS runs. Its a text based version of Tetris.

Just fyi.

> 'ls'

http://library.morph.zone/Shell_Commands/List

> They even wrote a timer

http://library.morph.zone/Shell_Commands/Time

> [...] MorphTRIS runs. Its a text based version of Tetris.

Morphtris has been part of MorphOS since the 1.x days.

Quote:

Andreas, your search skills are unsurpassed.

But I bet you didnt know about the text version of MorphTRIS. Rumor has it, the contents of the ls and dir command run encrypted and retrieve contents securely.

[ Edited by TheMagicM 12.06.2017 - 07:45 ]

Would ODT and MS Word import/export functionality for the new version of Finalwriter be quicker than a full port of Libre Office?

Perhaps a massive bounty would encourage Kalamatee to add it?

Quote:

It was planned however with his current financial situation many planned features are on hold.

> your search skills are unsurpassed.

I didn't search for anything.

>>> [...] MorphTRIS runs. Its a text based version of Tetris.

>> Morphtris has been part of MorphOS since the 1.x days.

> I bet you didnt know about the text version of MorphTRIS.

I bet you didn't know about the graphical version of Morphtris that's been part of MorphOS since the 1.x days :-)

> ls

2nd try: http://library.morph.zone/Shell_Commands/List

Quote:

I'm just messing with you.