LibreOffice 4.2 Busts Out GPU Mantle Support and Corporate IT Integration 192
Billly Gates points to this basic summary of the features of the recently released LibreOffice 2.4, writing: "In catching up with MS Office, the new LibreOffice 4.2 now has full Windows 7/8 integration including Aero peek, thumbnails, jumplists, and recent documents all from the taskbar. In addition, one weak area for LibreOffice has been enterprise network support and the lack of active directory tools: LibreOffice now has GPO and active directory support for system administrators to deploy and manage LibreOffice over corporate networks. LibreOffice also includes an expert configuration Window to assist power users and system administrators when deploying to hundreds of workstation at a time." Read on for some more details about the release, including some information about support for AMD's Mantle CPU acceleration support.
Also of particular interest is AMD/ATI is expecting to finally release Mantle in the next coming hours for games like Battlefield 4. Surprisingly LibreOffice also supports mantle as well according to the release notes. However you will need the 14.1 driver which is being compiled and uploaded at the time of this writing to utilize this feature. Mantle will accelerate lower-end CPUs by up to 300% in some tasks while having modest improvements for those with more recent powerful CPUs. Real niceties for those like myself on AMD phenom IIs with the later 7000 series cards.The only issue (some on Slashdot may say benefit ) is the lack of a ribbon UI. However, for recent articles about governments considering OpenOffice this release addresses shortcomings with the new active directory and GPO support."
Universal Disgust (Score:3, Interesting)
The only issue (some on Slashdot may say benefit ) is the lack of a ribbon UI.
The majority of Office power users I know (mostly lawyers) were disgusted by the replacement of the menu-driven UI with the infamous ribbon. It's not just left-brained Slashdotters that prefer an easily navigable interface.
GPU acceleration for other platforms (Score:5, Interesting)
I submitted the story.
While ATI has listed LibreOffice for one of the few programs that use Mantle [maximumpc.com] I can not find any other information on this?
This begs to differ if LibreOffice uses GPU directwrite or OpenGL and does it work on platforms than Windows. Of course this is not critical unless you do multimedia heavy presentations I am somewhat curious. I wonder if anyone who develops it can care to comment?
Also I use LibreOffice in conjunction with MS Office. I can't afford publisher and it is nice to use it to repair office documents that MS Office says are corrupt. This is a highly recommended upgrade even if you use MS Office full time.
Re:Universal Disgust (Score:3, Interesting)
I am in the minority here I guess.
I did not like the menus in office 2003 as things became nested and it kept taking up time and felt like Windows 8 closed door syndrome to use an advanced function.
It took a week to adjust and probably a month to get really proficient. Hit the alt key if you like shortcuts? See the numbers and letters? You can use the ribbon without a mouse for any function!
I also like the ribbon because I can visually see the changes before selecting. It is really handy when cutting and pasting from browsers and word as different styles get interpreted differently. I can preview just with a mouse hover etc.
Some old people though do not like change and I can understand. I am not saying this is all the case with the hate. But I am visual so to me it makes sense as I am not contextual. Some who are might have to re-adjust a lot harder.
People now use more features out of Office than before which means by all measures it is a success. It comes down to attitude to learn new things and realize not all change is bad. While I hate Metro, I do like the ribbon and view menus as old school and messy if you have too many fuctions. I do not want to go back in time and lock things the way they were.
Re:How compatible is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Call me a cynic, but I've been around for a very very long time and I've seen a lot of poor sportsmanship in the Microsoft camp.
The funny thing is now we're intentionally using older versions of MS Office simply because everyone hasn't learned the 2007 version yet, so what's the use of overloading everyone by going to the newest version every 2-3 years? The couple of users who will benefit can have the upgrade. The rest can have an upgrade every x versions.
Re:Universal Disgust (Score:2, Interesting)
Sidebar is kind of a dumb name. It should be something snazzy that really captures the essence of the feature. Like palette or ribbon. Ribbon, yeah. Because it is the same things as the Office Ribbon, just vertical with collapsing panels that hide things even better than original versions of the Office Ribbon did.
Re:It still doesn't get the job done (Score:4, Interesting)
Guess the world shouldn't have thrown Word Perfect under the bus?
Or, how about Word Star? There was a time when its editing keystrokes were widely adopted, like in Borland's integrated development environments.
Or, why not use LaTeX? Admittedly, it's a bit of a learning curve, but you can just bang out text, and worry about formatting later, even change it around relatively easily.
Re:How compatible is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
logic fails you
Zealotry blinds you. An overwhelming majority of businesses currently use Microsoft Office products and therefore have their current collection of documents stored in Microsoft Office formats. Until LibreOffice can create, open, edit, save, or convert those formats with reliable accuracy, its adoption will be hindered significantly. Even assuming that a business had gone 100% LibreOffice, there's no guarantee any other business or individual they interact with would also be using LibreOffice, necessitating the need for compatibility with MS Office.