[PLUG] (SOLVED) Removing OOo with yum ... or?

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 07:34:48 -0700
Erik Lane <eriklane at gmail.com> dijo:

>> At the moment it appears that I am going to have to give up on OOo
>> 3.2.1. The only benefit is being able to use OTF fonts. But it breaks
>> Zotero, and I must have Zotero for citations and references in
>> papers.

>I found that Open Office 3.2 greatly improved compatibility with the
>newer MS Office files. (The ones with an 'x' at the end.) At least for
>me that was a life-saver.
>
>But if you want a list of things they changed, it's here:
>http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.2/

Comparisons of OOo with MS Office always rated Calc as significantly
inferior to Excel. I'm not surprised to see the majority of the changes
are in Calc. I have launched Calc maybe a couple times in the past
year, so it makes no difference to me. Looking at the list in the above
link the only real benefit is being able to use my Adobe OTF fonts. But
I need Zotero more than I need to be able to use Type 1 based OTF
fonts. 

>> Zotero is a Java plugin for Firefox and OOo. I absolutely hate Java
>> apps. I have NEVER had a Java app that did not require hours of
>> tweaking and futzing and googling to get it to work. Java must
>> attract dilettante programmers who have no clue what they are doing.
>> I also have no idea how to program, but I have the good sense not to
>> try.

>I was always surprised that Open Office wanted a Java install on the
>system. I don't usually do much with Java programs, but when I do I've
>had pretty good luck in general. Though there have been times where
>they've been incredibly frustrating!

OOo will run without Java, and you can download a Java-free version. As
far as I know, OOo uses Java only for its wizards and optional
extensions like Zotero. And all but Zotero are happy to use an open
source version of Java.

Right now I am trying to figure out what Iced Tea does and how to
replace it with something else. Zotero is actually two add-ons for
Firefox, and one extension for OOo. You keep your reference list in
Firefox, and the OOo extension creates a toolbar that lets you access
the list from Writer. 

The problem is the interactivity between OOo and Firefox. It is well
documented on the Zotero forums that current versions of the Zotero
add-ons require Sun Java. I currently have the latest version 1.6-22,
and two previous versions -18 and -20. Everyone says they have it
working fine with -18, so I set OOo to use -18, and I set it as the
default for Fedora. But apparently there is some conflict with the Iced
Tea add-on for Firefox. If I disable Iced Tea in Firefox, then Firefox
has no Java at all. I think I need to install a different one for
Firefox and completely remove Iced Tea with yum, but I haven't figured
out yet how to install a replacement for Iced Tea in Firefox. At least,
if you go to Mozilla's list of available add-ons there is only Iced
Tea, so installing a replacement is not going to be just a
click-click-click operation.