In an accident of convenience and relevance, we have already covered Customizing the Toolbars and Custom Keyboard Mappings.
In this section, we touch upon further ways you can customize StarWriter’s settings and behavior to adapt it to the way you prefer to work. We show how to configure Launcher icons to make it faster to open the program. A substantial number of people report their displeasure at a few of the default settings, so we show you how to change certain unpopular defaults here, too.
StarOffice offers a daunting number of ways to customize settings. Many of these adjustments are simply uninteresting to most users, so we do not address them in this book. A quick browse of the five tabs under StarWriter’s Tools → Configure . . . (Menu, Keyboard, Status bar, Toolbars, Events) would offer a good sense of the scope of StarWriter’s customization possibilities for the advanced user or system administrator.
Instead of bringing up StarWriter’s Template window via Launch → StarWriter 7, some users may prefer to open StarOffice to a new document more directly. To save a few extra mouse clicks to gain speed, you can add a Launcher with a StarWriter icon to either the desktop or the Main Panel, or to both.
You can add separate Launchers to open each of the StarOffice modules directly. Here’s the easiest way to set up a Launcher specifically for StarWriter on both your desktop workspace or the edge panel across the bottom of your desktop.
Right-click on an open space on the edge panel and select Add to Panel → Launcher from menu → Office → StarOffice 7 Text Document. This will place a StarWriter icon onto that location on your edge panel on which you may click to quickly launch a StarWriter blank document.
To add the same Launcher icon to the desktop space, simply drag and drop the StarWriter icon you’ve just created on your edge panel onto your desktop workspace. This places a duplicate Launcher icon on the desktop, if that location is useful to you.
You can remove the edge panel icon by right-clicking it and selecting Remove From Panel on the context menu that pops up. To remove the desktop icon, right-click upon it and select Move to Trash in the context menu.
You can use Launchers some of the time and Templates and Documents when appropriate or necessary. Typical of the desktop, there is usually more than one way to accomplish the same task.
StarOffice is set by default to automatically complete words, replace certain characters, and capitalize initial letters in a new sentence. If you feel auto-correction to be intrusive while you are typing, the auto-correct settings are easy to adjust to be less intrusive or to turn off completely.
StarWriter’s Word Completion feature comes turned on by default. Some users find it distracting or annoying to have the word processor program appending the ends of words before they finish typing them. Others are content to ignore the completion action and leave the default alone.
If you like StarWriter to complete your words, simply press the Enter key when its recommendations are felicitous; otherwise press the space bar to reject the program’s offering.
To turn Word Completion off, select Tools → AutoCorrect/AutoFormat → Word Completion and uncheck the box before the phrase “Enable word completion” near the top of the window. Then click the OK button. (See Figure 7-59.)
If you find Auto-Replace to be invasive—such as when you attempt to type “(c)” and it keeps replacing your keystrokes with the copyright symbol, ©—you have two options: turn off Auto-Replace altogether (Figure 7-60, or edit the replacement list. (See Figure 7-61.)
Editing the replacement list is straightforward. Select Tools → AutoCorrect/AutoFormat and go to the Replace tab. (See Figure 7-61.) There, highlight the offending element and either press the Delete key or enter a different target result in the “With:” field.
To turn off the Auto-Replace function, select Tools → AutoCorrect/AutoFormat and click on the Options tab. The top-most option is “Use replacement table” with two checkboxes in front. By unchecking both boxes in the [M] and the [T] columns, you can turn off the specific substitutions listed in the replacement table. (See Figure 7-61.) You can turn off all the other specific automatic replacement actions, too, by unchecking the respective boxes under [M] or [T] as you go down this list in the Options tab. (See Figure 7-60.)
Note in the Tools → AutoCorrect/AutoFormat window that the left-most Replace tab, Figure 7-61, contains the list of default replacements. This list is based on the StarOffice developers’ extensive knowledge of common keystroke errors and frequently-used symbols (such as the copyright symbol). Leaving Auto-Replace turned on can aid your compositional productivity, especially if you customize the replacement list to make your own most frequent word, character, or symbol replacements.
StarWriter is set to automatically capitalize the next character you type after a period. It also decapitalizes a second uppercase character typed in a sequence. This is beneficial most of the time when we fail to strike the Shift key, which is surprisingly often; however, when we type abbreviations or when we type acronyms that demand two initial capitals, these AutoCorrect actions are unwanted.
If the Auto-Capitalization feature offends your sensibilities or disturbs your workflow, you can turn it off by selecting Tools → AutoCorrect/AutoFormat and clicking on the Options tab. (See Figure 7-60.) Uncheck the two boxes under the [M] and [T] columns in front of the second option, “Correct Two Initial Capitals,” and the third option, “Capitalize the first letter of every sentence.”
Auto-Capitalization can be very helpful when you integrate it into your typing repertoire. Consider keeping the feature turned on, while tweaking its exceptions to make the Auto-Capitalization work for you instead of against you. You can adjust Auto-Capitalization exceptions by selecting Tools → AutoCorrect/AutoFormat and proceeding to the Exceptions tab. (See Figure 7-62.)
Here, at the Exceptions tab, you can add abbreviations you repeatedly use to the “Abbreviations (no subsequent capitals)” list in the upper window. These entries permit Auto-Capitalization to automatically capitalize the first letter of a new sentence, while it will not make such an invasive adjustment after any of the abbreviations listed.
Also at the Exceptions tab, you can add to the list of words or acronyms that demand two initial capitals. The default entries already there provide a source of examples. (See Figure 7-62.)
For example, members of the software development communities often abbreviate OpenOffice.org as “OOo” and StarOffice as “SO,” deploying many variations of these acronyms. One of the first things members need to do after installing a fresh version of either of these programs is to reset their Auto-Capitalization Exceptions to speed their work. The details within Figure 7-63 show the variations of the “OOo” and “SO” abbreviations that have been added to the Exceptions tab.
When you (or your system administrator) initially set up StarOffice in JDS, you were asked to enter your name and some additional information into the setup wizard. StarOffice uses the name you entered for the Changes Tracking feature.
Double check that your name is registered in the User Data section, just like in Figure 7-63. If you or your system administrator skipped entering your name in the User Data section, the changes tracking feature does not differentiate your edits or additions from those of your collaborating colleague. If you don’t plan on using changes tracking, this is not be a problem for you.
If you want your information entered, go to Tools → Options → OpenOffice.org → User Data and make sure at least your name appears.
When you turn on Changes Tracking via Edit → Changes, check Record, and check Show, the changes you make show up in one color (initially red). When you save the document with changes, others, with whom you collaborate, can open the document and see your changes in red. New changes they make now show in a different color: blue. Additional collaborator’s edits or additions each get different colors (red, blue, magenta, green, etc.).