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At Long Last, NeoOffice/J 1.1 Released
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jun 22, 2005 07:17 AM
from the now-you-may-take-a-vacation dept.
from the now-you-may-take-a-vacation dept.
VValdo writes "After nearly five years of development, NeoOffice/J has made it to its first stable release. NeoOffice/J 1.1 is a Mac OS X-integrated office suite based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 that includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing applications. Key Macintosh features include a standard Mac OS X installer, a native Aqua menu bar, use of the native printing system, full clipboard support, drag-and-drop, Mac "command" key shortcuts, mouse scrolling, integration with major Mac email clients and native support for Mac fonts. The full announcement is here."
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How much Java? (Score:2)
Just when they get if finished.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just when they get if finished.... (Score:3, Funny)
More like....just when they get it finished, OpenOffice.org 2 is almost out!
Re:Just when they get if finished.... (Score:4, Informative)
Now "if" it was totally written in Java, then I would say it would be very easy to port
My gut feeling is that a significant portion of it was done in C, and thus it will take some time to get that part compiled and working again.
Parent
Re:Just when they get if finished.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just when they get if finished.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like it'll 'simply' (heh) involve porting to GCC4 [neooffice.org]...
What they really need is (a) more programmers with some highly esoteric combinations of skills, (b) a Mac-Intel box or two, and (c) monetary donations!
Parent
Re:Just when they get if finished.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cached on mirrordot (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/56f602610d944f
Looks like their news page died at 17,000 hits after 12:17 today. Very sad.
Re:Cached on mirrordot (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
They recommend MS Office :) (Score:4, Funny)
Hrm - maybe Office on the Mac is much better than the Windows version. I've been hearing that for awhile, but it's still from Microsoft, and will still have some of the same issues that people have on the Windows version, or it'd have compatibility problems (key commands, etc).
Still, I thought that comment about something being 'absolutely perfect' then recommending Office was pretty funny.
Re:They recommend MS Office :) (Score:2, Informative)
It's far from perfect on the Mac, but I'm always astounded at how much it is better on the Mac than on Windows.
Re:They recommend MS Office :) (Score:2)
Re:They recommend MS Office :) (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:They recommend MS Office :) (Score:3, Insightful)
*cough*
Still trying to get through to their server, but the Slashdot text certainly doesn't give me any confidence in the developers.
Except that's not a standard Macintosh feature. Real Mac programs don't have installers, they have .app bundles and can be installed by simply dragging them to 'Programs' (or any other location of your choice) and uninstalled by dragging them to the trash.
Up till now it seemed to be mostly Microsoft products t
Re:They recommend MS Office :) (Score:3, Interesting)
True, it doesn't ship with the OS, but OSXPM is an easy add-on and does the job fine.
Valid reason for BitTorrent (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Valid reason for BitTorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Mine's chugging away, downloading - there's a fair few seeds already so it hasn't uploaded anything yet!
Here's a nice, friendly Mac BitTorrent client [sarwat.net] for all you GUI-fiends, and while I'm at it, here's a list of conventional mirrors and translations [planamesa.com]...
Parent
Fantastic! (Score:4, Informative)
My sister needs a laptop for work and I have been steering her towards a G4 mac. MS office adds $AUD300 to the price, which offends me, mainly because of the huge profit microsoft make out of it.
Having this available could make it a much easier decision for her to buy the macintosh.
AppleWorks (Score:3, Insightful)
iWork is $79, Mac MS Office is $399. If one was choosing between these two, I would recommend the iWork not just because of pricing but because of the vendor: Apple is more likely to care about their own users while MS has potential to drop their product quality because Mac users aren't as important to MS than they are to Ap
Seems the better then regular OpenOffice... (Score:3, Insightful)
What if it were written in Java? (Score:4, Interesting)
To some extent we have this now with Linux as a standard OS, but even with it there is a lack of common binary compatibility. Java takes care of that such that the same binary application on one platform works on another, only relying on the base runtime to be ported.
How much quicker could we have had NeoOffice on MacOS if it were written in an easily-ported language like Java?
Are there any plans for such a common language runtime to which applications can target themselves in the free software ecosystem?
Re:What if it were written in Java? (Score:2)
Yes, it already exists. It's called Java. There's also a knock-off of it called
Re:What if it were written in Java? (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, but at least they go over better than X11 apps!
Parent
Re:What if it were written in Java? (Score:3, Informative)
Did you notice that Mono is primarily an implementation of
Sta
Swing and AWT, not Java (Score:3, Informative)
Ever tried SWT [eclipse.org] from Eclipse [eclipse.org]? It's the Java widget toolkit that doesn't suck! (as much).
That said, I'm very happy with C++ and Qt [trollech.com]. Well, except the C++ bit, but I find Java just as gag-worthy in different ways (Java 1.5 goes some w
Very much a Mac Application (Score:5, Informative)
Everything else is great, and infinitely superior to the old port of OpenOffice.org to the Mac's X11 - for instance, copy-and-paste works fully (styled text is no problem whatsoever); file associations work correctly; native printing, fonts, anti-aliased line art are just fine. Even more recent, esoteric stuff like Spotlight searches are fine - when I installed Tiger, all my documents got neatly indexed without me lifting a finger.
It's in an application bundle, it stores its settings in ~/Library/ - apart from those grey, rectangular buttons and controls, it's a complete, modern Mac application.
Honestly, don't judge it on first appearances or screenshots (I've found numerous Mac 'ports' of software which seem to concentrate too much on cosmetics rather than functionality) - it's truly wonderful. For anyone looking for a free office suite on their Mac, here it is!
Re:Very much a Mac Application (Score:3, Funny)
More importantly, no amount of money could be placed on the quality and reliability of a corporately-developed product like this. After all, would you rather drive a car built by Ford or a car built b
Good news (Score:3, Informative)
In terms of competition, there's KOffice for MacOS X I kept my eyes on, see http://kde.opendarwin.org/ [opendarwin.org]. Still pre-alpha however.
I use and love iWorks. Keynote is simply *great*. But it is not free (forget open source). And iWorks, for the moment, lacks a spreedsheet, which OOO doesn't. Thanks to OOO and NeoOfficeJ developpers! :-)
Coralized link (Score:3, Informative)
http://neowiki.sixthcrusade.com.nyud.net:8090/ind
Though, frankly, there's not much there to read.
Greg
Question: (Score:2)
Do current relses of OpenOffice.org and other software have native support for Linux fonts? I ask this because I find that fonts on Linux are a bit "blurry"...that is, they are not as clear/crisp as their those on their windows counterparts. Even when anti-aliasing is turned off, fonts on Linux do not look that good. This is one reason in my opinion, why some slashdotters have
Allegedly this is a patent issue... (Score:4, Interesting)
According to this [ffii.org] it's a patent issue. I think there's something deeply wrong with patents on operations required to render fonts correctly, above and beyond the already troubling issue of software patents in general. Remember that in the US fonts are explicitly not copyrightable to prevent even the potential of copyright being used to prevent free speech. Shouldn't this easement be extended to any communication or presentation technology.
Parent
Re:Allegedly this is a patent issue... (Score:4, Informative)
Fonts -- meaning that file (or files) of computer data that represent a particular typeface -- are absolutely copyrightable. That's why Linux distributors cannot distribute the fonts from Microsoft or Apple (though an end-user can download some fonts from Microsoft's web site, or use the fonts from their own Windows installation).
It is the typeface itself that cannot be copyrighted. But that's the way the characters look, not the data that represents them to a computer. So I'm free to clone the Arial typeface by developing my own font that represents it, but I can't just copy Microsoft's font.
Developing a good font from a typeface is a lot of hard work, I hear.
Parent
Re:Question: (Score:3, Insightful)
By default, all distributions (except for Debian, I believe) use the Autohinter instead of the
I think this shows that (Score:4, Funny)
and that quite possibly
there is no server.
Screenshot (Score:5, Informative)
The big question: Is it made using XCode? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good app, but I hope it can move with the Mac as Apple transitions to Intel processors. Seems like kind of a waste of effort if it's tied to a specific architecture, in light of Apples recent announcements.
The Desktop Wars (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not really sure the desktop wars are over. Each announcement of stable, full-featured M$ replacement seems to solidify that assumption. Thoughts anyone?
My Experiences (Score:5, Informative)
1) In the early releases NeoOffice/J was sluggish. There were rendering delays with first word typed, pull-down menus, and switching tools, among other things. I am pleased to say that the interface speed has increased through the release candidate schedule. That said, you will find there are still delays here and there that may bother you. They bothered me until I used Office X again. That product has UI delays as well, just in different places. At this point I think it is a wash.
2) Stability (e.g. random crashes) was an issue on the earlier releases. These have been largely successfully addressed. In fact, when using the last RC to get work done I did not experience any crashes. Very nice.
3) The UI is somewhat confusing, since it departs from some of the standard metaphors we usually see in office software. The primary example is the tight coupling of the different suite functions. Those that are used to using one application for spreadsheets and another for presentations will need to aclimate to a monolithic application. This is not a big change per se; it just takes some getting used to. There are other minor departures, such as the lack of aqua widgets and different locations of buttons and menu items. Once I got used to these differences, I found the product usable for my project work.
All that being said, I have decided to do all my personal project work in NeoOffice/J. Why? The data I generate in my personal projects is valuable to me personally. I would like to maximize the chances of being able to read it in the distant future. Since the Open Office file format is completely open and documented, I believe that the OO.org file format has the greatest chance of being read 15-20 years from now. If there is not any software in 15-20 years that can read the format, then due to the open licensing on the format I could write/hire someone to write a program to read the documents. Try doing that with some archaic closed format. I will deal with quirks today to enable access to the my data tomorrow.
-LLM
Great for files from those 'other' computers (Score:5, Interesting)
For that reason alone (and the price), I recommend NeoOffice. I've been using it as my sole office application for some time now with no problems.
Well Done NO/J devs! (Score:5, Informative)
What's really amazing is that almost all of the coding work is done by Patrick Luby (pluby) with a fairly small group of very dedicated testers and contributors. Despite the complexity of the code and the magnitude of the task, Patrick and the rest of his small team of volutneers has managed to release the only viable alternateive to MS Office for Mac OSX.
I have been installing NeoOffice/J on lab machines at work for over a year now. NO/J 1.1 is a significant improvement over the earlier versions. It now integrates with the menubar, opens and closes like a Mac app, and even uses OSX's keyboard shortcuts. Heck, they even managed to integrate it with SpotLight!
For everyone out there using a Mac, be sure to check it out. Also, if you like the program don't forget to donate. [planamesa.com] Even $50 is much appreciated. Think of it, an entire office suite on your platform of choice with perfect interoperability with Linux, Windows and Solaris. And it's Open Source. Surely that's worth a donation.
Re:What's with the J? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:What's with the J? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's with the J? (Score:5, Informative)
So, once upon a time there was a NeoOffice/C which used the C bindings, but for some reason it was very difficult to develop. The authors then abandoned it and used the Java bindings instead, producing NeoOffice/J. This was only feasible because OpenOffice makes heavy use of Java internally.
(One minor point of confusion for me: The NeoOffice FAQ claims that NeoOffice/C used the Cocoa API, but I thought that was only for Objective C and Java. I thought for pure C you had to go with the Carbon API.)
Parent
Re:What's with the J? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:What's with the J? (Score:2, Funny)
C++, of course!
What do I win...
Re:What's with the J? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:all kidding aside... (Score:2)
http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/donate.php [planamesa.com]
It'd probably be easier (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It'd probably be easier (Score:3, Informative)
Re:open office fork? (Score:5, Informative)
Over time, it appeared that NeoOffice/J was developing faster, and it would be easier to get it to a usable state than the OpenOffice OS X port, so the OpenOffice OS X port was abandoned. NeoOffice/J is the `official' OS X version of OpenOffice. Additionally, the NeoOffice/J people will be handling the official port of OpenOffice 2.0 to OS X.
Parent