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Corel

Corel Wordperfect Office 2000 for Linux Beta Test 164

Posted by CmdrTaco from the do-you-wanna-play dept.
KiWiB0RG writes "Corel has opened Wordperfect Office 2000 for beta testing. The only requirements is that you run Linux, using kernel 2.0.30 or greater, and have experience in one of these software packages -> Wordperfect, Quattro Pro, Corel Presentations, CorelCentral and/or Paradox. "
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Corel Wordperfect Office 2000 for Linux Beta Test More

Corel Wordperfect Office 2000 for Linux Beta Test

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  • Bah (Score:1)

    by rosewood ( 99925 )
    Finally I can do my homework in linux

  • ... (Score:2)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 )
    If I find Clippy in this thing....

    --
  • Just thought I'd ask... I applied 2 days ago, and haven't heard from them yet.

    It would have been nice to get an automatic notice saying that it is being processed.

  • Re:Bah (Score:1)

    by m3000 ( 46427 )
    You could have used Star office. That's what I use.
  • ...will this have good import filters for Microsoft office as well as Star Office files?
    It would really be good to have all my files accessible on one place...
    Another question I have is does it co-operate with window managers... separate windows instead of the fake windows that StarOffice generates?
    What about swap space? Again, compared to star office, is it still going to sink my 64 MB ram, 64 MB swap computer into oblivion?

  • Re:Bah (Score:1)

    by Uart ( 29577 )
    I've been doing _MY_ homework in Linux for over a year now. WordPerfect 8, StarOffice, the GIMP pretty much covers what I need for school.

  • I've been wondering why Corel's stock has been on a tear this week. It almost doubled since August, with most of the gains coming in the last month.

    One thing I didn't like about WP 8, and I hope that they fixed this in WP 2000, is that the Linux version of WP 8 was pretty much a port of the DOS/Win product that did not take advantage of the Linux platform. I really thought it was quite silly to have application-specific printer drivers and fonts, in this day and age. That's so... 80s.

    I gave up on WP 8 when I realized that I was spending more time fiddling with the printer driver, then playing with the program. I also so that it was rather strange that a word processor does not have a "Print Preview" function. I managed to hack one up by setting up a postscript printer driver that fed ghostview. That was fun, but I don't think that Joe Sixpack should be expected to live with something like that.

    Although I don't have the time to beta WP2000, I'll definitely give WP 2000 a spin once its available. Although I didn't end up liking WP 8 very much, it was definitely a solid product which I'll keep my eye on.

    Wish list for WP (is it too late, for one?)

    • Support for X or TT fonts.
    • Remove all that nonsense with the printer drivers. Spit out Postscript, and let the printer driver handle it.
    • How about a REAL print preview function?
    • Work on the import of MS Word files? Last time I tried it, WP completely butchered a rather simple Word document.
    • A cuddly penguin, scribbling on a tablet, for a logo.
    • An install script that automatically adds an icon or a menu entry for Gnome, KDE, or Afterstep. Come on, this is not rocket science. Took me a grand total of three minutes to figure out how to have my RPMs install the icons.

    --
  • After filling out my beta test form and clicking 'submit', the document contained no data. re-submitting just told me i can't send it twice.

    hrm.
  • Yes, it'll have nearly perfect compatibility with MSWord -- WP 2000 is great on my (Windows) system. Microsoft keeps trying to change, but Wordperfect MUST be comatible of it's to survive.
  • ...couldn't complete the form... ...too many questions... ...stop... ...please... ...no more questions... ...Why do you need to know my blood type?... ...Why do I have to ask to beta-test your product?... ...Why are you being so picky about your testers?... ...I just want to help you make a better product... ...Please... ...I like WordPerfect... ...I have a registered version... ...I want to try the new version... ...no more questions... ...I give up...
  • Don't you mean clipit? Just click the X, it learns to F-off :-)
    ---
  • Anyone else find it disturbing that the application for a Linux product beta test indicates "Windows version" as a required field?

  • I also so that it was rather strange that a word processor does not have a "Print Preview" function.

    I suspect the idea is that you're using a WYSIWYG word processor, so Print Preview is redundant. You want to see what's going to print, you zoom out to Full Page. I've found it works well for me.

    Anyhow, I am looking forward to this. I have liked WP ever since I first used it (WP5.1), and I still like how it's a word processor which does what I tell it to, rather than deciding for me what I want done. (Unlike certain unnamed products).

  • We just started using this at work, and it has quite good import filters, as well as a lot of other things. I only hope the *nix version is faster. We have ancient P75's at work.
  • I think it's funny. They're stuck in a rut. Again. I applaud them for supporting OS-diversity, but perchance there are one too many windows-using drones in their marketing and legal departments...

    Seems to me that Corel had this same stuck-in-the-(legalese)-mud when they released their distro beta. I'm sure you all remember.

    Perhaps their marketing department isn't ready to believe that some people get along just fine without Microsoft's help. Naah... that'd never happen...

    Having only briefly looked at the page, I think it'd be neat if the "Windows version" would accept an entry of "no." Or perhaps they're referring to a windows manager...? Either that, or they're weeding out the wanna-bes by watching for those who just blindly type "Windows 98" in there.

    I mean, really, are windows users the kind of people you'd want testing your software??

  • > ... see also monoply. Umm... don't you mean monopOly? If you're going to make incendiary statements, do it well. :-) --Corey
  • Well, I'll be goddamned. I clicked preview, and the thing looked just fine. I clicked submit, and it turned to shit.

    Rob, fix it.

    Wah.

    --Corey
  • ... Overloaded?
  • ...Why do you need to know my blood type...

    It's a holdover from the Windows age, when they bundled crash insurance with the software licenses.

    As Katz would say, welcome to the POST-Microsoft age.
    *** BEEP! ***
  • I managed to hack one up by setting up a postscript printer driver that fed ghostview. That was fun, but...

    Sorry, I was just struck by the little things that indicate a true hacker. You're cool!

    --GnrcMan--
  • Heh,

    I put XFree86 3.3.5 -- that's what I'm using...

    - Ken

  • have you seen this?!? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't know how many of you have tried to download the beta of WP2000, but they practically want to know when you first burped and last fucked (to quote some book I read sometime in the last 6 months or so).

    First, they want name, address, etc. The standard stuff. CPU type, computer 'make and model number' whatever that means. CD-ROM type, printer make and model, printer ram, plotter or etc. How about your video card? Its ram? Your monitor make and model? How about mouse? And your sound card? Got a scanner? OS and version? (mind you, this is on a page that only lets you download a LINUX version of the software...what the fuck do they THINK my OS is?!?) Windows version? Isn't that covered in OS and version?!? Network? Scan software? HD and compression? Other TSRs? Font manager? They don't need half this stuff for legitimate development reasons.

    I don't know how much this info's worth but I'll bet for the cost of pressing a CD (and they probably don't even do that. I'll bet you've got to download the software anyway) they get over $50 worth of information.

    Sorry about the rant. Usually, I like Corel, and wordperfect in particular (though the windows versions have all sucked big-time. 5.1 for dos (IMNSHO) was the best one they made. Still use it, in fact) but this is such a blatant effort to invade my privacy, it's sickening.
  • Well, There's more to a print preview than that, though, isn't there? If you are in WSIWYG on your screen, that takes into account most formatting. But a print preview also takes into account the quirks of the printer driver. Those two things can be very different, even with high quality hardware and software.
  • were corel not doing a word perfect suite for java a couple of yrs ago? i distinctly remember using a beta copy once. or was it some other suite? anyways i am surprised that w/ todays much more powerful pc's and all the advances in java tech that its not being marketed as aggressively as i would like. i mean certainly you have much more people using a platform other than windows than two yrs ago, so i would think the cross platform deal w/ java would be a lot more appealing than a couple of yrs ago.
  • No kidding! WP 2000 for papers and reports, and Mathematica has been available on Linux for years. Also, homework is so much easier on a platform on which I own no games...
  • I was going to sign up for the beta program, until I saw the application form [corel.com] and I decided not to - 35 mandatory fields. I don't want to submit to a rectal examination just to join a beta program. I don't want to give away that much personal information, either. Man, corel should be bending over backwards to get techies to join the beta program. Why can't I just sign up with my slashdot id??

    While I'm in rant mode, corel should make sure the download is not just a cgi script, but also has a straight url. Big downloads do get cut off, and with a cgi script I can't use nice programs like getright. (yes, I'd boot to windows just to use getright)

  • Remove all that nonsense with the printer drivers. Spit out Postscript, and let the printer driver handle it.

    Uh, that's why there's a printer driver provided called... wait for it... "Generic Post Script Passthru". You just tell it which queue to which it should pass the output.
    ------------
    Michael Hall
    mphall@cstone.nospam.net

  • GetRight (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Uhhh, why use GetRight when there's "Downloader for X" and that KDE GetRight clone (sorry, forget it's name)? Just search Freshmeat and never have to reboot to download huge-ass files again...
  • why use GetRight when there's "Downloader for X" and that KDE GetRight clone (sorry, forget it's name)?

    Why don't you try to remember?
  • Printer RAM? Come on...

    We've got 5 Printers around here, over a dozen computers, running everything from NT to redhat 6.1, to debian, to windows 98..

    What the hell do they expect but for me to put "varies" on everything?

    bleah


    ---
  • It also asks what TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs you have running... and those are from way back when in the DOS days.
  • Why can't I just sign up with my slashdot id??

    Because these days, a slashdot account is sadly no guarantee of any kind of cluefulness whatsoever.

    yes, I'd boot to windows just to use getright)

    My brother raves about getright, too, but I don't see the attraction. I'd rather stay in Linux and use wget or snarf.
  • Isn't WordPerfect Office a pretty bad choice for a name? Why not just call it Corel Office? Last time I checked, the word office wasn't trademarked, and many different companies were making products called Office.

    The reason I'm asking this is that if I didn't know any better, I'd think that this is just WordPerfect and a few little addons, not an entire package (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, etc.).

    --

  • The form appears to be pretty old, and has some questions (and answers) which are pretty stupid:
    • Computer type (386SX/486/Pentium) - heh, waiting for the AMD vs Intel wars to break out...
    • Windows Version - For a Linux product?!?
    • Scanning Software - uhhh, do they mean virus scanning? Haven't touched one in years - no need. And this is Linux!
    • Hard Drive Data Compression - speaks for itself really. Or maybe this is to weed out people who are stupid enough to compress live volumes. :)
    • Additional TSRs - Like that's applicable these days. And again, this is Linux.
    • Font Manager - eh?
    These wouldn't be too bad if they weren't mandatory...

  • ...the Linux version of WP 8 was pretty much a port of the DOS/Win product that did not take advantage of the Linux platform. I really thought it was quite silly to have application-specific printer drivers and fonts, in this day and age. That's so... 80s.


    Don't get me wrong, I'll take Linux over Windows any day, but I'd have to say that one of Linux's weaknesses is no real support for system-wide printer drivers. Most Linux and Unix apps assume that you've got a PostScript printer. If you don't you have to use something like ghostscript to act as a filter for your printer.

    There are numerous problems with this setup. For one thing, ghostscript is complicated, rather badly written in places, and crashes far more often than I'd like. To get an idea of how hokey the ghostscript code is, try compiling it with '-pedantic -Wall'. You'll see tonnes of "variable x may have not been initialized" warnings...

    Using PostScript as the API for communicating printers is just a bad idea. PostScript is Turing complete. That means there's all sorts of analysis you simply can't do to the stream sent to the printer. It isn't even guaranteed that the printer will ever finish (the halting problem). It would be a lot simpler if there was a drawing API, sort of like a subset of X, but for paper. Or heck, an XML-based page description language. Just make sure it isn't Turing complete.

    If Linux actually had decent printing system, then WordPerfect wouldn't need its own. As it is, printing is one of Linux's biggest weaknesses, IMHO.
  • Did you see how long that form was, I can't believe all those fields are required! I wouldn't be surprised somewhere in there was the address where you need to send in your urine and a stool samples.

  • After going through the questions (varies, varies, O-, too long, etc) I got a response that said "Only those accepted will be contacted".

    I loved WordPerfect, from (IIRC) 2.0 on a Victor 9000 under DOS 1.0 up to 5.1, whereupon it started to suck. I've tried WP8-Linux, actually bought a shrink-wrapped copy from a store, and found it too slow to use with moderately complex layout. A two column, single page document should not take 90 seconds (!) to scroll down one line. This on a PPro-233 with 196MB of RAM. I don't need WYSIWYG; I'd love the old character based interface, but that's not available anymore without per-user licenses.

    There's a really great word processor and decent layout program in there still, struggling to get out. If Corel had any sense they'd release the source to public scrutiny, put up with the derisive comments about it's quality or lack thereof, and accept the assistance of all of us fans. I'd understand if they didn't want to do this with the latest and greatest; so give us the code to 5.1 and let your users save the product.
  • There's no mention anywhere of whether it requires glibc2 (or 2.1) or if it can also run on libc5 systems. I know that it's 95% likely it'll be glibc2+ only, and that irks me.

    Also, if it's dynamically linked (and it should be, static linking on an app that size would be pure evil), then there's library version issues..

    You'd just expect Corel to be at least slightly clueful when it comes to these issues, rather than just quoting a kernel version. OTOH, they're probably just testing it with Corel Linux and couldn't care less about other distros....
  • Corel hasn't figured it out yet huh?

    Error Occurred While Processing Request

    Error Diagnostic Information

    ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

    [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL

    Server]User 3 not allowed in database 'b etarep' - only the owner of this database can access it.

    SQL = "exec GetElements 1"

    Data Source = "betarep"

    Date/Time: 11/13/99 00:11:03

    Browser: Mozilla/4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.13 i686)

    HTTP Referer: http://slashdot.org/

    Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\applicationform.cfm

    Query String: bp_entity_id=2

    I would have thought they used their own product!!!!

  • The main Corel Wordperfect for Linux page is at

    http://www.corel.com/betaprogram/index.h tm [corel.com]

    in case you're interested in perhaps reading some stuff about it, rather than just the direct link to the application form. There's not that much there, though. :)
  • I asked if they ment daemons :)
  • Look at what I get when I click the link to fill out the beta-tester application...



    Error Occurred While Processing Request

    Error Diagnostic Information

    ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

    [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]User 3 not allowed in database 'betarep' - only the owner of this database
    can access it.

    SQL = "exec GetElements 1"

    Data Source = "betarep"

    Date/Time: 11/13/99 00:11:44
    Browser: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686)
    Remote Address: 207.75.178.101
    HTTP Referer: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/12/193520 3&mode=thread
    Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\applicationform.cfm
    Query String: bp_entity_id=2


    ...kind of disappointing from a company supposedly committed to Linux. :P Color me unimpressed.
  • Try again - its fixed.

  • Re:That explains it. (Score:3)

    by Raven667 ( 14867 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @07:30PM (#1537404) Homepage
    Try looking at CUPS the Common UNIX Printing System. It aims to remove many of these shortcommings. CUPS is supposed to be able to give printer capability information back to the application, like every other OS, so that it is easy to change from Portrait to Landscape or whatever. It is compatable with BSD and SysV printing systems but its native protocol is the new IPP Internet Printing Protocol. I haven't had time to play with it but it looks like it should take Unix printing at least into the 90's.

  • Re:Bah (Score:1)

    by Goonie ( 8651 )
    If you need Mathematica to do your analysis, you need (La)TeX for your presentation.
  • If you don't SUBMIT you must ACQUIT
    Or something stupid like that.

    Pope
  • Why? Because then people know that WP still exists.
    How many people out there seem to call Word or any other MS application "Microsoft?" "Yeah, I got Microsoft 6?"
    Also, Corel Office would imply that it has something to do with Corel's other products, Corel Draw and Corel Paint.
    So, to sum up this incomprehensible comment, WordPerfect Office is OK by me.
    And just because my sister works for Corel doesn't mean I'm biased :)

    Pope
  • Yeah, they used the same generic form for their linux distro beta signup.

    Good news is, it's being released at comdex, a buddy of mine is going, should have my copy as soon as he gets back... too bad I can't go.. friggen college.
  • WP Office 2000 for windows is the most broken piece of crap released under the name WordPerfect to date. There are features advertised on the box that are either unuseable or that haven't been implemented yet. Quattro Pro was so broken in the initial release that (the 46mb) service pack 1 contains a complete replacement. You can download and run SP1 by itself and get a (nearly) working version of QP. Every single beta version we tested was more stable than the final release. I hope they aren't going to make the same mistake with the Linux version. Of course, they don't have to worry about beating Microsoft to market so maybe they won't try to release it 6 months before it's ready. Even if it does work as advertised, I don't think it's the killer app everyone is looking for. That would require 100% interworkability with MS Office, and WP's conversions are mediocre at best. Presentations' conversions of Powerpoint are totally unworkable. Corel needs to do a much better job in this area if they hope to lure customers away from windows. Also, printing under Linux in general is pretty bad. Printing is pretty important to people using word processors. They could really do the Linux community a favor by releasing the source for 5.1, the last version that actually worked as advertised. 5.1 has such a loyal user base, they could probably convince alot of customers to migrate to Linux of they offered support for 5.1 only on Linux.
  • While I did not expect Corel to go as far as to make Corel Office OpenSourced in any way, one could hope that such thing as beta testing of it would be more open. That really turns anybody down having to write a 3-page essay "Why do I want to be a Corel beta-tester". Man, dig on it: I am lending *you* my resources to find *your* bugs. They could at least learn from a company whose product they use -- Allaire (site is running on NT using ColdFusion with back-end to MS SQL as we all see from error messages): it was almost a no-brainer to become HomeSite or ColdFusion beta-tester. Well, you get only 1 honest answer then: email. Let's see what happens.
  • The proper term is "Slashdotted" or "the Slashdot Effect". Its a common disorder that affects websites privelaged enough to be referenced in a Slashdot story; symptoms range from slow response to odd error messages. The Slashdot Effect has been known to cause sysadmins to go into screaming fits when their systems start crashing from the sheer mass of accesses while marketing people have been known to spontaneously erupt in orgasm when the Slashdot Effect passes through.

    Of course, it could just be an NT server running normally. :)

    Deosyne
  • I hope they compiled it for glibc this time. The last Corel WP I saw was compiled for libc5 and didn't particularly like my system (If I tried to do a table, it would crash.)

    Some people might like their bloated word processors, but I'll stick with raw LaTeX, thanks. Doesn't suck down all my memory and I invariably get better output than that of any GUI word processor I've ever seen.

  • The program has never handled numerous frame very well. Even 7 and 8 under Winbloz, which were vast improvements over the early "DOS in a Window" versions 6.0, 6.0a and 6.1.

    Version 8 for Linux is ok,but as others have pointed out, they really do not understand the *nix way of doing things. And this product is likely to be only marginally successful until they do.
  • Thought about trying WP2000. Saw the form. Thought better of it.

    Note to Corel and all other companies:

    Don't make these mandatory forms that people have to fill out before using your product. You will gain NOTHING from them. NOTHING! except a bunch of useless fake data.

    There is no way for you to verify any of that information. Even if some people do fill in the correct information, the false data will simply screw up any analyses you plan to do on it.

    GIGO. Garbage In. Garbage Out.
  • Actually this is an official standard beta testing registration. You don't even get to download it when you finish the form. They actually have to approve you. One funny note about the form is that it asks about the version of windows you run on the form. i think n/a will suffice ;) I don't consider X as Xwindows. There was also a section on current software you use most. I put staroffice 5.1, gimp 1.1 and vim 5.2 ... I can see the application readers now

    "Gimp? VIM?"

    hehehe
    "We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
  • Of course you can judge what database server a site is using when the site hangs on the first click on a link.

    I'm waiting for M$ to start blaming Linux for their SQL 7 problems in their debug dumps, too.

    Apparently Corel don't read their own press, or they'd be running Linux Netwinder Server. Oh yea, they sold that....

    btw, after I spent 3 hrs answering the questions, my form went in with minimal fuss. But then again, my _REFERER_ didn't say /. either.
  • I've been testing out CUPS at home with my Epson Stylus Color 440. It prints jsut as slick as it does from the windows box. I think I'm going to have to buy a single user version now. The print drivers just kick entirely too much ass.
    "We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
  • And I responded "N/A (Riiiiight....)" to the question. I'm a little concerned about that- seems at least someone there doesn't "get it".

  • The problem with Postscript - right on (Score:3)

    by SurfsUp ( 11523 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @08:38PM (#1537419)
    Using PostScript as the API for communicating printers is just a bad idea. PostScript is Turing complete. That means there's all sorts of analysis yousimply can't do to the stream sent to the printer. It isn't even guaranteed that the printer will ever finish (the halting problem). It would be a lot simpler if there was a drawing API, sort of like a subset of X, but for paper. Or heck, an XML-based page description language. Just make sure it isn't Turing complete.

    Postscript isn't going away any time soon, and the glitches you mentioned will be eradicated over time in classic open-source style. The turing-complete problem isn't a horrible problem because the postscript-generating program can limit itself to generating postscript commands that are known to produce predictable results.

    You can use the turing-complete features of postscript judiciously without taking the risk of your printer never halting. E.g, for doing things like headers and footers - you don't download the whole text every page, you just make up a function and call it. Not that it really matters that much with a fast printer connection.

    But basically, I agree with you, why does a printer language have to be turing-complete? If it does, then why don't we make every darn interface in the whole computer turing complete? IOW, what's so special about printers?

    Postscript is so firmly entrenched, though, that an alternate solution would have to be really compelling to make any headway. The easier to implement, the more compelling. So, what's easy to implement? I'd say, start with Gecko :-) and do what had to be done to it to make it render everything a printer has to render. We need that anyway (probably) so we do things like write full biz documents and books, using HTML+CSS.

    Then we'd need a kickass way to talk to Gecko. XML would fill the bill, as you said.
  • I started filling out the questions, but then stopped when I realized how long it was. I mean sheesh, does the thing give you an anal probe? I wants to know all of my personal information plus everything I know about computers, everything I do for work, and everything about my computer.

    How do they decide if you're "qualified"? Does someone actually read it or do they run it through a bot?

  • Don't be so lazy. It took me 10 seconds to find it on slashdot. It's called Caitoo [freshmeat.net]. Go check it out.

  • It's obviously a generic form. Sigh.

    Anyway, I guess scanning refers to scanners, i.e. reading pictures.

  • Well, what corey said but also check out 98lite.com . Some other poster put up the address in another thread and...anyways it supposedly *really* boosts Win98's speed and stability (assuming it's 98 you're using.


    mcrandello@my-deja.com
    rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
  • The product never made it. They dropped it shortly after the 2nd Annual JavaONE. It was a pretty cool idea -- it's too bad they never followed through on it.

  • TTF (Score:1)

    by Kyobu ( 12511 )
    My biggest complaint about WP8 for Linux was always that it won't support TrueType fonts. Yes, I know about ttf2pt1, but it would never compile for me.
  • That form was too funny.
  • Some people might like their bloated word processors, but I'll stick with raw LaTeX, thanks. Doesn't suck down all my memory and I invariably get better output than that of any GUI word processor I've ever seen.
    Agreed. The only time I use anything else is when I get some annoying Word files at work [nasa.gov], or worse, am required to submit something in Word format. Usually then I fire up StarOffice. If WP does at least as well as soffice at importing word files, I would happily use it instead.

    Somewhat offtopic: I recently started using LyX [lyx.org], basically a WYSIWYG front-end to LaTeX that's actually pretty cool. I find it nice when creating documents containing lots of greek to actually see what the formulas are going to look like. It even supports macros (though only in math mode). Plus, it's open source! I used it to write a conference paper submission and found it way smoother than hacking the raw LaTeX. Not everything is as intuitive as one might hope -- I had a few points of confusion early on, mainly because I didn't RTFM, but the developers were quite helpful and set me straight.

    Granted, LyX still has some stability problems (i.e. it randomly dumps core) but since it makes emacs-stlye emergency backups, in addition to creating recovery files just before giving up the ghost, I've never lost a single keystroke of data, unlike some other word processors [microsoft.com] I've used.

  • and what do you use to share our documents with your classmates?
  • and what do you use to share your documents with your classmates?

    damn should 've used the preview :(
  • "Big downloads do get cut off, and with a cgi script I can't use nice programs like getright."

    I thought newer versions of getright detect and intercept downloads in browsers, and this works even when a cgi and not a direct url is used.
  • Your wysiwig screen may contain all sorts of stuff that won't make it to the paper (outlines of graphic frames, paragraph break characters, table cell borders, etc.). I is rather convenient to be able to switch to a screen that just shows what is going to be printed.

    "I have liked WP ever since I first used it (WP5.1)"

    hmm. I have had long sessions with wp5.1 where I tried to fix the layout after changing the printerdriver. I had this star lc 20 printer in those days, the driver for that printer sucked.

    I never really liked the 6.0 dos version (my computer was too slow for it). Later when I got a computer with win 3.1, I tried some of the windows versions. They were rather poor at that time.

    Eventually I installed word 6.0. Which was still a bit flaky. After that came word 95 which is the best word version I encountered. Word 97 is too bloated. Last year I installed framemaker. If you want consistent layout and a friendly GUI, framemaker is a good compromise.

    My main problem with framemaker is that the user interface is a bit primitive compared to word and wordperfect. Basically it's apple interface ported too windows. As a result it is a bit flaky in the look and feel. But, hey, it works and it doesn't mess my generally complex documents up.

  • Just for the record, WP8 is essentially the only piece of Windows software that's still used by my sister... I know she'll be happy when WP2k/Linux comes out. I'll be happy to get rid of that I-have-window-manager-delussions piece of software on some boxes...

    An install script that automatically adds an icon or a menu entry for Gnome, KDE, or Afterstep. Come on, this is not rocket science. Took me a grand total of three minutes to figure out how to have my RPMs install the icons.

    (I don't use GNOME, I don't use KDE) AFAIK, with GNOME this might be possible in a distrubution neutral way, with KDE I don't have any idea, but with AfterSTEP and the like, you are getting dangeously close to distribution-specific stuff that I would not like to see in WP2k or any other product for that matter... and I'm a Debian user, I hope Corel has got some pretty decent working experience with Debian, they know for sure they have to stick one file in one directory to get the thing installed on every window manager's menu, but it's still distribution specific (darth! why won't the other distros see the light and admit that menu is a great idea...)

  • I had staroffice, siag office, the gimp, and vim in there, and just to round it out I put init and bash. =)
  • What's so negative about an API being turing complete? Ok, it will be impossible to prove some sets of API calls, but that's the same problem as with computers in general... I think it's an advantage - generally you don't use all of the nifty features, but some day, you realize you need them! And I still can not understund why there is not some basic (on the same level as tcp/udp) network protocol that implements scripting (Send this to foo, and her answer to bar, and his answer to me)!
  • Maybe its to see if you're *REALLY* interested. It'd also be a good way to check that you know what you're talking about.
  • Yeah, I'm crossing my fingers on that.
  • say i wonder when they're going to release corel draw for linux... i'm quite fond of this peace of software! sure, xfig is nice too, but draw still is my favorite... didn't they release an older version of draw for linux once? does somebody has the url for downloading it? tia...
  • I was going to sign up for the beta program, until I saw the application form and I decided not to - 35 mandatory fields

    I think they're hoping that only the most rabid techies will sign up for this, and aren't interested in 'casual' beta testers.

    I think I can offer a reason for this too - I worked as part of my co-op work experience at Corel, doing QA...

    The bugs they receive from beta sites that we have to duplicate and pass onto the developers are often atrocious - and naturally this time they decided that they, if we're gonna do a public beta, we're gonna accept only those who are willing, from the start, to give us the whole story.

  • Output everything to Postscript.

    Force them to find an interpreter; there's even ghostscript for Win32.

    That's what I do with my physics labs; of course, it's physics with other geeks who know what Postscript actually is, but...
  • Sorta off topic, but I was thinking about the slashdot effect in English yesterday. Our teacher was saying that words are made up a lot for specialized area's, or to teach something. So what immediatly popped to my mind was "slashdotted". It pratically is a word, if you know what it means. But to just about everyone who hasn't visted Slashdot, you'd have to explain it to them. And um, I'm stop babbling now. : )
  • You'd be a terrible person to work with. Suppose we'd be writing a report together. And I'm not using TeX, are you going to put me in position where I either remove all the gibberish from a stupid ascii file and then do the layout manually or will you let me print your document and let me figure out how to integrate the printed version with the document. Duh.

    Postscript is not a format that's very suitable for editing. TeX is particularly lousy for exchanging documents. Basically all the exports to other wordprocessor fileformats are
    A one way, no way to read back an rtf file and maintain the layout
    B pretty lousy (HTML, rtf, wordperfect)

    "That's what I do with my physics labs; of course, it's physics with other geeks who know what Postscript actually is, but..."

    I know what postscript is and I know its only good for forwarding it to the printer (if your lucky enough to have a postscript printer). I found that ghostscript reads most but not all posscript so in most cases it is possible to get a printed version of the document.
  • Not to nitpick, but 98lite.com [98lite.com] points to some cheapo internet access provider. I'm guessing it's 98lite.net [98lite.net] that you want.

    98lite [98lite.net] basically just replaces elements of the Windows 98 installation (mainly the shell) with those from Windows 95. I guess you get to keep the kernel, but lose the Internet Explorer based shell.
  • Every time I've asked a professor to email me an assignment, they have always sent a Tex file. They just assume you have access to a Linux system. BTW as far as I have seen there is no free Tex interpreter for Win32. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, Tex is standard.
  • For physics and other scientific documents, there's really no alternative to TeX for now. And for that matter, for that type of document, TeX is exactly what's called for. Symbol heavy, text light documents with lots of funky characters where exact layout matters, and presentation style is important, and maximum flexibility is required -- that's what TeX does well, and that's why we (physicists) use it. Obviously Postscript isn't a good format for document exchange since it's not exactly human-editable.
  • I was wondering how Corel ported all these major league programs(WP, Quatro, Paradox, Presentations, Central etc) to Linux in such a realativly short time? WP9 I can see since they already had WP8 for Linux. Even then WP9 had a lengthy beta developement before it was released last summer. The other presumably had to be done from scratch. I know they have been big contributers to WINE and Wine lib but from all accounts WINE is still very much in the alpha stages. Someone mentioned that Inprise now has a strategic alliance with Corel. Inprise also had investment from Microsoft and a contract to develop some RAD developer's tools. Could they have a set of WIN APIs and or source code and could they have passed this on to Corel? Far fetched but even with 600 software engineers, getting a full office suite ported to Linux in under a year is quite an accomplishment when notepad still crashes under WINE. Any comments?
  • i got that then i tried again and got an SQL error generated by MS SQL server blah if they're gonna do the linux thing, get rid of the MS crap jeez
  • ...was my response!

    :-P
  • Shouldn't the linux binary emulation which I've heard soooooo much about work?
    ...
  • Please, for the love of god, use DIFFERENT widgets. Motif is way too ugly when there is GTK. If not GTK, atleast use QT.

    Lets hope all the beta testers will strongly request this.
    ...
  • It seems that their beta programme has been /.'ed.
    Their MS SQL (????) table is full:


    Error Occurred While Processing Request

    Error Diagnostic Information

    ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

    [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Can't allocate space for object 'LongAnswers' in database 'betarep' because the 'default' segment is full. If you ran out of space in Syslogs, dump the transaction log. Otherwise, use ALTER DATABASE or sp_extendsegment to increase the size of the segment.

    SQL = "exec SaveApplicationForm 2, -- CUT a lot of personal data-- "

    Data Source = "betarep"

    Date/Time: 11/13/99 11:05:43
    Browser: Mozilla/4.6 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.14pre4 i586)
    Remote Address: -- CUT --
    HTTP Referer: http://nas.corel.com/cfscripts/betarep/application form.cfm?bp_entity_id=2
    Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\submission.cfm


    MS SQL???? They should be ashamed!


    Best regards,
    Steen Suder
  • When they port CorelDraw, PhotoPaint comes with it. I never actually used CDW, I just started photopaint and started drawing.

    Anyone who knows of a simple, geometric shape drawing tool for the Gimp will cause me to love the Gimp forever.
    --------
    "I already have all the latest software."
  • They probably used winelib (aka libwine), the basis of Wine. Wine is not an emulator, but an alternate binary loader which dynamically relinks Windows programs to winelib. Kinda screwy. :) I wouldn't be surprised at all if Corel just used winelib to 'port' (i.e. recompile) their Windows programs for Linux; I believe their whole interest in supporting Wine was specifically for this point. (After all, any functionality added into winelib gets implicitly added into Wine.)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Absolutely! My dad was getting so pissed off at WP8 yesterday. He was trying touse the down-arrow on the scroll bar, but it was so small that he kept clicking inside the slider, causing a page-down, which was very irritating. He asked me to do the mouse for him, because he couldn't do it properly.

    Bottom line: Motif widgets suck.
    --------
    "I already have all the latest software."

  • I guess you've never run a Beta Test before (Score:3)

    by DragonHawk ( 21256 ) on Saturday November 13, 1999 @08:17AM (#1537464) Homepage Journal
    As a developer, I can attest to the following: It is not possible to have too much information about a Beta Test system. I would really prefer an exact duplication of the test systems at the molecular level, but unfortunately, this sort of questionnaire is the best thing possible.

    First of all, they are going to have to cull a list of a few testers out of the hundreds, if not thousdands, of applicants. To do that, they are going to want to pick canidates who are knowledgeable about computes, have experience with all the software involved, and have a wide variety of software, hardware, and configurations in use.

    Once you get to the actual test, the exact combination of hardware, kernel, drivers, daemons, libraries, desktop environment, and everything else up to and including their background image, can make a difference. If you don't think so, you've never had to operate a Beta Test before.

    I found their survey perfectly reasonable, although their were a few (excusable) DOS- and Window-ish questions on it ("TSRs" are "daemons" on Linux, etc.).

    A couple of specifics --

    OS and version is legit - you can run Linux programs on BSD as well, plus there are different distributions of Linux that can be considered different "OSes" depending on your definition of the term.

    Windows version is legit - they could want to know if you have Windows install in a dual-boot configuration. (It could be simple stupidity, but neither you nor I know for sure.)
  • Okay, as someone who interviews alot of people in a year.. I HAVE to answer this.

    First off.. PEOPLE LIE. They say they've managed project X which consisted of buzzword buzzword buzzword. For instance, "I wrote the classes which interfaces an Oracle database into the java application. I used inheritance and operator overloading.. blah blah"

    5 minutes later, I'll ask him.. "What is a byte?" Couldn't answer the damn question!

    Now, I don't go asking API questions, but I make sure they know types, arrays, pointers, etc.. But I would ask generic questions ABOUT an API. (What does the Xt lib do in X windows?)

    The point is that there are too many potted plants masquarading as PROGRAMERS. They read Dr. Dobbs, and PC Week, and can spit buzzwords at you all day. But when you get down to specifics, the thin vail crumbles.

    I asked a DBA position candidate (first question, honest) how to insert a row. He actually added a "where" clause. BWAHAHAHA!

    So, there is a minumum technical interview required. Some places would require a very deep interview for their projects. (Think "router design and programing" at Cisco!)

    I don't think it's necessarily about doing a "better job" - but I do think it clues the interviewer into if the candidate will be able to operate with a core competancy to DO the job.

    The other half of the equation is motivation. People that are _not_ motivated, but have the skills are also potted plants.

    Pan - from the hellfire known as "Saturday Work"
  • This is tiresome. Corel doesn't have a SQL database server in their product line,nor do they have a web app server. What do you mean by "their own product"? Corel Linux? With PHP3 and Postgres?

    Why should their Linux Desktop Apps Group waste their time reinventing the wheel and learning PHP when Corel already has a generic beta-tester signup form handy? It's not as though this is, say, Sun, still running a web store written with Dynamo when they own not one but two competing app servers.

    Lord knows I've never seen a MySQL or Postgres database throw errors when a tablespace fills up and there's no room for more extents. Not.

    Babies.
  • I'm downloading CUPS [cups.org] now, BUT, as the site says:
    The Common UNIX Printing System utilizes GNU GhostScript 4.03 to convert PostScript files into a stream of raster images.
    So CUPS's function would appear to be to translate bitmap files into the (usually goofy) languages of various printers. This is an important function indeed, and providing such a function in Windows only, not in Dos, is one method Microsoft used to raise the barriers products that might have competed with Windows. (ramble: but in retrospect, THANKYOU Bill, for not making Dos useful enough to dominate forever. That's one down, one to go)

    So, CUPS is another important piece in the puzzle for us. Now - why is CUPS 2.0-oriented and not 2.2? Is it time to pay more attention to the printer problem? Or should be wait until there are more newbies on board so that people are more in the mood to pay us for working on this gungy stuff?
  • Obviously you aren't really a student. If you were, you'd know that in the academic world teamwork is called 'cheating'. Code re-use is called 'plagurism'.

    In case you are wondering, this is called 'sarcasm'. But only slightly.

  • What the hell do they expect but for me to put "varies" on everything?

    Funny to be replying to myself, but..

    I got accepted into the beta.. sweeeeet!

    ---

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