There is an intersting on going discussion about the File > Open option menu and some changes proposed by Alan Pulsifer.

This discussion takes place on the ux.openoffice.org project discussion list and Alan has open a wiki page for the specifications.

The changes he proposed are

  • The default file type depends on the current application. For example, from Writer, File | Open by default displays only Text documents. The other types, including "All Files (*.*) can still be chosen from the File Type drop down list.
  • If an type group such as "Spreadsheets" is chosen, OOo will either open the file in Calc or will fail. It will not for example open a file as a Text document when Spreadsheets is selected.
  • When attempting to open files in an unsupported format, such as PDF, OOo will not try to open them as Text documents.

And I second these changes :-)