Project to create a LibreOffice fork

[matiasbatero]

Hi to everyone.

This is a project from Argentina introduced by marianxs, a gtk/qt developer. Due the fact that, LibreOffice main developers/comunity don't help in any senses, we are in the way of get the help from users from any comunity.

Some LibreOffice developers are not interested to change the current GUI design. But, others want to work in a modernization.
This project consists on GUI refresh. There are a complete prototypes based on GTK. These are some screenshots from different vala/gtk GUI functional ideas.



Watch this UI prototype in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ckRn_sx8CE



Watch this UI prototype in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O_GIUyX19c

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¿What is the main problem?

Libreoffice/openoffice uses a homemade VCL library, and There isn't DEVELOPER'S MANUAL available on the WEB/LibreOffice team. The LibreOffice GUI designers, are not interested to modernize the interface, so many important developers answer the help questions with negations and bad predispotition. In this case, there is not a form to help.

Some LibreOffice developers want to work on a NEW GUI, but others are very ortodox.

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¿What we need?

We can start with a very little information.
We need information about:

1: ¿How to compile the homemade VCL libraries used on LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice?

2: A example program, very simple, that can be compiled using VCL library. We need some example like this:

Model:
http://k38.kn3.net/taringa/4/5/9/0/2/8/ ... 3.jpg?5667

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¿How you can help?

You can help, showing your knowledge, asking, searching, ideas..

You can help asking: (If you ask also, maybe we have more posibilities)

Michael Meeks: michael.meeks@suse.com
LibreOffice designers: design@global.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice list : libreoffice@lists.freedesktop.org

Asking on Apache OpenOffice/LibreOffice FORUMS.

If more people, help us asking... maybe we can get a little help, that can be very usefull to us in order to make a change on LibreOffice.

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Of course, some people are not interested on GUI, and they prefer more characteristics, more speed, more stability, more compatibility... yes.. all of these things are very important...and we support this + including GUI EVOLUTION.

Thanks for all. You can put some results of your help here. I'll send news to the main developer (Marianxs: Mariano Gaudix).

You can also contact with he on:
Google+ : https://plus.google.com/u/0/104109746841092570517/posts

Taringa! : http://www.taringa.net/marianxs

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Thanks for you attention!

Greetings from Argentina.

[Moose On The Loose]

..............
Watch this UI prototype in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ckRn_sx8CE

I watched the video:

1) I saw nothing that was better than the current OO GUI

2) Icons instead of words for menus is a dumb idea. With words, the new user can get some hint what the menu is for just by reading

3) It looked like more screen pixels were being used up by chrome work in the GUI. The most important thing on the screen is the users work. Second comes the vital GUI elements. 275th comes chrome work

[bill]

Just an explanation of "Fork" courtesy Wikipedia for those who may not be as illuminated as many of our current posters.While I guess buzzwords,abbreviations may be swell for accomplished Puppy users,I find them stumbling blocks for new users.
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software. The term often implies not merely a development branch, but a split in the developer community, a form of schism.[1]

Free and open-source software is that which, by definition, may be forked from the original development team without prior permission without violating any copyright law. However, licensed forks of proprietary software (e.g. Unix) also happen.

[technosaurus]

The proper way to do this would be to write a single separate gui file (or files) that gets a build-time configuration such as:
--enable-use-stupid-ms-ribbon-gui-for-illiterates-that-for-some-reason-want-to-write

or add a "ribbon" toggle to the existing gui (possibly with compile time ifdefs)

It is fine to fork it for this purpose ... just don't do stuff that will make it incapable of being merged.

[matiasbatero]

Thanks for your comments, i will send them to the project creator.