LibreOffice 3.4 Beta 1 available
Dear Community,
The Document Foundation is happy to announce the first beta release of LibreOffice 3.4. The upcoming 3.4 will be the second major release of the LibreOffice project, and comes with many exciting new features. Please be aware that LibreOffice 3.4 beta1 is not yet ready for production use, you should continue to use LibreOffice 3.3.2 for that.
The beta release is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X from our QA builds download page at
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/
Should you find bugs, please report them to the FreeDesktop Bugzilla:
For other ways to get involved with this exciting project – you can e.g. contribute code:
https://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/developers/
translate LibreOffice to your language:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Translation_for_3.4
or help with funding our foundation:
http://challenge.documentfoundation.org
A list of known issues with 3.4 beta1 is available from our wiki:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.4/beta1
Please find the list of changes against LibreOffice 3.3.2 here:
http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/src/bugfixes-libreoffice-3-4-release-3.3.99.1.log
Let us close again with a BIG Thank You! to all of you having contributed to the LibreOffice project – this release would not have been possible without your help.
Yours,
The Steering Committee of The Document Foundation
Is there somewhere where we can see the list of new features? or at list of the future features that the release will have when stable?
With almost 3000 lines in the ‘list of changes’ this looks very impressive. But as Felipe pointed out it will be more useful if the user-facing features and changes are highlighted in a webpage or a wiki.
All icons missing from LO on windows.
Installed 3.4 and didn’t have any icons in calc and writer. Didn’t look further, installed 3.3.2 back.
I had the same problem as Mikeyy. I will uninstall and wait for 3.4 Beta 2.
It’s the same in Ubuntu Natty. Icons disappeared. How do you want us to test anything like that?
Missing Icons here too…
Yep, same here. On Win7
list of new features: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.4
And I’m still waiting a good complete office package… not just Calc/ Writer package.
Open source still need a good “access” alternative…
I’m not only here to criticize, I’m a enthusiast of Libreoffice and think that the project reach good goal and improves with each release!
The same for me, Windows 7.
What do you mean? I don’t understand.
I’m a GREAT enthusiast of LibreOffice too, but I also agree that Base is the “weak chain” of OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Base today is much more a “home” software than a “office” one, unfortunately. Now, without the label of a company, also would be great more contribuitions of software companies and other open source projects, maybe MERGING to a more complete application. The idea of direct access to SQLite DBs or even replacing HSQLDB, for example, would be great. The division of administration access and user access to the database, in may opinion, could change the application status from individual to corporate, from amateur to professional, from ‘windows poor clone’ to ‘linux style’… from ‘home’ to ‘office’. I suggest (ask?) that Base could receive the biggest priority of the wonderful open source people, to ones I’m grateful for all that have done.
I think so. Base is not useful in an office.
And if an Access form importer could be coded, Access lose much share.
LibO 3.4 beta has serious GUI troubles on Windows
see following screenshots taken by a user from Italian Google OpenOffice Newsgroup:
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3401/12095812.png
http://img857.imageshack.us/img857/4586/98376606.png
source: https://groups.google.com/group/it-alt.comp.software.openoffice/browse_thread/thread/c7fda86b4de51ba7/d308c10ebfc7c603?hl=it#d308c10ebfc7c603
Under Mac OS X 10.6.7 on an iMac (langpack German), the beta one does not even start… it shows the startscreen, tries to build up a blank textdocument – and collapses…
LibreOffice 3.4 Beta 1 is missing icons on WIndows. So waiting for Beta 2 now.
Well, so far, I’m so exited… yaaay x))
Where can I download the source code for the beta release?
I don’t have a JRE installed and found that instead of the “LibreOffice needs a Java runtime environment (JRE) to perform this task” message
on starting with a document (which could be cancelled in 3.3 allowing everything to work fine) I now get a General Error and the document
will not load on 3.4 beta 1.
Does anyone else without a JRE get this?
Richard
(Windows 7 Home Premium)
Tried 3.4 beta 1 on Windows 7 Home Premium with no JRE installed.
With 3.3 I got the message “A Java runtime environment (JRE) is required to complete this task”.
This Enable JRE dialog box could be cancelled and the document could then be edited without problem.
On 3.4b1 I get a general Error dialog box and the document will not load.
Does anyone else have this problem when running without a JRE?
Richard
Hi, i test draw and it is quite unusable and obsolete. Would that be possible to integrate the excellent Inkscape (gnu gpl licence; gtk+) inside libreoffice insead of draw.
It would be great and libreoffice would be my only one tool !
Hello, I had been using OpenOffice for years before switching to LO. This has always included Base with a (now “native”) connection to MySQL. It did everything I wanted it to do for me – as did the somewhat more complicated connection through ODBC or Java. The only thing I find is that the reportwriter is somewhat unstable from time to time. In any case – keep up the good work…
This has got to be the buggiest Beta release of any product I have ever seen!
On Windows it is missing any toolbar icons, missing check boxes in the options panel, missing the zoom slider and view layout buttons, missing tree + and – icons and has the top cut off all the text in the options panel.
These are just the major bugs I picked up in the first 5 minutes of testing on Windows before I gave it up as a bad job and reinstalled 3.3.2. On Kubuntu it wouldn’t even launch at all.
Also installing this beta overwrites stable versions which a beta shouldn’t, particularly not a completely unusable beta.
Same as above, no icons on the interface ???????
Sorry for hijacking this, but can you give us a heads-up on what Oracles Friday announcement means for the future of Open- & Libreoffice? I mean are there talks ongoing about the naming rights or whatever?
Kudos for the great product,
Franky
Oracle leave OO! Please! re-merge with it! 🙂
http://pro.clubic.com/entreprises/oracle/actualite-412770-oracle-abandonne-openoffice-mains-communaute.html
From the release notes: “Remove 150 duplicated redundant ‘missing icon’ icons to reduce bloat (Joachim Trémouroux, Andrew C. E. Dent)” – now we know “where have all the icons gone”!:)))
Actually, it looks stupid when two branches of the same product and shared code, that two competing teams proclaim “their own”, always try to release any alpha, beta or RC just as the opponent did it yesterday.
Oh, OO team released beta?! Hurry up, we need to compile our beta too!
Maybe, with the latest Oracle decision, the both projects will merge and all this madness ends finally up.
Warning this is a broken release (missing icons)
FYI: IF YOU ARE RUNNING WINDOWS, DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL LIBREOFFICE V3.4 BETA 1.
It has now become clear that LibreOffice v3.4 Beta 1 has serious bugs under Windows. A number of these bugs have already been reported and resolved. I would recommend not wasting your time rediscovering all of the bugs in Beta 1. Instead, wait for Beta 2.
More troubling than any specific flaw is that fact that Beta 1 should never have been released in the first place, since it was not sufficiently tested and is not even Beta quality. I hope that organizational problem is also resolved and more care is taken with future releases.
Tested LibreOffice 3.4 Beta 1 on Windows 7 x64.
Tool bar icons like others non existent and also it reports error when trying to open .odt files that I had created in OpenOffice.
Decided it’s a little raw for my testing taste so removed it and installed 3.3 instead. Much better.
Hope you get the bugs ironed out soon for a Beta 2 release.
Please stop these fake announcements and start to deliver real good software. This stupid challenging “My 3.XXXalpha/beta/RC is out before yours” is not a good thing and just sound “childish”. How can the TDF call this release a beta release ? It is not even alpha… That’s very disapointing…
LO 3.4 B1 crashes during start up on Mac OS 10.6.7. Tried repeated downloads, reboots and installs.
Crashes on startup on Debian. What you guys were thinking when releasing it? It is BROKEN.
Not a good way of making people adopt Libre Office.
PS I too think that this version game is childish. I understand that it is the direct continuation of Open Office, but this does not mean that you have to copy them. People expect one thing: reliable software (even if they have to wait), not a “version race” that puts everything but ego aside.
The biggest problem with LO3.4b1 isn’t the icons or UI, but the fact that it keeps giving errors like General Input/Output error when saving files, no matter what format. Also refused to start Writer at all until I renamed my user profile folder to something else, so obviously something from 3.3.2 really upset it.
A lot of the problems in LO can be attributed to the developer’s policy on release dates. http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan says “Time based release trains have been shown to produce the best quality Free software. A time based release is one that does not wait for either features, or bug fixes – but is based (as purely as possible) on time. This enforces discipline in introducing fixes, gives predictability, and allows more regular releasing.”
In a way pushing developers to rush the job and cut corners to force releases out before they are ready does “enforce discipline”, but it certainly doesn’t “produce the best quality Free software”.
Whatever the supposed benefits of regularity and predictability of releases are, are they really worth pursuing at the expense of the quality? It is the quality of the final product that will determine whether someone uses the product, not the predictability of the beta release dates.
now beta 2 is out http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/04/22/libreoffice-3-4-beta-2-available/
I hope the LibO devs will learn from the mistakes of beta 1.
IMHO release timing is not crucial… the most important thing is quality of the final product.
nobody cares about having a broken release 1 week earlier than a working release