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Re: OT: Rant

Karsten M. Self wrote:


on Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 04:55:05PM -0600, Kent West (westk@nicanor.acu.edu) wrote:


I know it's not appropriate to rant, especially off-topic, but I just gotta!
I really miss WordPerfect! And I wish there were some open-source software that did what it does.
And being able to have Left Justified, Center Justified, and Right Justified text all on the same line, so you don't have to throw in a bunch of spaces to get everything to (maybe) line up. 



I'll add myself to the list of those confused by this comment.



See my response to dman.




And the column and table functions.



Supported in most markup languages.
And the ability to have a caption on an image that doesn't insist on including the text "Illustration 1". 



Ditto.
Yes, but one app does this, and another app does that. I tried using Open Office 641, but I couldn't get rid of the "Illustration 1" text; I couldn't even figure out how to delete the caption once it was created. I'm sure there's a way, but it wasn't in any way easy to find.
So the history is that I tried my project first in KWord; ran into problems. So I tried Star/Open Office, which solved some problems and introduced new ones. So I tried Abiword, which solved some and introduced some. So I went back to KWord. Then tried Lyx. Then waited some months, and did the process over again. Then waited some more months and tried again. Then after three years or so of trying and falling back to WP on VMWare each time, I just had to vent.
The power of WordPerfect is what a Linux-er wants, with the ease of operation that an MS-er needs. (I was an MS-er; a three-year Linux-er now, but still can't run Tex or even LyX, and the other stuff I've tried just doesn't have the power/features.)
Why oh why won't Corel release the old DOS version into the open source world? 






Too, the DOS version doesn't interact particularly well with the
GNU/Linux environment.  You're restricted to working under DOS, and
interacting only with the DOS partition.  Haven't tried it under WINE.
Yes, but I don't particularly care if the DOS version is *made available*; I'd like it to be *made available as open source*. Then the developers out there could (and hopefully would) convert it to native Linux, thus leading to more functional Linux software. 



Note that Corel _did_ (does?) have a Unix-native version, including a
console mode (not available, AFAIK, in the WP8 which was made generally
available for GNU/Linux).  This would seem to be the program you're
looking for.  What the availability of this program is I don't know.




Yeah, you can't get it from Corel anymore. Or at least I haven't found it.
(Yes, I could purchase the commercial version of Corel Office, but a Wine-ified version just doesn't seem kosher, not to mention that this would have to come out of my own pocket since the workplace doesn't smile friendly yet on Linux, so for now I'm without WP.) 



...well...  I have to say I can't sympathize.  If you're going to pine
after proprietary software, then be willing to shell out for it.
I'm not pining after proprietary software. I'm pining after the features that one particular proprietary app provides. I could care less if the product is WordPerfect. I just want the functionality of WordPerfect. 

And part of my point is that the pay-for version is still not "native".
If Corel released a none-Wine version of WP that worked well, I'd be more willing to shell out for it.
Why won't Abiword and Star/Open Office import .wpd docs (actually, Abiword seems to at least get the text, but not the formatting)? 



Probably because it's a really small target, and WP natively supports
.DOC.  Though you could file a wishlist (I'm sure it exists).
Yes, but that's going the opposite direction of what I'd like. I can open .DOC files; it's the .WPD files I have trouble getting into anymore, since none of the open source projects seem to care about it. 

A wishlist request; that's an idea.



Peace.



Ditto.
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