OpenOffice.org needs themes.
BetaNews is saying that Office 2007 will have themes.
Something like that is exactly what OpenOffice.org and other open source software needs to really take off. Look at Mozilla Firefox for example, it has themes and it’s popular. Now, I’m not saying that Firefox’s popularity is only due to it’s skinability, but it sure doesn’t hurt.
technorati tags:microsoft, office, 2007, office2007, openoffice
Not sure if OOo needs themes. It is a productivity suite after all.
However, did you know you can still donate a small amount of money to a campaign to promote OpenOffice to more users?
http://homepage.mac.com/bhorst/
May be you can help making this a success.
Comment by Kaj Kandler — 07.18.06 @ 3:16 pm
Needs lots more eyecandy.
All of the opensource projects need to look cooler than MS software in order to win those users who judge based on appearances alone.
Comment by terlmann — 07.31.06 @ 10:34 am
I agree, terlmann.
Comment by Hogg — 07.31.06 @ 5:38 pm
Open Office is bloated enough without needing to add extra, non-functional code.
And like Kaj Kandler said, “Not sure if OOo needs themes. It is a productivity suite after all.”
Are that many people really using Open Office for Windows? Or Gimp for that matter? People use them on Linux, because most every modern distro has these installed, by default.
When it comes to a productivity suite, it is best to leave the majority of the memory use of these types of applications, to the actual productivity. The last thing a productive user wants, is for his work to get lost from the “pretty” application crashing.
I couldn’t care less what an application looks like, if it’s going to let me actually make something cool, or better yet something worth lots of money.
So I say, OOo should not focus on eye-candy at all, but rather focus on usability in terms of production.
I can guarantee you that the vast majority of MS Office users, will not care a bit about skins. The vast majority of MS Office users, are working in productive environments, such as offices.
In essence, who cares what your office suite looks like?
Open Source software doesn’t lack popularity because of “lack of themes or eye-candy” It lacks marketing. It is created mostly by volunteers and small business. Microsoft is one of the largest corporations in the entire world. That is why everyone uses it. Not because of skins or eye-candy. Um, remember Windows NT/9x and Office 97? Not too pretty, yet we all still used it didn’t we? That is, unless the we I speak of, were still in 5th grade at the time.
Comment by Brent — 08.18.06 @ 9:44 pm
OOo can definetly do well with more themes
but what it needs more urgently is a better doc / xls / ppt filter. They are okay for simple documents, but are not upto mark when handling ones with heavy formatting
memory usage is also a concern. OOo 2.0.3 idles at 75MB! on my Linux box. i.e without even opening any document, not even a blank one!
by contrast gimp takes up around 28MB for idle and 32 MB with a blank document
OOo today is much better than the 1.x series, but can still do with a lot of under the hood improvements.
Comment by Ajay — 09.4.06 @ 6:09 am
if someone makes skins for openoffice, great. people use MS office because it looks cool and smooth. The OOo for linux looks quite ugly. Get some skins for it in future versions, more people will use it because it can be made to look like what people have been grown up using, MS office.
Comment by Charlie861i — 12.3.06 @ 1:18 pm
Yes yes yes, some skins please - I just typed “skins for openoffice” into google and got this blog. I’m an XP/Microsoft slave who wants to switch, but doesn’t want the rubbish 90s images, graphics and feel that OpenOffice seems to have. Otherwise, why switch from freely available Microsoft?
Comment by bt — 02.15.07 @ 10:50 am
What? Do you really think that this is why people use MS Office? This has absolutely NOTHING to do with why people use it. They use it because it is the best office suite for businesses.
OOo is not bad for free. But I have never seen any real office using it (yet).
Why do people want to skin everything? It only takes away resources that could be used for productivity –you know what office suites are developed to do?
This is ridiculous, but go ahead and “skin” your app, to make it look “pretty”. How about improving OOo by making it more productive?
What successful business is concerned with making the productivity applications that they use in order to make a profit, look “pretty”? Not one.
Who cares about this, other than fanboys?
Again office productivity suites are developed for businesses.
Comment by Brent — 02.15.07 @ 1:57 pm
Ever here “perception is reality”. If you want to know what people think about eye-candy, just consider the reviews of MS Vista. A whole-lot of eye candy, a significant decrease in performance, and no really new features…yet it gets a “thumbs up” from reviewers. Most people don’t use any more features in Office 2003 than they used in Office 95, but the eye-candy is so much better…which is why they fork out the cash for the upgrade. All MS Marketing does is market the “improved interface”. Botom line, make it look pretty and more people will use it.
Comment by Gordon — 02.18.07 @ 10:00 pm
Gordon, are you aware of the formatting differences between documents in Office 2007 and Office 95? Obviously not. I am.
Vista is alright, I guess. I have only had as few hours to mess with it so far. Much of the eye candy is only available to work with the proper hardware anyway.
But this post is about an office suite, not an entire operating system. Besides, you can turn off the eye candy in Vista.
The same is the case with XP. When you turn off this eye candy, the eye candy in office and every other application is also turned off.
Think (or research) before writing please.
Comment by Brent — 02.19.07 @ 11:44 am
Well i think that some skinns will fit good here, and i explain why: ok so OpenOffice looks ugly on your sistem, skin it, you are a newby and want more MS-Ofice-like apearance?, skin it, you are amoung those few who think that the ribbon is cool?, skin it, customization is good for everyone and it wouldnt take much resources. It shouldn’t be a main concern i totally agree, but a secundary one.
Comment by Carlos Licea — 02.26.07 @ 12:01 am
Gordon.. very well put. I couldn’t agree more. I for one will not being paying for something that’s nothing more than before.
Comment by Paul — 02.26.07 @ 6:24 am
Hey! I think that OpenOffice.org is a great office suite as an MS Office alternative. I think that giving it the looks of the MS product would look pretty cool but then again, productivity is also important.
Comment by Timothy Conrad — 03.8.07 @ 11:31 pm
I would say the capability to theme OOo would help a lot. I think you actually can theme it, but don’t know how (i.e. using alternative icon sets). Maybe this is different that full on skinning. A nice set of icons that is visually appealing to a given user make working within that environment a more pleasing experience to that end user. And henceforth can lead to greater productivity because of this. In can argue against this, but I would have to say there is a little truth to the matter, if not a lot. Maybe full on skinning takes a lot of resources, but using an alternative icon set should not I would assume.
Comment by Eric Hansin — 04.7.07 @ 4:27 pm
In what way would icons lead to better or more effective activity?
I will assume that not a single one of you work in an office or in a real production environment.
Trust me, as someone who DOES work in an office, pretty little icons is the last thing on my mind. The first thing on my mind, is getting my work done on time, and not looking at how pretty the application that I use is. If I did, I would be missing deadlines.
Time to grow up little children. Welcome to the real world.
Grown ups use the software that the boss, sponsor, or the customer pays them to use –which in this case would probably be made by Microsoft, because alternatives have inferior capability.
Offices do not use MS Office because it looks “pretty”. We use it because it does the job more efficiently than anything else.
If I can say that there is an element of Office that is pretty, and surpasses OOo by leaps and bounds, it would be PowerPoint.
If I am presenting a proposal in something other than PowerPoint, it will be forgotten almost immediately.
Time to grow up, and understand how the REAL world works.
By the way, OOo does not even have an alternative to the most important aspect of Office –Outlook. They ought to talk to the people at Novell to try to at least get Evolution included in the OOo package, if they want to be considered a legitimate alternative to MS Office (it won’t happen anyway, especially here in the States, except perhaps for government offices, but not at all for profitable companies.)
Comment by Brent — 04.8.07 @ 9:53 pm
I think that skins or themes would help OpenOffice.org heaps.
Sure, it doesn’t improve productivity, but it does improve what you have to look at day after day.
Personally, I’d rather look at a program which is visually appealing every day than look at a dull and old looking program. I’m sure that a lot of people around the world would agree with me.
The whole point of Office 2007 was the huge update in the navigation and the themes. I think the ribbon is a great idea (I wonder if OpenOffice.org could do something like this). But the themes are another big part. I had the BETA version of the new Office and using it was a lot more enjoyable because it looked better. Sure, the new themes didn’t make me work faster, but they made me enjoy the time that I was working just that little bit more.
So, I really think OpenOffice needs to get either themes/skins or just overall improve the aesthetics of the program to a more modern look (the program really does look quite dull and old).
Other than it’s looks, I love OpenOffice.org, I think it’s great for a free program.
Comment by Patrick89 — 04.15.07 @ 10:34 pm
Brent, while I agree in the office area the aesthetics of a program are not that important, but as you also said, I do not see many offices with OOo. I see people outside of the office with it. Sure it does not help productivity, but who does not like something a little better looking? I do not know about you, but I threw down extra cash just to get a case that looked badass. I know, shallow, but that is the way the world is. It also gives you the chance to customize, and that my friend, is probably where the real possibilities would come from. People enjoy customizations, look at the Wii with Miis, or the popularity of MMOs and their customizable characters. People like to mess with the looks of stuff. Sure, it really does not help, but it is fun. Also, why would they need an Outlook copy? They know people out there who use freeware like OOo are probably already using some other free application-exempli gratia, Thunderbird, or Evolution,as you said. Why should they bother when that space has already been filled? Talk about a waste of time…
Comment by Personman — 04.17.07 @ 10:31 pm
My, my what interesting responses. Yes, indeed - skin it - if you’re a newby - skin it! Doesn’t matter that you probably don’t know how - skin it! Doesn’t matter that the term “newby” is deliberately offensive - skin it! Doesn’t matter that the respondent has no more idea how to skin OO than you do (any more than he has any idea how to type) -skin it! What’s important is that you get to suggest something and the detractors get to see their little ranting opinions in nice little letters on a screen.
And yes, people don’t use Microsoft for the eye-candy - they use it because it’s soo good. Not at all because advertising works - not at all because the bosses have expensive lunches with Microsoft representatives and are happy to make money for their new best friends without caring whether or not their underlings have the best software they could have. Yes Microsoft Office rules.
And, of course - you should be ashamed for daring to suggest that some simple skinning option be included in OO so you could feel a little happier when you use it. None of the negative-nancies has the option to skin their word processors and it hasn’t done them any harm - just look at how happy they all are.
How ridiculous to suggest that prettying up the interface a little or allowing for a smidgen of customization should be considered when there are far more important concerns like productivity! I’m sure your detractors all live in small functional boxes with no ornaments or photos or art in their houses - it would not be efficient. I’m sure they wouldn’t even bother to wear coloured clothing - it’s not as productive as a grey suit - grey is productive - grey suits and no eye-candy makes them all happy, happy boys - look how productive they are - hard at work - logging on here to find someone to attack.
And who ever heard of a top-notch programme also allowing customization (unless you’re so unproductive you use Firefox or Thunderbird or VLC Player or QCD Player or Winamp or Windows Media Player or even Windows itself for that matter- you know - those little-known and unused applications) - no such thing.
Take a look around this page for example - it’s all very productive and no one would dare waste time trying to make it look attractive - would they?
Why - that would be like going out with a woman who wears make-up - well, she wouldn’t be efficient would she? She simply couldn’t be could she?
So don’t you worry your little head about making things pretty - you just get used to the grey - then you’ll be as happy as these chaps.
Comment by Xaviar — 06.24.07 @ 3:17 am
Xavier, you are right!
I am also considering to switch to open source softwares, just because… (I am not too rich, but I do not want to use illegal things, OOo is OK, etc), but I also have esthetic sense. A more attractive interface is better to use for most of us, that is all. (Ms Office 2007 is a dream, stylish, but after the tryout period I will go back to the corporate licensed XP for a while, then somehow switch to OOo.)
I think, if other “productivity-focused” softwares, like Firefox, Thunderbird can use skins, OOo also should allow it.
Comment by dekoninck — 08.27.07 @ 4:40 am
You are all saying appearance doesn’t matter, I’m an open office user on Windows, but I have had the opportunity to use Office 2007 and after getting around the the initial shock of the theme and appearance of it, they way in which it is themed and laid out does absolutely make you much more productive. I thought it was stupid at first and very unproductive because I didn’t know where everything was, but after a little - I would half hour or so, you think why didn’t someone think of this kind of interface sooner!
Comment by Martin — 09.12.07 @ 2:54 am
Hi Guys,
Just an FYI, openoffice 2.3 was just released.
To spruce up the openoffice toolbar look, go to:
tools>options>view>option size and style>
then try Industrial (Gnome look),Tango or Crystal toolbar themes.
The Tango theme looks very nice, without being too detracting.
If you’re looking for an openoffice derivative, try Lotus Symphony Beta (it’s free):
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa
I believe it’s some derivative of openoffice using eclipse development platform. In any case, the UI looks pretty nice and so do the default file association icons. Be sure to go to lotus symphony options>file associations, and choose if you want it to associate to .xls/,doc/.ppt, etc.
cheers,
Aldrin
Comment by Aldrin — 09.19.07 @ 7:53 am
Some of you just don’t get it. In this day and age of downsizing in the office, also goes along with the IT budget. I cannot convince the company to switch to a product unless it acts the same as MS Office no matter how free it is.
The question should not be why would you want the look to change, it should be here is how you change it. It’s human nature to have change and diversity. People get used to the way a product works and when they are faced with something new, spend more time complaining than trying to use it.
A couple of problems are looks and cross file associations as stated earlier. Until then you cannot sell it to the boss by saying, it’s almost like MS Office.
IT Director - City of Creve Coeur
Comment by DFGoodwin — 02.11.08 @ 7:58 am
Just came across this page searching for OOo skins, and would like to say first that i am in favor of such customizing by principal. As a Christian i appreciate that God enables us to see in color, and made different personalties, and intelligence to improve our lot, and enabled a whole lot of variety. We are not to be clones, and it is a good thing for a person to be able to express things with a certain degree of uniqueness, not only in writing but in the appearance of the program. I am one that is a tweaker at heart, and i really like the extensive customization that Firefox allows.
This is by no means criticizes the hard working Open Office people, and the MAIN thing is it’s functionality, and OOo is also quite customizable but as one that uses and recommends OOo, i think it would be more attractive and inspiring if it included themes like Firefox, etc.
Lastly, i like the looks of this page itself (easier on the eyes too). Thanks.
Comment by daniel hamilton — 02.15.08 @ 1:16 pm
It must have skins. “if it ain’t pretty, windows addicts won’t useit” convince the end user, and the rest will follow.
Comment by Dara k — 02.24.08 @ 11:49 am
I think skinning is a great idea, I was looking for a great skin and so I ended up on this site.
I liked open office a lot, but now office 2007 is out I think open office is out of the picture for me. Open office looks so much better since office 2000. Well I don’t think the buttons was a bad choice, the special effect behind de paper is awesome. Typing stuff is boring, and looking at a great nice screen just make you feel better. Also I would like to add that in the history of management development they have discover that light, colors and a happy looking surrounding just make you work better. Wich = productive.
Further I would like to tell you that in the Netherlands (can’t tell or this is true for the whole world) office first made a hit my students because it was free given on school, because people used a lot at home it also went to the office. So, make a program popular under the public (with ofcours quality spellingscontrolle and so on) and the company will follow.
Now imagine this, I have to type a long story, I open my flashing new design notebook, flashing backscreenpicture, all modern and good looking. Will I go to office 2007, flashing design and so on, or an old boring screen gray screen (open office).
Comment by Edward — 02.29.08 @ 6:16 am
Anyone who disagrees with the option of having themes is a moron. Sorry, but you are. Every application needs themes and skinnability - it allows a user to customize the feel of the application to their liking.
As to what should come pre-installed, the current theme is fine. Modular coding design would allow one to swap out themes with barely any overhead. Themes could be even more minimal than what is currently provided, or more fancy for those who want eye candy.
I am not advocating these themes be built into open office, just the framework to use the themes, and the flexibility for a user to choose what he feels suits him best. Themes should be available for download but not bundled with the install kit.
*That* methodology is what sells software.
Comment by Jon — 03.28.08 @ 10:33 am
Anyone who says looks doesn’t count is kidding themselves. Why else would companies like Microsoft and Apple spend so much to update the “look” of their operating systems year after year. If it was all about productivity, we’d still be sporting the “classic” Windows look!
And the reason more people use MS Office over OpenOffice.org—simple—MS has a gazillion dollar ad budget that OpenOffice.org can’t match. They can afford to brand the image of a more superior product in the minds of users—and top company execs. Give the folks over at OpenOffice.org that kind of ad budget and see how popular OOo would be in a few years.
Comment by Mike — 04.10.08 @ 7:51 pm
I completely agree that OpenOffice needs themes. If you are staring at it whilst working, why not at least give people the option to create their own “nicer” themes. I’m sure loads of people in the community could design some great themes that are so much nicer to look at than the horrible defaults!
Comment by aj — 05.3.08 @ 3:28 pm
Mike is right. Sorry. A remarkably concise and fundamentally accurate summary. Hats off
Comment by sirox — 05.10.08 @ 2:13 am