>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of 
>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to 
>> *care* any more...
> 
> Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...

...really??

Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:40:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.

The version I use does that.

> like not supporting certain chart options.

Such as?

Jim

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On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of  
>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to  
>>> *care* any more...
>>  Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
>
> ...really??
>
> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D

No, your copy is still illegal...



-- 
FE

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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 21:44:36 +0200, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>> It still makes me slightly nervous that I have an illegal copy of 
>>>> Borland TurboPascal 5.5 for DOS. I mean, as if Borland is going to 
>>>> *care* any more...
>>>  Especially since they released it for free more than eight years ago...
>>
>> ...really??
>>
>> Neat! I own one fewer pieces of illegal software... :-D
> 
> No, your copy is still illegal...

Awww! :-(

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:39:47 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> For example, I asked Calc to draw a graph, and spent forever trying to
>>> figure out how to add a secondary axis. As far as I can tell, they
>>> just haven't got around to implementing that feature yet.
>> 
>> What do you mean by a "secondary axis"?
> 
> Have series 1 plotted against the Y-axis scale at the left end of the
> chart, and series 2 plotted against the (unrelated) Y-axis scale at the
> right end of the chart.
> 
> Come to think of it, I think I also had trouble plotting a bar chart
> with a line graph overlayed...

I think I did something like that recently, but I'd have to go look.

>>> I will say this: The chart options layout is superior to Excel. Far
>>> more logical grouping, options do what you'd actually expect them to
>>> do, etc.
>> 
>> That's one of the nice things about OSS development - when you reach a
>> critical mass of developers and get a good group of people who look at
>> user needs, you end up with software that can meet the needs of more
>> users and provide more options.
> 
> Linux used to be almost unusable. It's got a lot better... but now it
> seems to have plataued out again. So it's not just a function of being
> OSS.

Sure, it's not a function of being OSS, true.  But again, "almost 
unusable" isn't a helpful description.  My wife uses Linux daily.  I've 
used it for over a decade.

Linux isn't Windows:  Most people who say that Linux is "unusable" are 
expecting a free version of Windows.  It isn't, it's something different.

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

That's a pretty good article someone wrote a few years ago explaining 
this.

>>> Writer works for simple tasks. Sometimes it's quite frustrating trying
>>> to make it do what you want though. (I can't remember a specific
>>> example right now.)
>> 
>> There again, I don't have an issue with getting it to do what I want.
>> You may be running up against a learning curve (don't expect it to be
>> like MS Office, that's a starting point).
> 
> Oh, I *like* that it isn't like MS Office. It's just that certain things
> are either well-hidden or just not implemented yet.

Well, either that or you don't know how to use them and are too 
<adjective> to ask for help (proud, perhaps?).

>>>>> As I say, I sometimes use OO for fixing broken MSO documents. (MSO
>>>>> itself is apparently too stupid to do this.)
>>>> Indeed, I remember you mentioning that before.
>>> Trouble is, it tended to chew up the formatting slightly. (I tried it
>>> with files that weren't corrupted; same issue. It ate the company
>>> logo, for example.) I imagine this is something they're probably
>>> working on improving.
>> 
>> What version have you used?  Have you opened bugs on these issues?
> 
> To file a bug, I'd have to pin down exactly what it's doing wrong. Just
> saying "I converted this document once and the headers came out wrong"
> isn't going to help anybody. (Especially since I can't show them the
> document. It's confidential commercial property, after all.)

No, you don't really have to go to that extent.  Duplicate the document 
with a generic graphic and use that.   Most people *think* you have to be 
very specific about what the problem is (so specific that if you coded in 
the language, you could fix the bug), and that's not generally true.

Jim

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On Thu, 13 May 2010 20:34:39 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Oracle is a nice product, but if you just want to store your phonebook
>>> or your CD collection, it's way way overkill. I will say one thing
>>> about MS Access: It may be an utterly crap DB engine, but if all you
>>> want to do is store and lookup a little bit of data, it's the most
>>> lightweight thing I've seen. You get the DB engine and a nice
>>> front-end and a design tool, all in one. It's not very *good*, but for
>>> small things it's right-sized.
>> 
>> Well, yeah - I'd be more inclined to use MySQL, but some apps on Linux
>> to do things like tracking a CD collection use SQLite on the backend
>> (heck, my newsreader uses it).
> 
> Sure. But you'd have to have MySQL installed, then you'd have to create
> a folder to put the files in, then execute several dozen raw SQL
> commands to manually build the database, create the log files, build the
> tables, then you'd have to configure the access controls, and then you
> can configure Base to talk to it.

Um, no, generally the app will list mysql as a requirement, but then will 
script the building of the database.  Or if it's SQLite, then it's pre-
created by the application.  Running Linux applications isn't as complex 
as you seem to think it is.

And as for the database creation, I tend to use something like Webmin or 
MySQLAdmin (a PHP interface) which simplifies things.  But I'm also 
comfortable using the mysql command-line client as well.

> In MS Access, you click "file > new", select a filename, and you're
> done. See what I mean?
> 
> Of course, MySQL (and other DB engines) can do all sorts of other fancy
> stuff that MS Access will never manage. (*cough* file security,
> anybody?) But for simple things, it's much quicker.

I'm not arguing that.

Though actually oobase does have it's own database format that's as easy 
to use as MS Access (I hadn't actually looked at it because I don't use 
it that often).

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next line.
> The version I use does that.

Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers with 
exactly this sort of thing.  I ranted here, and about two days later, 
suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I don't know 
what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it was, but 
somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to put the 
cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me. I must have 
unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or something, because 
it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it did.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It still irritates me how many people utter the works "Excel database".
> People, IT'S NOT A DATABASE! 

Sure it is.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 May 2010 12:07:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I'd say that it's pretty much got feature parity (
>> Maybe for the features *you* use. I don't remember seeing how to get it
>> to talk COM to a SQL database so you can automate importing a chart from
>> Calc into Word based on a database query.
> 
> True, that's not something I've ever needed to use, but then again, I 
> probably wouldn't look to use a specific technology (COM) to accomplish 
> the task, largely because I wouldn't know where to start with COM.

That, and other cool stuff, like the fact that you can put it on a shared 
drive and have multiple people working on the same file without conflict. 
All kinds of "power" stuff that people who don't use it for a living do use.

Kind of like showing the boss a unit test framework integrated into the IDE 
and him going "Yeah, so? I have an editor and a compiler."  It's stuff you 
might not ever use unless your job is making and sharing these complex 
presentations with other people.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Ada - the programming language trying to avoid
    you literally shooting yourself in the foot.

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On Thu, 13 May 2010 13:03:21 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Things like when you press enter, it doesn't move down to the next
>>> line.
>> The version I use does that.
> 
> Funny enough, when I was using oocalc at work, the UI drove me bonkers
> with exactly this sort of thing.  I ranted here, and about two days
> later, suddenly everything started working just fine and intuitive. I
> don't know what I was expecting that wasn't working the way I thought it
> was, but somehow the constant "Oh crap now I have to go use the mouse to
> put the cursor where it should have gone" just stopped happening to me.
> I must have unconsciously switched over to the right mental model or
> something, because it seemed perfectly obvious it should behave as it
> did.

LOL

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