OOo Off the Wall: Recovering Hidden Treasures

It's a little-known secret, but what you see in the interface of version
2.0 of OpenOffice.org isn't what you have to settle for. Hidden throughout
version 2.0 are dozens of pieces of functionality, each available in a
few seconds by customizing the menus, toolbars or keyboard shortcuts
of OpenOffice.org applications. Some of these hidden treasures are
small tools useful only to users with certain work habits. However,
perhaps the most useful customizations are older versions of tools that have been
redesigned in version 2.0. In several cases, these older versions are
designed better than their replacements. And, if nothing else, they
often are more familiar.
Customizing Menus
These former version of tools can be recovered for use by customizing commands in menus,
toolbars and keyboard shortcuts. Menus and keyboards use a similarly
designed windows for customization, while toolbars, for some reason,
cram the same functionality into one window. In either interface,
customization is easy enough once you've gone through it the first time.

For the sake of simplicity, let's focus on adding commands to menus:

• 1. Select Tools -> Customize. The Customize window
  opens.

• 2. Do one of the following: select an existing menu to
  which you can add an icon from the Menu drop-down list, or create a new menu using the New button.
  OOo already has nine menus, which is about the limit of what is
  convenient. For this reason, think twice before creating a new menu.
  You also can move the position of menus if you select the Move
  menu.
• 3. Select the Add button. The Add Command window
  opens.

• 4. Select one of the Categories from the left-hand pane. The contents
  of the Command pane on the right changes with your selection.
• 5. Select a command from the right-hand pane. In most cases but not all,
  a description displays at the bottom of the window.
• 6. Select the Add button to add the command to the menu.

  Nothing in the window indicates that you have made a choice. However, if
  you try to add the command a second time, the program bars the action and
  displays a message box explaining that the command is already in the
  menu.

• 7. Select the Close button when you are finished adding
  commands. You then return to the Customize window. The commands you have
  added now are listed in the Entries pane for the menu.
• 8. Use the Up and Down arrows to position commands. You
  also can select the Modify button to add a new sub-menu, add a
  divider to group commands, rename a command or delete
  one.
• 9. Select the OK button to continue. You now have changed the
  menu for the current application only. Remember, if you want a feature
  to be available in another application, you have to
  repeat the process in the second application.

Because customization affects the program, not your documents, you don't
need to save anything in a template.
Going Retro
Which commands you consider treasures depend partly on your work
habits. For example, if you want more control over deletion, the Edit
category has a dozen commands to delete either the start or
end of words, lines, sentences or paragraphs. You can enable a similar
range of commands for selection in the Navigate category. Similarly,
frequent macro writers might want to enable some of the commands in the
OpenOffice.org category.

One of the most common customizations may be to enable functionality
available in one application that you frequently need in another. For
example, although 3-D objects are available in Draw, they aren't
available in Writer.

By far, though, the most useful customizations are ones that were
available in the editing window in earlier versions but were removed
from the 2.0 default interface. These customizations include:

• View -> Graphics On/Off. This option presumably was removed from
  version 2.0's interface because of the panic it causes in newcomers who
  accidentally activate it. Still, if you're creating a Writer document full
  of graphics--especially on a low-memory machine--toggling this command
  is a useful way of speeding up scrolling.
• Format -> Fontwork. This is the tool that bends graphical
  text into fantastic shapes. In order to make the interface more like MS Office,
  version 2.0 replaces Fontwork with the Fontwork Gallery and a Fontwork floating
  toolbar. Because you have to choose a sample from the Fontwork Gallery, regardless
  of whether there's one whose color and shape suits your needs, the changes are a
  step backward in usability. Nor, as far as I can see, can you adjust or tweak
  the text's shadow with the new tools. The old Fontwork tool is much quicker
  to use and provides more options.

The old Fontwork tool has more options and is easier to
use than the new one.The new tool for graphic text effect is harder to use
than the old one.

• Documents -> Mail Merge. Version 2.0 replaces this
  with the Mail Merge Wizard. This tool may be fine if you want to mail merge a letter or
  have a JavaMail client to merge to e-mail. However, it's a change
  for the worse if you use mail merge for any other purposes, such as
  outputting two slightly different versions of the same document. It's
  also a problem if you're a free software advocate who would prefer to
  avoid using Java. Moreover, wizard or not, the new tool actually seems
  to be harder to use than the old one. You can retrieve the old tool from the
  Document category.

The old mail merge tool is another retro classic.Despite the name, this new mail merge tool offers few advantages if
any over the old.

• Format -> Asian phonetic guide. Ruby-text is a small
  line of text that appears above the main one. In earlier versions of
  OpenOffice.org, Ruby-text was
  enabled when Asian languages were enabled from Tools -> Options -> Language
  Settings -> Language, so that it could be used as a pronunciation guide
  in Japanese and Chinese. It is equally useful at providing a crib sheet for
  any language. Yet, for some reason, enabling Asian languages no longer
  makes Ruby-text available. Instead, you need to find the Asian Phonetic
  Guide in the list of commands.

Ruby-text used here for the opening lines of Beowulf.Conclusion
The reasons for hiding some functionality under Tools -> Customize
is easy to imagine. In many cases, the commands were unlikely to be used
by beginners, and seeing them only must have added to anxiety options. In
some cases, because they changed the display, commands could unnerve
users who accidentally activated them.

In other cases, the changes in version 2.0 seem to have been intended
to make OpenOffice.org's editing window closer to MS Office's. This
seems to be the case with the removal of the Main toolbar from the left side
of the window and the conversion of the Draw toolbar into a clone
of MS Word's. These changes, the rationale goes, makes switching to
OpenOffice.org easier--which is fair enough, except when it confuses
existing users or involves copying a poorly designed interface.

Whatever the circumstances, finding the advanced tools squirreled away
can be a relief. Admittedly, each one that is retained like a binary
code version of an appendix contributes in a small way to code bloat,
so maybe they should not have been retained. Yet, if you do know about
them, you may be glad that they're still available, especially if
you're a long-time user who's grown accustomed to them.

Bruce Byfield is a course designer and instructor and a computer
journalist who writes regularly for NewsForge and the
Linux Journal Web site.