Budgie Office Suite -- anyone tried?

[ML]

I came across this listing for an integrated office suite at Freeware World
Team. The description from the home site:

"Budgie is MoDESoft's Budget Office, now free to use. It comprises Contacts
manager, database manager, email manager, schedule, spreadsheet, word
processor, zip file manager, an image tool, fax controller and manager, CAB
file extractor, backup helper, memo pad, RPN calculator, TVM calculator,
metric measures converter, all in one application or via "plugins".

"Moreover, you won't have trouble importing your data from other
applications. The word processor has extensive file import and export
converters so you can read and save in many formats. The spreadsheet reads
Microsoft Excel files, files in text-delimited format and dBase files and
saves in these formats as well as its own special format. Contacts natively
reads QuickBooks export lists and has a simple-to-use importer for dBase
files (which you can create in the spreadsheet from other formats, or export
to from your existing software). You can use the spreadsheet to query your
user-created databases and save the result in several formats. The Schedule
and Contacts can synchronise with a Pocket PC."

Does anyone have experience with this program? The site is short on
screenshots so I can't get a sense of how sophisticated this program is.

URL is: http://www.modesoft.com/

 

[Mikk]

I came across this listing for an integrated office suite at Freeware World
Team. The description from the home site:
Does anyone have experience with this program? The site is short on
screenshots so I can't get a sense of how sophisticated this program is.

URL is: http://www.modesoft.com/

Well at just under 6MB, I wasn't expecting much, but I was pleasantly
surprised
Only had a quick look, but the word processor seems to contain
most of the common WP tools like tables, mail merge and spell check
The spreadsheet ditto, replicate cell formulas and a reasonable amount of
functions
The database has only a limited set of field types, and looks fairly
restricted in only
offering tables and reports. - but it was just a quick scan through

They've crammed a lot in the 6MB - well worth a look

 

[Tanner]

They've crammed a lot in the 6MB - well worth a look

I decided to have a look at it and I have to say that I concur, though I
only spent about 10 minutes playing around with it. I will experiment more
later this week and report in to the group. It might be a nice alternative
to low-end office suites like Easy Office or commercial products like MS
Works.

 

[BoB]

Well at just under 6MB, I wasn't expecting much, but I was pleasantly
surprised
Only had a quick look, but the word processor seems to contain
most of the common WP tools like tables, mail merge and spell check
The spreadsheet ditto, replicate cell formulas and a reasonable amount of
functions
The database has only a limited set of field types, and looks fairly
restricted in only
offering tables and reports. - but it was just a quick scan through

They've crammed a lot in the 6MB - well worth a look

Thanks for that info. At 1/10 the size of other free
Office Suites, I 'will' take a look. Open Office came
with my computer but I've had no desire to install it.

BoB
For the duration of Swen, my address is inoperative.

 

[Adrian Try]

They've crammed a lot in the 6MB - well worth a look

I decided to have a look at it and I have to say that I concur, though I
only spent about 10 minutes playing around with it. I will experiment more
later this week and report in to the group. It might be a nice alternative
to low-end office suites like Easy Office or commercial products like MS
Works.

I had a quick look this afternoon. It doesn't look too bad overall.

I particularly wanted to try out the Pocket PC Synch. It looks a little
primitive. Synching with appointments on the Pocket PC has an option to
delete all appointments before today. I unticked this setting - I didn't
want any appointments deleted! However, Budgie didn't remember the change in
setting, and deleted all of my previous appointments anyway. To make things
worse, if I had created a repeating appointment before today, all occurances
(including future occurances) were also deleted. No matter how many times I
ticked the option that didn't delete previous appointments, Budgie would be
set to delete them anyway. Sounds like something that needs to be fixed!

With all of this, I still think the program has potential. I'm always
hopeful about options that don't tie my to Activesynch. It will be
interesting to see how the program goes as bugs are fixed up and future
features are developed.

Adrian Try

 

[omega]

I had a quick look this afternoon. It doesn't look too bad overall.

I particularly wanted to try out the Pocket PC Synch. It looks a little
primitive. Synching with appointments on the Pocket PC has an option to
delete all appointments before today. I unticked this setting - I didn't
want any appointments deleted! However, Budgie didn't remember the change in
setting, and deleted all of my previous appointments anyway. To make things
worse, if I had created a repeating appointment before today, all occurances
(including future occurances) were also deleted. No matter how many times I
ticked the option that didn't delete previous appointments, Budgie would be
set to delete them anyway. Sounds like something that needs to be fixed!

Scary! It's good you posted this.

With all of this, I still think the program has potential. I'm always
hopeful about options that don't tie my to Activesynch. It will be
interesting to see how the program goes as bugs are fixed up and future
features are developed.

There's another thread going on about Budgie, too.[*] As far as new
features or development, it might be that this v1.6 will be the only
freeware, and the next v1.7 up, payware. It's not clear for sure, how to
interpret. Yet just to keep in mind.

* Starts at <[email protected]>, under
Subject: Re: [PL] 2004 Discussion: BUSINESS-HOME

 

[Randy Bard]

I came across this listing for an integrated office suite at Freeware World
Team. The description from the home site:

"Budgie is MoDESoft's Budget Office, now free to use. It comprises Contacts
manager, database manager, email manager, schedule, spreadsheet, word
processor, zip file manager, an image tool, fax controller and manager, CAB
file extractor, backup helper, memo pad, RPN calculator, TVM calculator,
metric measures converter, all in one application or via "plugins".

"Moreover, you won't have trouble importing your data from other
applications. The word processor has extensive file import and export
converters so you can read and save in many formats. The spreadsheet reads
Microsoft Excel files, files in text-delimited format and dBase files and
saves in these formats as well as its own special format. Contacts natively
reads QuickBooks export lists and has a simple-to-use importer for dBase
files (which you can create in the spreadsheet from other formats, or export
to from your existing software). You can use the spreadsheet to query your
user-created databases and save the result in several formats. The Schedule
and Contacts can synchronise with a Pocket PC."

Does anyone have experience with this program? The site is short on
screenshots so I can't get a sense of how sophisticated this program is.

URL is: http://www.modesoft.com/

I tried it out, mainly to see how the spreadsheet program compares to
the freeware Sphygmic Spreadsheet I've been using. I think Sphygmic
works better and is easier to use, even though it is "obsolete". The
other sub-programs I tried didn't work all that well either. Couldn't
get the email manager to work. Nifty idea, but I think they've tried
to cram too much into 6Mb.

 

[omega]

I tried it out, mainly to see how the spreadsheet program compares to
the freeware Sphygmic Spreadsheet I've been using. I think Sphygmic
works better and is easier to use, even though it is "obsolete". The
other sub-programs I tried didn't work all that well either. Couldn't
get the email manager to work. Nifty idea, but I think they've tried
to cram too much into 6Mb.

Your review, plus a couple of other comments, makes me think that the
author /ought to/ extend plans to use us as "beta testers," develop
freeware releases for a while, postpone his payware idea for a couple
of yrs at least, and focus on getting some functionality worked in.

 

[Randy Bard]

Your review, plus a couple of other comments, makes me think that the
author /ought to/ extend plans to use us as "beta testers," develop
freeware releases for a while, postpone his payware idea for a couple
of yrs at least, and focus on getting some functionality worked in.

Now there you have it! If anyone ever wants a prompt and enthusiastic
but brutally honest group of beta testers for their hot new program,
here we are.

 

[Tanner]

Your review, plus a couple of other comments, makes me think that the
author /ought to/ extend plans to use us as "beta testers," develop
freeware releases for a while, postpone his payware idea for a couple
of yrs at least, and focus on getting some functionality worked in.

Think you may be right. I played around with it in more detail the past few
days and am bumping into all sorts of bugs.

In his help file, the author states that the next incarnarnation (due this
month) will continue to be freeware, but that future plugins will be
available on a pay basis.

I may keep tabs on this periodically, but at this point I plan on keeping
this one.


-M-

 

[omega]

Now there you have it! If anyone ever wants a prompt and enthusiastic
but brutally honest group of beta testers for their hot new program,
here we are.

Heheh! And further bonus is we work work for free.

 

[BoB]

I tried it out, mainly to see how the spreadsheet program compares to
the freeware Sphygmic Spreadsheet I've been using. I think Sphygmic
works better and is easier to use, even though it is "obsolete". The
other sub-programs I tried didn't work all that well either. Couldn't
get the email manager to work. Nifty idea, but I think they've tried
to cram too much into 6Mb.

The SS is what I was interested in too. There's not many functions but
Budgie's SS is acceptable but no better than Sphygmic SS. There are some
utilities included that duplicate others I have like a unit converter
and tree type Memo Pad. The backup program looks promising. I didn't
notice an email manager. If you need a DB or Word Processor you may like
all these functions in only 6 meg. Minimal registry hit of only 15
entries.

I'll continue playing with Budgie, but it is too soon for me to second
a nomination.

BoB
For the duration of Swen, my address is inoperative.

 

[Vic Drastik]

BoB