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November 1998 |  |
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| LinuxWorld Exclusive: First look at SuSE's Linux Office Suite 99 |
Hunting for the corporate desktopSuSE Linux Office Suite 99 seeks to bring Linux into the mainstreamSummaryBy Lou Grizno |
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We've gotten a lot of reaction to this review, and it has become evident to us that it falls short in several respects of our goal. We are working on improving our reviews process; when we think we've gotten it down solidly, we will revisit the Applixware suite. Meanwhile, be aware that this review has shortcomings, some of which are pointed out in the discussion forum (below).
--Nicholas Petreley, Editorial Director.
s
Linux's popularity soars and it edges ever closer to the desktop
mainstream, users will increasingly value convenience and ease of use.
Nowhere are such concerns more relevant than in the market for
traditional office applications. To reach this growing market, SuSE
Inc. has released its Linux Office Suite 99.
Each package contains a lot of software for the money: KDE 1.0, Applixware 4.4.1, Netscape Communicator, ADABAS D 10.0 Personal Edition database, ARKEIA 4.0 backup program, GIMP 1.0 image editor, GNOME environment, Xemacs editor, and LaTeX page markup program. That's the good news.
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Pros: Lots of features per dollar, one-stop-shopping convenience
Cons:
Bottom line: |
The bad news is that while SuSE's mind and heart is clearly in the right place, its product falls short in several areas that could be particularly bothersome to the intended audience.
The Linux Office Suite 99 bundle includes a 442-page manual covering the company's version 5.3 Linux distribution, another manual (approximately 300-pages) covering the Applixware Office Suite, and two CDs containing all the software.
For the majority considering buying this product, Applixware will be the single most intriguing part of the package, so I'll concentrate on it for the remainder of this review. Applixware includes the applications Words (word processor), Spreadsheets (spreadsheet), Charts (spreadsheet data graphing), Graphics (bitmap graphics editing), Presents (presentation package), and HTML Author (a utility to convert Applixware documents to HTML files).
An ambitious undertaking
Applixware scores points for ambition, as it includes several
impressive features, such as the ability to either link or embed
documents between its programs, support for numerous file formats,
considerable user configurability, and a large selection of charting
types. The product occasionally shows surprising maturity. For
example, when linking files the links are "hot," which means you can
insert a spreadsheet into a memo and the memo's view of it will
automatically update as the spreadsheet is changed.
In supporting other file formats, Applixware tackles the thorny problem of dealing with files from the Microsoft Office programs and other established Windows applications. For any office suite that hopes to succeed today, this is a critical feature, but the support is both spotty and quirky. On my non-networked Red Hat 5.1 test system, importing Microsoft Word files that were pre-Word 95 worked fine, but importing either Word 95 or 97 (or Excel 95 or 97) files caused Applixware to abandon the import process and display a dialog box that said, "Unable to reach network." SuSE reps said this was due to an incorrect entry in /etc/hosts, but that file was configured correctly and we never did diagnose the problem.
When I installed Applixware on another Red Hat 5.1 system, also non-networked, the imports worked. But even there I had problems -- importing a minimal Word 97 file with an embedded Windows BMP file resulted in the graphic being converted to the text "Unhandled OfficeArt." Similarly, an Excel 97 spreadsheet with a simple line graph imported the data portion correctly, but the graph based on that data displayed as a solid black rectangle.
Click here for full-size image: 49 KB |
Exporting files is another adventure, in that you can't directly export to Word 95 or Word 97 format, but only to RTF format. Anyone who's done significant file transfers via a third format such as RTF knows well what annoying little surprises can pop up via that route.
SuSE claims that newly posted Applix patches address these import/export problems. See Resources below for a link to these patches.
Not for the Linux neophyte
Applixware's usability is hampered by a number of odd design
decisions. For example, most other office programs use a single dialog
box to open files in native formats and import files in non-native
formats. This dialog is typically invoked by an Open entry on a File
menu. Applixware uses File | Open for native files and File | Import
to import files. Similarly, it has File | Save to simply save a file
under its current name in native format, File | Save As to rename a
file but save it in a native format, and File | Export to save it to
another format. This is unnecessarily fussy, and presents the user
with pointless details.
Some key bindings in the programs are similarly awkward. In Words, the End key moves the text cursor to the end of the current line, as is common practice, but Home doesn't move the cursor to the start of the line (you can, however, define Home to work this way). Hold the Shift key while pressing End (with the intent of selecting all text from the current position to the end of the line) and nothing happens.
Click for full-size image: 40 KB |
Curiously, I couldn't find any documentation about how to map the Page Up and Page Down keys. SuSE confirmed that these aren't documented. The obvious names, such as Page Up or Page Down, were all rejected. This led to one of the smallest, but most annoying, usability glitches: when I tried a new name for one of these keys, the configurator dialog didn't simply display an error message, it did so and then closed, forcing me to reopen it for my next attempt. This isn't an isolated problem; it's symptomatic of the questionable usability I found throughout the program.
Installation is a potential sore point, at least for a more mainstream audience. I installed Applixware under Red Hat 5.1, and found there was no installation program or coverage in the manual, just a README file on the first CD (and in the CD's liner notes) pointing me to a README file on the second CD, which in turn contained instructions with incorrect RPM package names and minimal information about which packages to install. This is clearly not an installation to be handed over to a Linux newcomer, though experienced Linux hands will have no trouble with it.
Most bothersome of all, Applixware occasionally locked up when graphing a column of about a dozen numbers in a spreadsheet. This happened several times on an otherwise stable system with 48 MB of RAM and more than adequate free disk space. Though this problem did not occur on a second LinuxWorld system, neither Applixware nor I could determine the source of this problem.
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Not all differences are flaws, of course. For example, Applixware's components only allow one document to be loaded into each application window; if you want to edit three word processing files at once, you need three Words windows. People used to working with a ring of documents in the same instance of an application and switching between them via entries on a Window menu will find this strange. In fact it's not a problem once you adjust to a different way of doing things.
Linux Office Suite 99 is a classic case of a product that's mile-wide and foot-deep. The companies responsible for it clearly aren't afraid of taking on difficult tasks, and in many ways they've succeeded quite nicely. But the centerpiece of the package, Applixware, has enough limitations, usability issues, and apparent bugs that I would be very hesitant to deploy it for use by either newcomers or those experienced with office applications in general.
The office suite costs $80, which includes the 1 CD base SuSE Linux distribution, or you can get it with SuSE's full 5 CD distribution for $100.
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About the author
Lou Grinzo is a computer consultant, freelance programmer,
and technical writer. He works with Linux and several
incarnations of Windows, and considers switching between
them the career equivalent of wild mood swings.