Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

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gordon451
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Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by gordon451 »

Just running by vicmarcal's blog, "Contributions: MS Office 2003", <https://www.reactos.org/node/771> and it reminded me.

Lotus SmartSuite, comprising WordPro, 123, Approach, Freelance and Organiser, not to mention the SmartCenter which interfaces directly with Organiser... And FastSite and ScreenCam. Should be on ROS.

It runs natively on W2K and XP, but also on W7 without any compatibilty problems, so should also run on W2K3, therefore ROS.

Its main claim to fame is that the word processor is superior to (MS)Word in almost every way conceivable. Approach is as good as Access, but comes standard on the CD (I think Approach supports more engines than Access); 123 is shaded by Excel, but we're talking 0.25%; and Organiser is legendary. Unfortunately Lotus and IBM never thought to allow Symphony to read Smartsuite files. However, Smartsuite is supported by IBM Notes, which should be a necessity on any serious desktop.

Gordon.
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by Webunny »

gordon451 wrote:Just running by vicmarcal's blog, "Contributions: MS Office 2003", <https://www.reactos.org/node/771> and it reminded me.

Lotus SmartSuite, comprising WordPro, 123, Approach, Freelance and Organiser, not to mention the SmartCenter which interfaces directly with Organiser... And FastSite and ScreenCam. Should be on ROS.

It runs natively on W2K and XP, but also on W7 without any compatibilty problems, so should also run on W2K3, therefore ROS.

Its main claim to fame is that the word processor is superior to (MS)Word in almost every way conceivable. Approach is as good as Access, but comes standard on the CD (I think Approach supports more engines than Access); 123 is shaded by Excel, but we're talking 0.25%; and Organiser is legendary. Unfortunately Lotus and IBM never thought to allow Symphony to read Smartsuite files. However, Smartsuite is supported by IBM Notes, which should be a necessity on any serious desktop.

Gordon.
As was Betamax.
Last edited by Webunny on Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by dizt3mp3r »

Perhaps, but some of those Lotus apps are just as usable now as they ever were. Lotus Organiser is still THE organiser and there is nothing to touch it for ease of use and complete day-to-day organiser functionality. Not other PIM is as usable and stable. The interface is still a classic.

I truly think that this is where some of the future for ReactOS lies, allowing 'legacy' apps to run just as they have always done.

Remember these apps were abandoned only because IBM wanted Lotus' Real Estate, the suite was really a good one, IBM simply abandoned it as they had bigger fish to fry. If you look at IBM now, you can see how those sort of decisions panned out.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by dizt3mp3r »

For a while I toyed with reanimating part of that suite by recreating a new version of Lotus Organiser using javascript and the Yahoo widget engine, I managed to get as far as icon creation and pulled together some code for doing this 'n that but that's as far as I got.

[ external image ]
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
karlexceed
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by karlexceed »

My god, it's a skeuomorphic nightmare... :shock:

Okay, personal opinion aside, I agree with the point that it's great that ROS will be able to run this perfectly good software far into the future for the people who love and depend on it's functionality. Obviously, though, there are some issues with the idea of bundling Lotus with ROS. Licensing aside, ROS's core release with be pretty bare-bones. It's up to us as individuals or a community to come up with a distro based on ROS that bundles all the fun stuff in for users. I know my ideal distro would come with a Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird/Lighting for browsing, email, and calendar and LibreOffice for an office suite.

But it's all personal preferences. And that's the beauty of ROS, now isn't it?

PS. Has anyone tried to install/run SmartSuite on ROS?
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by dizt3mp3r »

Its not meant to suit you, if it doesn't work for you then that does not matter as it was aimed specifically at a particular group of people who would have seriously loved it.

The point is that the look is not actually too far removed from the original organiser and if you know it, you'll know what I mean. The original organiser was well-crafted software, it works under Windows today and it is still very useful. I know of no other PIM software that was a patch on it.

[ external image ]
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
gordon451
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by gordon451 »

karlexceed wrote:PS. Has anyone tried to install/run SmartSuite on ROS?
Problem with being semi-retired and enjoying every working day: I am thinking heavily of investing time in putting a VM on this box (Gigabyte H61M-USB3-B3 r2.0, I5-2400 3.10GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 2x500GB + 1x3TB SATA, GSATA, PS/2, W7HPx64) but lacking a Time Machine :(

And some knowledge of what to do and how to do it would help greatly :lol:

Gordon.
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by elhoir »

what about implementing a VM in virtualbox? (i prefer vbox rather than vmware)
gordon451
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by gordon451 »

elhoir wrote:what about implementing a VM in virtualbox? (i prefer vbox rather than vmware)
OK, er... I know enough to start this computer, light up my apps, connect the router, and print stuff. :oops:

What's the difference between VM and virtualbox? Seriously, I'm ignorant. I need tuition in words of one or fewer syllables :) Is there a good uncomplicated resource URL?

Gordon.
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by mrugiero »

gordon451 wrote: OK, er... I know enough to start this computer, light up my apps, connect the router, and print stuff. :oops:

What's the difference between VM and virtualbox? Seriously, I'm ignorant. I need tuition in words of one or fewer syllables :) Is there a good uncomplicated resource URL?

Gordon.
VM is an initialism for Virtual Machine, as in the generic term describing the idea of simulating a computer. VirtualBox is an implementation of an x86 (maybe other architectures too?) VM, and VMWare is a different one. Each has its own set of pros and cons, as with most alternatives competing to fill similar roles.
gordon451
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by gordon451 »

mrugiero wrote: VM is an initialism for Virtual Machine...
Hi. Thanks for the reply. I've done a bit of homework, downloaded the current VMWare Player (but not installed it yet), and downloaded the current Preloaded on VMWare. I've also just installed KVIrc, but (as usual) have no idea how to use it, but I have found the ROS channel.

OK. The Preloaded ROS. How do I make it go? The package does not seem to have anything executable I should press.

EDIT: Just installed the VDK disk driver. Testing happens Saturday???? END EDIT

Gordon.
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EmuandCo
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by EmuandCo »

VMWare Player sucks, because you can't edit the VM at all. Use VBox and make a new Win2003 x86 machine. Throw a recent nightly ISO in the virtual CD Drive and install ^^.
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

If my post/reply offends or insults you, be sure that you know what sarcasm is...
karlexceed
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by karlexceed »

How to download and get running the latest ROS build in Virutalbox:

First, we get Oracle's VirtualBox:
Go to: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
And click on the link just after where it says, "VirtualBox 4.3.14 for Windows hosts" right near the top.
After it finishes, double-click and run through the installer. Not much more here.

Now, we need a copy of ROS:
Next, download this: http://iso.reactos.org/bootcd/bootcd-63878-dbg.7z (This is the latest currently available as of my writing this.)
(It's from here: https://reactos.org/getbuilds) (PS. Does anyone know why this page isn't appearing in English for me?)
Using 7zip (a file extraction utility - hopefully self-explanatory (Use Google if in doubt)), extract the .iso file somewhere

Next, start VirtualBox. We're going to create a virtual machine.
From the menu at the top, click "New"
Give it a name, "ROS" for example
For type, choose Windows. For version, I use XP, but as EmuandCo said, you could use Windows 2003 as well. He probably knows better.
Now, in the next few screens we will specify some machine specs:
I tend to use 1-2 GB (1024-2048 MB) of RAM; 1 GB is plenty.
Create a virtual hard drive now, VDI, dynamically allocated, 5 GB or so. (ROS uses about 2 GB)
You should now see your VM listed on the left side of the VirtualBox window.

Now what we want to do is attach the .iso of ROS to your VM (as a virtual CD):
Select your VM and click the "Settings" option from the menu at the top.
In the new window that popped up, click on "Storage" on the left.
From the device tree in the middle area, click on the CD icon (it should say "Empty").
Now on the far right-hand side of the window, click on the other CD icon.
From the menu that dropped down, select the first option ("Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file").
Navigate you where you put the .iso file and select it. Click "Open".
Then click "OK" to close the Settings window.

Now we start the VM and install ROS!
With your VM selected, click on "Start" from the top menu.
Your VM will now begin to boot. It should automatically find and boot from the .iso file.

You should be greeted with a more-or-less familiar looking setup screen.
Run through this, the defaults are the way to go.
When the install is complete, your VM will want to reboot. Do it.
Now, you should start seeing something that looks more like the Windows you are familiar with.
There will be a few initial setup things, but you are now up and running!

Good luck and enjoy!
gordon451
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by gordon451 »

karlexceed wrote:First, we get Oracle's VirtualBox:
Go to: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Thanks karlexceed - Normally I like being different, but since I don't know why the rules exist (It's a joke!!!) I'll use VirtualBox.

Is there any reason W7 isn't mentioned in the line-up? And while we're here, what's the difference between W7 and W2K3?

Saturday is still my target date :)

Gordon.
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EmuandCo
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Re: Office Suite? Lotus SmartSuite!

Post by EmuandCo »

ROS != W7 internally, thats why W2k3.
ReactOS is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is recommended only for evaluation and testing purposes.

If my post/reply offends or insults you, be sure that you know what sarcasm is...
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