Abiword problem in 4.2

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disciple · #21 Post by **disciple** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 11:50

For the record, the old Abiword is NOT a "just-works package"; at least in Puppy 4.x, and by the criteria expressed here.
It is pretty buggy, and I find it unusable simply because it usually doesn't display half the text in a document. I can usually see it when I select it, but that often crashes Abiword. This could be specific to Microsoft documents, or certain common fonts - I don't know

I don't remember it being like this in Puppy 2.x, but then I never used it much. It is a pity, because if Abiword wasn't so buggy in Puppy it would be my WP of choice... as it is I use OOo.
I guess I could always use it in Wine, but that seems wrong

#22 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 12:16

Here's Barry's version of Abiword 2.6.3 with 2.6.6 extensions and Templates, with spellcheck turned on
http://www.puppylinux.asia/tpp/ttuuxxx/ ... pdated.pet
Just install it and use it, Its the same as using 2.6.6 due to the fact it can now read/write .docx extensions.
case solved.
ttuuxxx

Ps its also in Puppies 4.2-v1
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 908#290908

ecomoney · #23 Post by **ecomoney** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 12:27

Puppy Mission Statement (by BarryK)

1. Puppy will easily install to USB, Zip or hard drive media
2. Booting from CD, Puppy will load totally into RAM so that the CD drive is then free for other purposes
3. Puppy will be extremely friendly for Linux newbies
4. Puppy will boot up and run extraordinarily fast
5. Puppy will have all the applications needed for daily use
6. Puppy will just work, no hassles
7. Puppy will breathe new life into old PCs

Five and six still need some work in that case, though number three has come on in leaps and bounds in the latest release.

Just to clarify, I asked for one of the themes to be higher contrast for those with impaired vision...a fairly common "disability" (ok I was stretching the point here), but it would have been nice for puppy to make at least a nod in this direction (considering it had quite a few themes already between jwm, icewm and gtk)

Personally, I dont use a word processor that much...but I know a lot of other people do. I can just about fix it, but Ive been using it nearly four years now. Most of what I learnt at Uni was theoretical, making sure that end users are properly consulted to their exact requirements, and a methodical approach to development and testing was implemented. Icewm wasnt around at the time (1996) but your absolutely right there is no reason I cant make a high contrast theme now, and I will.

I agree Whodo has done a very good job, and doing the best job always involves looking back at what could be done better.

Jack...if you think were beleaguered...you should see some of the places I work.

ecomoney · #24 Post by **ecomoney** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 12:36

Thank you for this at least Ttuxxx, tested with sample documents from here

http://openxmldeveloper.org/articles/Sa ... t2007.aspx

At risk of sounding pedantic...would you also include a mime-type so .docx opens automatically with abiword when clicked on. Currently they open with xarchive.

tronkel · #25 Post by **tronkel** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 12:55

jakfish wrote:

It's a strange paradox in the computer programming world that those who work for free, work the hardest of all.

Yes indeed, the open-source world is a paradox - one I have never really understood. Entirely different animal from the normal model of producer/consumer. Seems to work very well though in practice.

It works most of the time even for people who have specialist needs - even for Ecomoney.

In order to produce the goods here, some contributors donate a lot of time and probably health status in order to produce the stuff.

Please make allowance for this. This applies to everyone here - not just to Ecomoney - who I accept is just trying to do his best for his end-users as well.

#26 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 12:56

ecomoney wrote:Thank you for this at least Ttuxxx, tested with sample documents from here

http://openxmldeveloper.org/articles/Sa ... t2007.aspx

At risk of sounding pedantic...would you also include a mime-type so .docx opens automatically with abiword when clicked on. Currently they open with xarchive.

Man your never happy, Open abiword and click file/open it works.
You can't set a mime to it yet, xarchiver looks at it as a .zip file, you would have to use the zip mime and have it open abiword, now thats a mess, I'll contact the developer since he's a nice guy and ask him how to update xarchiver.

A clever way you can do with .docx files is extract them in a folder using xarchiver, then right click open with 'defaultbrowser' /root/word/document.xml
then click in seamonkey save as html
then open the html file with seamonkey and boom you viewing a docx file in seamonkey perfectly, without abiword/OO etc, just seamonkey.
ttuuxxx

ecomoney · #27 Post by **ecomoney** » Thu 02 Apr 2009, 13:30

It works most of the time even for people who have specialist needs - even for Ecomoney

Most of my clients think a mime-type is a subdivision of theatre with no words. They just want to click on it and it work, and let them get on with battling housing corporations/banks/lawyers without having to pay £235 for M$ office....a lot of people I know are in that situation at the moment. Letter writing is far from specialist computer use....its a daily necessity for many.

Thank you for clarifying about Mime types Ttuxxx...perhaps a more flexible system of assigning programs to files will be developed soon. Files matter more than programs to end-users. For now its just great to have docx support somehow and be able to give "linux newbs" some way of accessing modern literacy cheaply.

evilmrb · #28 Post by **evilmrb** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 07:20

I can't begin to say how much it saddens me to see my humble bug report degenerate into a slanging match simply because parties cannot see one another's point of view.
I am a Linux dabbler so I don't know much technical stuff. Trying to rebuild another version of Puppy myself would be a non-no. For me at least the Abiword issue would mean I couldn't / wouldn't use it. I think Puppy is an absolutely fantastic piece of software and I have done since I first tried it. Every time I get a new version I marvel at just how much it does, especially for its size. If anyone from Microsoft is reading this - watch and learn!!!
I can see the points on both sides and really there is no right or wrong here. It's abundantly clear that the developers work very hard to produce a great product and it's frustrating for users when a key bit doesn't work as well as it might. I learn about new releases from Distrowatch.com so I wouldn't know when releases were available for testing but I would be willing to help in that area from a user's perspective.
Please try to bear in mind that we are all on the same side really.

cindy · #29 Post by **cindy** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 08:30

Now I have been criticized before and I have broad shoulders so do not mind. I am disgusted that anyone would have contempt for a person who does such a good job for people. Rob works so hard for puppy linux and does not make money at it. His prime concern is helping us ordinary people.
I am the person that he brought the young person to so she could print a letter. Have you NEVER been in trouble whodo ????
I have not made a comment on this forum for a long time because there are a few of you out there who seem to have no heart. More like a machine that just see figures and whatever it is that makes you tick. I have as an elderly lady enjoyed using puppy linux and in my SMALL way tried to promote it.
So PLEASE do not tell me I have not followed the correct protocol I am too old to listen, just fix what is wrong so that us ordinary people can use your system PLEASE.

WhoDo · #30 Post by **WhoDo** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 09:23

cindy wrote:Have you NEVER been in trouble whodo ????

Not really, not the way you mean, but I certainly have done my share of helping those who were! I don't wear that like a badge of honour and demand people respect what I do. I just do it when it needs doing! That's how I found Puppy in the first place ... rebuilding PC's to give away to those who really needed them and couldn't afford to pay. I understand Rob's passion for the people he helps. I feel the same way, but that passion needs to be mixed with a little respect and humility when things aren't exactly as expected.

If you and others belittled Rob's efforts, how long do you think he'd keep doing what he does for you?

I don't think Rob should put his avocation ahead of the rights and feelings of others, regardless of how laudible his objectives may be. I applaud you defending someone who has helped you and people you know. That's all I was doing when I reacted to Rob's unwarranted criticism. Heck, ttuuxxx had just got through finding a workaround to help out while he looked more deeply at the underlying problem and what did he get for the effort? "That's nowhere near good enough"! Phooey to that!

I get really annoyed when people cannot see beyond their own narrow viewpoint.

cindy wrote:So PLEASE do not tell me I have not followed the correct protocol I am too old to listen, just fix what is wrong so that us ordinary people can use your system PLEASE.

Have you ever heard the expression "looking a gift horse in the mouth"? I'm sure you have. It means disrespecting the gift and the giver by looking for faults in the gift or rejecting the gift because it isn't perfect! Puppy is a GIFT. You paid exactly ZERO for it! Telling those who have laboured so long to "just fix what is wrong so us ordinary people can use your system" is NOT mitigated by appending the word PLEASE as though it were a demand.

Sometimes I wonder why volunteers bother when you get the recipients of their labours looking that particular gift horse in the mouth and declaring the gift flawed! It's FREE for crying out loud! At least you could ask nicely if you'd like things organised a little differently. *sheesh*

Cindy I applaud your defense of your friend and helper. I also applaud your friend and helper for what he does. Please don't forget that it was people like ttuuxxx, and me, who made what Rob does possible in the first place, through our hard work with this distribution! I think we've earned just a modicum of respect for that too, don't you?

@evilmrb - I agree and I sincerely hope the mods look at locking this thread and giving the side issues a chance to crawl away and die.

Your report was properly made. The problem was recognised and has been fixed (see ttuuxxx's last post and the Patches & Updates thread for 4.2), at least to the point where it shouldn't be a problem any more in this release. Fin!

trio · #31 Post by **trio** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 09:59

More like only misunderstanding with "how to convey a message" to me....please, like whodo said, be nice in this forum, even when you're angry, after all, we're all doing voulenteer's work here. All Free..

Aaah, we've been here before eh whodo? (just like 4.2 RC's threads)

and yes, FIN STOP PERIOD ETC

tronkel · #32 Post by **tronkel** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 10:16

Dear Cindy, you wrote:

His prime concern is helping us ordinary people

I for one do not disagree with this. GNU/Linux was specifically conceived to help "ordinary people" with whatever computing tasks they need to do - and at no cost to boot. Let's be in no doubt - this is a good thing.

But consider this:

In order to achieve this goal, basic Puppy Linux versions need to be built so that they can be used as bases for community editions plus any other required variants.

What WhoDo and Ttuuxxx have made here is not a Community Edition but a Base Edition. WhoDo and Ttuuxxx are VERY good at what they do and should be left alone to get on with it without criticism.

I do understand though that you might have confused Base Editions with Community Editions. This is an easy mistake to make.

Best regards

Tronkel

ecomoney · #33 Post by **ecomoney** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 10:46

You are right Trio, angry posts, belittling peoples (free) contributions and casting accusations are no way of advancing what is a very worthy and important project for many, free or not. Ive apologised to those who have I have unintentially offended (whodo) who are generally not guilty of the same. No one should be "beyond criticism", me included.

Im want to re-iterate again that my "not nearly good enough" comment was made - from the point of view of the people "linux newbs" that this distro is aimed at - soley at Ttuxxxs first suggested workaround for the Abiword bug, not for his final fix for the problem, or the 4.2 release, or Puppy Linux as a whole.

I am wanting to turn this around to be something positive too. Whodo Im sure in the future - should my comments have not put you off managing another release - you will take the steps needed to ensure a bug of this magnitude (to end users) will not creep in again.

dawnsboy · #34 Post by **dawnsboy** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 12:39

I have worked with Abiword since the 1.x series on various platforms (Slackware, Fedora, Debian based, Windows 98 through Vista, Vector Linux, Puppy Linux, etc). This word processor has matured nicely over the years making it a very useful application. My sister uses a version in Win 98SE on her aging laptop. She creates term papers, etc in Abiword and saves them as Word documents on a disk so that she can open and edit or print them from MS Word on another computer as needed. I have been able to create fairly complex documents in Abiword and have successfully exported them to Word format. I have been far less successful with importing documents created in MS Word.

Generally letters, term papers and similar documents with and without images import fairly well (some are flawlessly rendered). Complex documents created in MS Word in my experience tend not to render particularly well in Abiword. I have a resume that was created using a MS Word resume template (2 column table) that can easily and accurately be imported into Open Office. This document can be imported into Abiword but there are issues. While the table structure is intact Abiword has difficulty placing headings in their proper positions. It tends to word wrap headings and sub-headings that fit easily on one line in MS Word or Open Office. It also adds rows to the table and breaks across pages in odd places. In my experience this is typical of Abiword which has always been a fast, lightweight word processor that does meet the criteria for the Puppy Linux mission statement (especially for documents created in Abiword and sent to printer or exported as Word Documents). However it has always been necessary for me to import more complex documents in Open Office when available to me; if not then Google Docs or Zoho Office (zoho.com).

The abilities, features, benefits, limitations or bugs present in Abiword are generally the responsibility of the developers at Abisource. In regard to garbled fonts I wish to point out that I installed a package called fonts.pet that I found here on the forum. This changed how fonts are rendered globally on my system. I did not attempt to use Abiword 2.66 until the font package had been installed. This is something I have done with other Puppy 4.x setups.

Having said that I have had no problem whatever with Abiword 2.66 as used otherwise out of the box. I have been able to download Word documents and render them in Abiword with the anticipated results.

It has been my experience when identifying a problem that a search for a solution most often yields quick results. Sharing the problem and the solution (when possible) or asking for help within the community will alert developers to the problem and it will be addressed. I have never worked with a distro of any kind that did not have post release issues that required additional work of some kind on the part of the developers. It is a part of life. Development of an operating system is a complex, often tedious task.

cindy · #35 Post by **cindy** » Fri 03 Apr 2009, 22:11

Thanks for your reply, not certain what to make of it ???

As I said I have broad shoulders.

I was not just sticking up for a friend. I was saying what I thought after reading your remarks. As to looking a gift horse in the mouth, I think that is an insulting thing to say. Anyway I will not bore you with anything else as I have more pleasant things to do.

tronkel · #36 Post by **tronkel** » Sat 04 Apr 2009, 07:21

Ecomoney wrote:

from the point of view of the people "linux newbs" that this distro is aimed at

The "Linux Newbs" user category is by no means the only group of users that Puppy Linux is aimed at. (I'm talking about the base versions here). Puppy's raison d'etre is not solely because of newbie-friendliness (albeit that that is one of its many positive aspects). If that was indeed the case, Puppy's currently high position (no 2 in Distrowatch recently) would drop like a stone.

User categories range from "Total Newb" to "Advanced Developer" and everything else in between.

Hence the reason that base versions (current one is Puppy 4.2 Deep Thought) with their size constraints cannot be the exclusive domain of one particular user group.

Puplets are Puppy's solution for user groups who have specific requirements. That can mean anything of course - users who have special requirements that relate to say, visual impairment, or maybe to users who have an interest e.g. in ham radio or some other hobbyist area, to take one of many possible examples.

Puppy is and IMHO should always remain neutral in regard to its target user base. Without this philosophy of neutrality, the spur to innovative development could get impaired - and that would be a very bad thing.

ecomoney · #37 Post by **ecomoney** » Sat 04 Apr 2009, 09:34

Tronkel, I dont get your reasoning, heres the mission statement again.

* Booting from CD, Puppy will load totally into RAM so that the CD drive is then free for other purposes.
* Booting from CD, Puppy can save everything back to the CD, no need for a hard drive.
* Booting from USB, Puppy will greatly minimise writes, to extend the life of Flash devices indefinitely.
* Puppy will be extremely friendly for Linux newbies.
* Puppy will boot up and run extraordinarily fast.
* Puppy will have all the applications needed for daily use.
* Puppy will just work, no hassles.
* Puppy will breathe new life into old PCs

I cant see anything about it being a developer-centric distro here, it only mentions one group of people

* Puppy will be extremely friendly for Linux newbies.

It obvious that Puppys recent success with 4.2 is because it is more directly aimed at entry level Linux users with its extra usability features. Ubuntu's success is because it is "Linux for human beings", from what Ive seen of some extreme hardcore programmers...this is a very similar mission

Extra usability, if properly thought out, doesnt require huge megabytes. Usability is down to design, not construction, and has huge payoffs in terms of promoting open source (i.e. freedom).

As for the argument that puplets are the way of getting useability into puppy linux, I think you will find its the other way round.

Quote: "An interview with BarryK, creator of puppy linux" from DesktopLinux

What are your plans for the future of Puppy Linux, both near term and long term?

Puppy has a "mission statement," which you can see on the main Puppy Linux page. Apart from that, it's open. We discuss things on the forum, some guys try stuff on their own custom versions of Puppy. I pick up what looks good for the official version.

Puppies popularity lies in the fact it is aimed at helping the majority of people out there, and from what Ive seen 4.2's popularity is due to the fact that it does the same thing...more. I only hope that some of the new packages which have gone out broken do not put people off trying future versions of puppy. I hear there are major useability problems with Ttuxxxs new CUPS system too. We perhaps should have stuck with what "just works".

Of course, puppy linux needs good developers. They are the oxygen that allows it to live. What makes a good developer? Developers make programs...What is a program?

A program is simply a tool to do a real-world job. How "good" that program/tool is depends on how easy it makes that job to do, how needed that job is, and how well it does that job.

I speak from experience here, as I was a professional programmer for some very significant projects back in my windoze days. This explains my opinion of the work of a particular programmer that brought AbiWord and CUPS to 4.2

Puppy not only needs developers, but they must be the right kind of developers. They need to have not only a high level of technical skill to fit in with puppies limited hardware constraints, but also a genuine desire to create something that fits in with puppies goals...this is what makes it successful, useful and "good".

If your a good developer and want a real challenge....your in the right place. If your a real challenging developer, your not.

#38 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Sat 04 Apr 2009, 10:25

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tronkel · #39 Post by **tronkel** » Sat 04 Apr 2009, 11:23

Ecomoney wrote:

I cant see anything about it being a developer-centric distro here

(as extract from Barry's summary).

Nowhere in my posting did I state that Puppy is, or should be, developer-centric.

In fact, I went out of my way to make clear the fact that I thought exactly the opposite. What I said was, that for the base versions of Puppy, its ethos should reflect the distro characteristics as being user-group neutral i.e. - emphasis towards any specific user group should not be a part of the base schema. There is no room in the ISO for any other approach to be feasible. This is what makes Puppy Puppy.

Agreed though, that the core applications e.g. Abiword should work.
In the real OS world though, this is not always the case for various reasons.

Look at Ubuntu for example - 7.04 Feisty I think it was.

It had a real show stopper where even the mouse was frozen after boot-up.

This is from a commercial distro whose infrastructure for life-cycle development is out of Puppy's league. So I think one can make big allowances in this respect for Puppy.

#40 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Sat 04 Apr 2009, 13:57

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