Software > Web & Email Applications, Graphics & Publishing, Open Source

Unusual Suspects: Some Powerful Open Source Desktop Tools

By Hugh Barnard

There are well-known open source replacements for Microsoft Office (Open Office), Outlook (Mozilla Thunderbird) and Internet Explorer (Mozilla Firefox). However, there are also less well-known replacements for a wider variety of tasks, this article describes a few of these.

Each of these solutions will save money and simplify licensing but will require a different support model than closed source software from a large software company such as Microsoft. Also, the associated file formats are usually open and documented, this means that you can use these tools as part of an ecology that includes other tools from many different sources, including your own.
Here they are:

Scribus: Standards based desktop publishing replaces Microsoft Publisher

Pidgin: A Multiprotocol Instant Messaging Client

The GIMP: Image Manipulation and (inferior but adequate) Photoshop replacement

Inkscape: SVG drawing and rendering tool

NVU: Web page editor and manager, replaces Front Page

Dia: A Visio like tool for creating diagrams

anchor:scribusScribus

This is a desktop publishing package that can replace Microsoft publisher. There's a complete list of Scribus features here.  The main page for the Windows version includes a link to download the Windows installer.

Since Scribus is an open source package, the underlying file format is well documented, this means that you can link publishing to other pieces of computing in the organisation, database content publishing, for example.  This is often done, via plugins, which are smaller programs that interact in a standard way with the main one. The Scribus, website gives information on how to write plugins.

A hint here, when you look at any open source product, check to see how much volume there is on the mail lists and on the forums, check the most recent posts and the trend in posting (are the volumes stable, increasing or decreasing?).

There's Scribus mailing list and the wiki, both a sign of the health of the associated user community.

Features are also present for non-Western language processing, including right to left scripts, almost essential nowadays.

anchor:gaimPidgin

Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is a multi-protocol instant messaging client. It works with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, and Zephyr networks.

Pidgin users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple instant messing networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with colleagues on AIM, or on Yahoo Messenger, and on an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel all at the same time.

As with Scribus and many other open source products, there are many plugins available for Pidgin. This is also usually a sign of project health.

Some Instant messaging clients can contain advertising and spyware. Since the source of Pidgin is freely available (and therefore the program can be inspected), users have some built-in safeguards against this kind of activity (though not against bits of malware that are specifically designed to be carried by AIM, for example).

anchor:gimpThe Gimp

The Gimp is an image processing package which is more limited than Photoshop but, in most cases will serve as a replacement.

It uses the GTK windows manager and this will need to be installed first. GTK is a tookit that gives standard desktop type Windows (for file browsing, editing etc.) without programming them from scratch. Dia, described later in this article, also uses GTK. Here is the main page for the GIMP Windows installer.

The GIMP website has an introduction and a brief list of features. As with many open source programs, there are interfaces for scripting and a more general set of user contributed tools (as of summer 2006, this part of the web site is not very well organised though).

The interface is not the same as Photoshop and therefore pure Photoshop knowledge and training is not sufficient. This may be a problem, if you want to run a training environment that includes both.

anchor:inkscapeInkscape

Inkscape is a vector graphics creator and editor, similar in function to, for example, Adobe Illustrator, Freehand or CorelDraw.

Here's a technical explanation of vector graphics, but, in a word, they can be used to produce smooth curves and diagrams that will scale elegantly from small to large.

It uses and manipulates the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, which is an XML based web standard rather than a proprietary one. Some discussions suggest that SVG is potentially a serious rival for Flash (which is proprietary, but there are many associated open source tools ), but it is currently less fully featured (animation for example) and less widely used.

As with, Scribus, the open nature of the format is an advantage when you need to interface with it.

For example, I've been producing diagrams from a program and then tidying up the diagrams with Inkscape. I've been able to do this, because the format is published openly. In general, ecologies of plug-ins, add-ons and associated tools tend to form around high-profile open source tools.

anchor:diaDia: A Tool for Diagrams

Dia is a diagram tool that is very similar to Visio but not as full-featured. It is also more mature in its Linux version than the Windows version.

It uses the same GTK windows manager as the Gimp and thus a single install of this (which needs to be done first!) will serve both tools.

anchor:nvuNVU: A Web Page Editor and Manager

NVU is a web page editor and simple web site manager that can replace Microsoft Front Page. It also produces HTML that conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, Front Page produces some detail in Microsoft only dialect.

The NVU website, has more information and also contains a summary description of its features. The NVU download page includes a standard Windows installer package.

The main editing area is WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and has a very standard look with tool bars and menus on several rows at the top of the screen.

Incidentally, W3C conformance provides some guarantees that the page will display sensibly using any browser, but it doesn't give any guarantees of accessibility or good interface practice though.

I've been using NVU to write this article, it's about as easy as Word, for example. Our students use NVU to build their websites too. 

Points To Watch For And Conclusion

If you want to use an open source product to replace an existing vendor product, here are some points to watch for:

• Agree the proposed use of open source at managerial level, for example, no mixed messages towards other supply partners
• Choose products that have maturity, community and some documentation
• Look at the volumes and trend on the mailing lists and forums (these give a good indication of the current 'health' of the surrounding community)
• Think about opportunity and rationale, for example, many copies of a particular product needed for students
• Try to give back, for example, contribute to support forums or supply bug fixes, it's fun too!
• Many products invite donations and sponsorship, this is a good way of putting something back in the community too.

These tools and this approach are useful where budgets are very limited or where multiple copies of software are necessary. The approach needs to be reasoned and managed within the overall use of desktop software within the organisation.