Update 20100802: More Old Habits

Today’s biggest victim is OpenOffice 3.x, which was the biggest disappointment I had when updating Scientific Linux from 5.4 to 5.5 on my Aspire One. I even  remembered to use imagemagick import for the full screen (import -screen root) today.

I’ve run into backwards compatibility issues with 3.x when working with files and macros from earlier iterations. As SL54 used 2.x and my main laptop running Debian Lenny was also 2.x, I had no problems working on the same documents between computers. In Windows, I’d been using IBM Lotus Symphony which is based on mature OOo 1.x code but even that’s now in beta using OOo 3 and with the same issues I’ve encountered. Boo.

I couldn’t resist. I mean, I’ve run OOo once since I upgraded to SL55. It’s wasting space.

And with that, I suddenly didn’t need to re-configure and add partitions to this. While I was at it, I removed some gnome-audio and evolution-server packages. It’ll never be used so it won’t be missed.

I don’t know if I’ll remove much more for a while. Sure feels good, though. Hope to finish (soon) a draft I started last week with more about my current set up.

No Secondary y-axis Title in OOo?

I’m spending this chilly morning setting up some charts of my exercise activities for the year while I wait for it to warm up outside. I’ve been switching between different office applications: OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 in Windows, OOo 2.4 in Debian, and Lotus Symphony 1.3 (based on OOo 1.x and which I replaced OOo with) in Scientific Linux. Encountered a little problem: I’ve noticed across the board that I can’t give a label/legend to a secondary y-axis.

I tried to edit the chart and used the “insert” menu, which gave me the dialog shown when I clicked on “titles.”I know OOo 3 brought some significant charting improvements, but I found the same problem exists in 3.1.1 in Windows (not installing 3.x in Linux; I may install OpenBSD, which has OOo 3.x in ports and packages, on the computer currently running SL 5.4). I added the subtitle in lieu of an available secondary y-axis title. (Edit: I suppose I could also include a label from row or column in a legend.)

Short of editing the chart in Draw or GIMP, or even using gnuplot to get the kind of chart I want with proper labels, I’m not sure what else to try. It’s not as frustrating, though, as having to walk instead of run this year due to knee and ankle injuries.