Friday, December 5, 2008

Lotus Symphony doesn't look right!

I've been using Lotus Symphony as my default office suite of choice for a couple of weeks now for one primary reason, tabs! Tabs enables me to open multiple documents in one window and reduce clutter. Another feature I like is the built-in web browser (gecko based), while very minimal, it allows me to browse the web and grab the information I need without having to launch or switch to a web browser.
Lotus Symphony is based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 code, but with a much nicer UI, and did I mention tabs?!
Yet, the much nicer UI, has one great flaw, at some places it doesn't feel native at all!


Look at the scroll bars, combo lists, buttons and the Find and Replace dialog, it looks like it was lifted from Windows 95. Yuck!
Maybe they were? Maybe some portions are ported from Windows using Wine? I have no idea, why IBM would use non-native widgets for its GNU/Linux port, which is not the case for the Mac OS X version, which does seem to use native widgets and has a more native feel to it.
I really hope the next release of OpenOffice.org introduces tabs, OO.o feature wise is ahead of Lotus Symphony, and looks much more native on any platform.

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