SmartSuite vs. StarOffice - Overview - by Chris Wenham

he view from 50,000 feet shows that of the two, StarOffice is far more integrated than SmartSuite. It's pretty easy to see too, since with version 4.0, all of StarOffice's components have been pulled together into one program. The collision has been a successful one too, with the result coming off as a nicely polished and easy suite to come to terms with. At last, you just pick what kind of document you want to start creating instead of which program you want to create it with.

However, after studying each suite carefully, it became quickly obvious that SmartSuite was the one with the most maturity and range of features. It's the older suite after all, with some applications, like the spreadsheet 1-2-3, which literally go back to the early eighties. This has resulted in bloat, though, and SmartSuite takes a much bigger gulp out of your hard drive's space than StarOffice.

StarOffice

StarOffice seems like it was designed from scratch to be ported across many platforms and to solve the problem of different user interface "experiences" at the same time. It feels like an operating system within an operating system. It has its own desktop (GIF, 22k), scripting language (and unfortunately this is to the exclusion of Rexx), file management system and task-bar. The modular interface is very slick looking and wins top points for first-impressions. And to our pleasant surprise, we found that this slick interface is more than just skin deep.

In addition to the self-contained desktop, StarOffice has successfully merged the web-browser metaphor into the interface as well. The main toolbar features both forward, back, stop and 'Homepage' buttons just like a web browser. There's a URL entry box in the main toolbar as well, where you can go ahead and type in a web site address (like "http://www.os2ezine.com/") one moment and the name of a local word-processing file the next. The history list of recently opened documents mixes both the web pages you've visited next to your spreadsheets, letters and memos too. From StarOffice's point of view, the difference between a file on your own hard drive and a file on a server somewhere on the internet is slim and Internet access does not feel like a "bolted on" feature as it does with Lotus SmartSuite. This is an office suite born in the "Web Era" and it shows.

StarOffice has excellent multi-account e-mail features built in, plus a moderately useful Newsreader too. It was quite easy and convenient to write up a document in StarWriter, then e-mail it to a friend either as the e-mail itself, or as an attachment.

And of what value is the browser? Remarkably good, in fact. It's easily on par with Netscape 3.0, supporting Java, Javascript, plug-ins and frames. It might be a bit too slow, even compared to Netscape, but its integration with StarWriter's impressive HTML support should make it a gem in any web developer's toolbox. The only problem I found was that it tended to scale embedded graphics just very slightly -- giving them a wrinkled look.

User Interface Features

As part of StarOffice's navigation is the 'Beamer' and 'Explorer' -- frames that can be toggled on and off, and which show directory structures and directory contents -- useful for when you want to drag-n-drop files or links to files to places. The oddly named 'Beamer' can configure itself on the fly to either act as a regular file lister - displaying file sizes and dates, to a view of your e-mail box with the name and addresses of senders.

Virtually all of StarOffice's frames and toolbars can be 'torn off' and docked anywhere within the master frame. The beamer, navigator, explorer, style lists and button bars all conform to the same behavior, and can be shuffled around the screen or switched off completely to suit your tastes. If you wish, you can switch off everything and maximize your work space to the hilt. I found that it can feel quite liberating to have this much control over the interface.

SmartSuite

Lotus SmartSuite for Warp 4 still treats each application as a separately startable entity though, and does not have quite the same "togetherness" that StarOffice's components have. It is, however, by far the most powerful of the suites, with most of the components already being giants in their field with long histories. Perhaps this legacy will prevent Lotus from integrating their components together StarOffice-fashion as easily as StarDivision has, since they all started out as separately marketed programs long before the idea of 'Suites' ever came along.

Internet integration doesn't seem quite as perfect as it is in StarOffice however. Much of the internet features seem "bolted on", rather than stitched in as part of the core fabric of the suite. It requires you to supply Lotus Notes Mail if you want e-mail integration, for example (which may not be so bad considering the Notes Mail client comes with Warp 4 anyway).

User Interface Features

The user interface of Lotus SmartSuite differs from component to component, but usually shares most of the same elements such as the Smart Icons and similar menu structures. Most of the time, however, the interface for each component is as good as StarOffice's, and in the case of Approach is actually far superior.

Lotus SmartSuite is also the only one in the pair which made some attempt to support 'legacy' styles of interaction, such as the "Classic 1-2-3" or "forwardslash" menus in the spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3. This kind of consideration could give that warm fuzzy feeling of comfort to old DOS 1-2-3 users.

A small degree of Workplace Shell integration can be seen in SmartSuite too. Not only will it create a set of templates to start new documents with, but each Word Pro document has an enhanced properties notebook (GIF, 9k) too, with options to enter descriptions, a tab that displays a preview of the printed document, authors, editors, and even how long it took to create the document. These WPS extensions also allow you to double-click on a document icon and have it open in the currently running copy of Word Pro if you already have it open -- a feature that is also in StarOffice, but without the enhancements to the properties notebook.

And the winner is....

Since both of these products are in Beta stage it would be unfair to give either an Editor's Choice award until they're both released and can be compared by their shipping code.

It is possible, although unlikely, that both could change dramatically in this time. What is likely to happen is that these betas will be cleaned up of debugging code, temporary help files and most known flaws. At that point we'll revisit the suites for a shorter comparison, but one that finally decides which wins the gold.

Lotus SmartSuite for OS/2 Warp 4 Beta

by Lotus Development Corporation
MSRP: N/A

StarOffice 4.0 Beta

by StarDivision
MSRP: N/A

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