KOffice 1.1 Beta 3 Review: Part 5
KWord 1.1 continues:
I guess my short letter to Mr Charles Schwab seemed insignificant
when
compared to my excitement about how great I think KOffice is. So I
decided
to share my excitement in a bigger way. I was going to write to some of
the
most prominent leaders of the world, like President George Bush of the
United
States, President Johannes Rau of Germany, President Tarja Halonen from
Finland, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg from Norway, President Wim Kok
from
Holland, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, Prime
Minister Poul
Nyrup Rasmussen of Denmark, President Vladimir V. Putin of the Russian
Federation, King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium, President Jian
Zeming
of China, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori of Japan, Prime Minister Goran
Persson
of Sweden, President Jacques Chirac of France, President Vicente Fox of
Mexico, Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the United Nations, and 499 CEO
of
the Fortune 500 companies. This would be the most important letter in
my
life. I had to make it perfect. There was no room for mistakes.
These
leaders
could easily spot the slightest grammar, spelling, and structural
mistake.
That was why I needed to call upon two of my trusted friends, Le Shang
Lin
and Peter Suchland for help.
The network transparency and document view model of KWord enabled me to
make
this collaborative effort work. Software with these capabilities is
most
often referred to as groupware.
I assigned color codes to Le Shang and Peter so that I could keep track
of
who recommended what changes. I assigned Le Shang the color green,
Peter
the color red, and myself the color blue.
I started by using the same letter template I made for Charles Schwab's
letter.
Click to enlarge:
I gave Le Shang and Peter read and write access to my file, and then I
saved
it on the remote server. This is another area where KWord is different
from all other word processors. It's the first and only word processor
that
has
built-in network transparency; that is, I'm able to seamlessly save the
file
to
a remote server. Notice the "ftp://www.mslinux.com/reviews/" to the
left of
the tool buttons in the "Save As..." file dialog. "ftp://" signifies
the
protocol. "www.mslinux.com" indicates where the remote server is.
Click to enlarge:
All the KOffice applications make use of network transparency, which is
made
possible by a technology called IO Slave. The KDE team is the pioneer
in
Internet desktop innovation. They have consistently wowed the general
public
with technologies that make life a lot easier, a lot happier, and a lot
smoother. We often don't see what they've done, but we do enjoy the
fruits
of their labor.
I got everything setup and I was ready to write my important letter.
The
letter
looked like this:
Click to enlarge:
After I finished my letter, I could use jabber or email to notify Le
Shang
and Peter that it was ready to proofread. Le Shang was the first to
let me
know he
was currently proofreading my letter. He simply used his KWord to
remotely
open my "letterToWorld" document. He made a few comments.
Click to enlarge:
Here's one without the frame border:
Next Peter decided to take a jab at this and also made a few comments.
Click to enlarge:
I read those comments and finished up my letter. I was ready for it to
be
sent to every leader in the world.
KWord is really exciting software. The groupware features are somewhat
limited, but are adequate to do the things I need in a collaborative
environment. The network transparency made it possible for my friends
who
are miles away to help me with my correspondence, making comments so I
could
make it better. This is only the tip of the iceberg for more exciting
new
groupware features that will be added to KWord.
KWord is now my primary word processor. Over the past days, I've
migrated
most of my Word documents over. It's a fantastic feeling knowing that
I'm
free at last. Although KWord is only at Beta3, it sure feels like a
final
release.
What's Next?
There are five more applications in the KOffice family that I will
review.
Below are previews of each. I will review KSpread next.
Click to enlarge:
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| KSpread | KIllustrator | KPresenter | Kivio | Kr
ayon |
Stay tuned ...
e>
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| KSpread | Kontour | KPresenter | Kivio | Kr
ayon |
