I’ve just released a Felix extension for OpenOffice Writer. This extension allows you to use Felix from inside OpenOffice.
To install the extension, first download the file:
Felix_OpenOfficeWriter_1.0.zip.
Save the file to your computer, then unzip it. If OpenOffice Writer isn’t already running, start it.
Now from the Tools menu, select Extension Manager…
The Extension Manager appears. Click Add, then select the file “Felix.oxt”.
Close the dialog box, then close and restart Writer. The Felix toolbar and menu should appear.
You can now use Felix from OpenOffice in much the same manner as MS Word. There’s no documentation yet, but the Felix manual entry for MS Word should provide an overview of the basics.
There are still some kinks to work out. For example, the extension currently ignores text formatting, and the keyboard shortcuts don’t seem to work properly in OpenOffice 2.4. I’ll be working to improve the extension, and release updates.
This extension is released under the MIT License, which means that you’re free to modify it, study and learn from it, or use it in other projects with no restrictions. If you do make improvements to the extension, however, I ask that you send them to me so I can feed them back to other users.
8 replies on “Felix extension for OpenOffice Writer”
Very nice work, Ryan!
I’ve added the extension in OpenOffice 2.4, and although the keyboard shortcuts are not working quite the way you would expect (as you noted above), it is still possible to work using Alt key to access the Felix menu, and then select the individual commands from there (so Get and Next would be Alt, L, and then G rather than simply Alt+G and so on).
I’m very glad to see Felix getting friendly with OpenOffice. Are you planning to add support for Impress and Calc as well? That would be fantastic.
Thanks for the comment. I plan to keep improving the Writer extension, the first priority being adding a review mode. I also plan to add extensions for Calc and Impress; the speed will depend largely on how many people are using the extensions. OpenOffice is a key part of my eventual goal of making it possible to use Felix from any platform OpenOffice will run on.
I installed this extension on another computer that has OpenOffice 3.0, and I noticed that the keyboard shortcuts didn’t work in that version, either.
I am pretty excited about being able to use Felix with OpenOffice Portable for a translation environment that I can use on any Windows machine, but the news that you eventually plan to make Felix available on other platforms as well is even better.
Do you plan to add translation history support for the OpenOffice extensions as well?
“I installed this extension on another computer that has OpenOffice 3.0, and I noticed that the keyboard shortcuts didn’t work in that version, either.”
Yes, I noticed the same thing. I’ll have to work on the keyboard shortcuts.
“Do you plan to add translation history support for the OpenOffice extensions as well?”
Eventually, yes. I still need to delve into the OpenOffice scripting model to see what the possibilities are. Because OpenOffice files are in XML format, I think that there there’ll be a lot of possibilities for manipulating the files themselves.
I finally got around to installing this for the Writer in OO 3.1. I will experiment with it as time allows. I too am quite happy to have it and hope development continues.
Thanks for the hard work.
@Charles
Thanks a lot for the feedback. Knowing which features users value the most helps me to focus my development efforts.
“I installed this airing on other machine that has OpenOffice 3.0, and I detected that the keyboard shortcuts didn’t wreak in that version, either.”
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luis
Great extension, mate. I am a regular OpenOffice user and this is totally a life savior. Thanks a lot! 🙂