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Geek Culture / IBM Lotus Symphony does what no other major Office Suite does... (and I just don't know why!)

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JoelJ
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 03:00 Edited at: 11th Nov 2008 03:00
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I've been slightly following IBM's newest version of Symphony recently. It's an Office suite built off of OpenOffice and Eclipse IDE. It's actually pretty nice. I think I like it more than OpenOffice. But I'm not sure if I like it more than MS Office 2007 yet.
The UI of Symphony, much like Office 07 did, has strayed from the class Office UI. It has all the formating options you need for your current document on the right pane. Then it has the more general settings in the top toolbar. Why did they do it this way? Because they have included TABS! Something I have waited for for YEARS! Not only does it tab all your word documents in one window, but it tabs all your spreadsheets, word documents, and presentations all in one one Window (I'm not sure if I like that or not... we'll see, but it's still cool!).

All I really have to say about these tabs is, IT'S ABOUT STINKING TIME!

And they just finished the beta phase for Linux and started the beta phase for Mac. So there's full releases available for windows/linux users, and I'm sure the Mac beta isn't different, they're just trying to make sure the UI fits with each OS. So it feels natural on the OS your on, and not just like a port.

Oh, and it's completely FREE

Link:
http://symphony.lotus.com/

Screenshot:



[email protected] RAM-NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M-Windows Vista Business 32bit
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Benji
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 03:15
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Hm, never heard of this before. Downloading now.

My signature is empty.
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Jimmy
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 04:11
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How are tabs different from the task bar buttons... really?

Hmmmmm?

"Oh hey, nice website Jimmy, it's really nice and fancy." -- That C++ Nerd
Visit. Website. NOW!
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JoelJ
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 04:24
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task bar buttons are CLUTTERED. this way it's grouped in an awesomely convenient/logical way.


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soapyfish
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Location: Yorkshire, England
Posted: 11th Nov 2008 04:43 Edited at: 11th Nov 2008 04:46
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Quote: "How are tabs different from the task bar buttons... really?"


I would guess that this one application only creates 1 taskbar button no matter how many documents you open whereas in other office apps a new taskbar button is created for every file that is opened. I may be wrong as I haven't tried this app and I know if you open enough files in other office apps all the taskbar buttons collapse into one funky little pull-up button.

I tend to just to Alt-Tab between files if I have more than one open but I can see how this feature would be useful for other people.


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Seppuku Arts
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Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 11th Nov 2008 11:58
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Lotus? Wow, I've not used this since Lotus '97, I didn't know they were still doing this stuff, I loved Lotus '97, but it's a bit outdated, so I'm downloading this right now and see how it compares to Microsoft Works (which is what I'm using at the moment).

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
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BatVink
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 13:20 Edited at: 11th Nov 2008 13:23
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Quote: "I've not used this since Lotus '97, I didn't know they were still doing this stuff"


IBM claim they have 140 million corporate users (42.3% market share) of their email / calendar client, which is pretty significant

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Accoun
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 13:25
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Quote: "IBM claim they have 140 million corporate users (42.3% market share) of their email / calendar client, which is pretty significant
"

They have an e-mail client? Didn't knew. What's its name?

Make games, not war.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 14:39
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Quote: "Quote: "I've not used this since Lotus '97, I didn't know they were still doing this stuff"

IBM claim they have 140 million corporate users (42.3% market share) of their email / calendar client, which is pretty significant"


And they seem to keep themselves fairly quiet about it, not often I hear about Lotus, or rather, at all until now. Mind you, I'm still a measly student and they just stick on Microsoft Office on the Uni computers, like they did at school and it keeps everyone happy.



By the way, this is a neat program, but does anybody know how to turn off the 'word guesser'? For a screenshot of what I mean:



I turn off auto-organiser and it still does it, so I'm guessing it's not that.

I don't like it when the computer tries to guess what you're writing, hence I've turned off that feature on my phone when I send a text.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
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BatVink
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 14:59
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Quote: "They have an e-mail client? Didn't knew. What's its name?"


Lotus Notes. It's a little more than just an email client.

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David R
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 18:05 Edited at: 11th Nov 2008 18:06
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Quote: "
And they seem to keep themselves fairly quiet about it, not often I hear about Lotus, or rather, at all until now. Mind you, I'm still a measly student and they just stick on Microsoft Office on the Uni computers, like they did at school and it keeps everyone happy."

Quote: "IBM claim they have 140 million corporate users (42.3% market share) of their email / calendar client, which is pretty significant"


That wouldn't surprise me actually, a lot of big finance companies seem to pick up tech. early on and stick with it forever - I believe AMP insurance and RBS still use Lotus (both companies that my parents work/have worked for, and I often hear them mention Lotus)


09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
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BatVink
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Posted: 11th Nov 2008 20:48
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I'm not sure why it's so popular, I find it *extremely* slow, and more often than not under too much load to give any response at all. These days, handling a couple of thousand users shouldn't be too stressful.

It's also a security problem - we have to have admin rights to our PCs just to run Notes.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Nov 2008 02:58
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I HATE lotus notes! It's incredibly slow, inefficient network usage, and if one Domino server goes down it's only a matter of time before the other dominos go with it from overloading.


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bitJericho
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Posted: 12th Nov 2008 03:21
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Quote: "I tend to just to Alt-Tab between files if I have more than one open but I can see how this feature would be useful for other people."


Surely you could just cntl-left cntl-right to switch between docs now


It's not just for BYOND you know!
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JoelJ
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Posted: 12th Nov 2008 04:07
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not in symphony I was actually surprised that CTR-TAB didn't work either... usually does.


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Jeku
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Posted: 13th Nov 2008 16:46
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Oh neat, I didn't know about CTRL-TAB in Firefox either.


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 13th Nov 2008 17:48
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Same, but cool - I can now cause the person next to me to suddenly develop photo-sensitive epilepsy.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
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