Prepping For OpenOffice 3.1

There are always multiple projects moving ahead concurrently. OpenOffice 3.1 is almost done, so this afternoon I have been prepping the dialog the users will see the first time they launch the newest release. Users won't navigate to web pages, won't read the release notes, and won't read a long message describing everything that has changed. This GUI just gives them a short overview, and hopefully a few people will scroll down and see the new features. It only runs once, and then puts a dot file in $HOME.

We also encourage users to run OpenOffice at home, so we give them a checkbox to request media for the latest version. We will then burn them a copy of the software for Windows and Mac and interoffice it to them. A shot of the dialog is below.



On another note, this blog concerning OpenDocument support in SP2 of Microsoft Office 2007 is a huge win for all of us. As organizations begin to upgrade, we will not longer have to train users to store in .odt here, and then always email as .doc to outside vendors and contacts. My thanks to everyone that worked hard to pressure Microsoft to add this feature. This issue seems to have been driven mostly outside the United States; so my thanks to everyone around the world.