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Aqua OpenOffice for Mac OS X
rhetland writes "An article on O'Reilly network discusses the new port of OpenOffice to Mac OS X. The public beta, due out next week, will be posted on the OpenOffice Mac site. I have been waiting for this for months, and can hardly wait."
This is great news, but consider what this really means. What we really want & need, a fully native version, is still someway off. The subtext is the more people who can help the faster and better off we will be.
MAK
Not to be pedantic, but Aqua is a user interface appearance. What you're talking about is Quartz/AppKit, which is the user interface code that implements the Aqua appearance.
And from a read of the article, it sounds like there are no plans to create a Quartz/AppKit version of OpenOffice. They're talking about removing dependencies on X11 so it'll run on OS X without an X server, but they're not talking about replacing their homegrown and decidedly un-Mac-like UI code with true OS X UI code.
It's a shame. If that's the path they choose, the best they'll be able to do is a poor imitation of a true OS X application.
Oh wait, what other competing companies are left?
Yes, you're right; the attractive aqua globe was the OmniWeb icon though the entire 4.1 beta/sneaky peak period, and The Omni Group then changed it to the blue-green globe on the release of the 4.1 final.
But why? I have yet to hear anyway say the preferred the blue-green icon to the aqua one.
Well, apparently the reason they changed the icon is due to Apple. Apple asked for the change, because they felt the icon was too similar to the iTools icon. Now personally, I think that was a bit heavy-handed on Apple's part. Besides, most people never see the the iTools/.Mac icon now, since it started to cost money...
Although I have open office for OS X in X11. It makes it a real hassle to run. I usually end up running Appleworks except for open office. Although I would prefer to use Open Office then Apple Works but it takes a while for XDarwin to start up which in most cases gets in the way. And the fact the interface is differnt from the rest of the application on the Mac so it effect my productivity because I have to adjust my way of thinking to switch to apps.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The thing is, user interface standards are, I think everyone would agree, generally a good thing. But different platforms have different ideas about what the standards should be. Any particular standard isn't necessarily better or worse than any of the others as long as it's consistent, logical, and easily learned. And as long as one standard is consistent & logical & so on, it's more of a problem to try to impose another systems consistent, logical framework. So for example the Aqua guidelines suggest how to arrange menus, what functionality should be in each one, how to arrange dialog windows, keystrokes to adhere to, etc. The Windows guidelines make different recommendations in each of these areas. The goal should be to adapt to the local system, so that users don't have to adapt to whatever platform the software was developed on.
The shambling train wreck here is Linux and X11, where the best you can hope for is some particular toolkits suggested but generally half thought out HIG standard. The best you can hope for is what Gnome or KDE offers, but still you as a user can't assume that all applications you use are going to adhere to one, the other, or even any standard. Everyone just makes up their own damn standard and the user has no choice but to wrestle them all down. Here, maybe it *would* make some sense to bring in ideas from the Aqua guidelines, or for that matter the Windows guidelines, the classic Mac guidelines, or hell anything else -- just pick *anything* and implement it *consistently*. But of course this has never happened and at this point I don't expect it to ever come together, short of a miracle in say RedHat's effort to merge KDE & Gnome. More power to 'em I say.
Anyway, I think what you really want is for someone to approach this as a true & complete discipline, just as programming & QA & administration are all disciplines. We need system designers that understand general UI theory (including general design principles, user testing & feedback schemes, etc) as well as specific implementations of the general theory as seen in e.g. Aqua, Windows, web design [Jakob Nielsen type stuff], etc. But in the end this all just has to be source material, and short of adopting someone else's standards full out -- that'll never happen -- in the end a cohesive Linux/X11 UI standard needs to emerge. Gnome & KDE & similar projects will play into this of course, but even those aren't fleshed out enough and the pointless rift between the two projects doesn't help things anyway. As long as there continues not to be a well thought out Linux/X11 HIG document that is widely referred to & implemented, using Linux will continue to be a painful experience for average [read: non-geek] users.
But then we all know that already, don't we?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
While it's nice to have a lot of UNIX apps available for the Macintosh, many, especially those requiring the installation of an XWindow-For-Aqua solution, are for the *NIX tinkerer. This describes a demographic that Apple certainly wants to keep happy, but not one the one that will make Apple the market share they want.
For that, they need Aqua apps that "Just Work"(tm). Simple to install (or uninstall), laid out in an expected manner. Possibly expandable through CLI-level tweaking of scripts, but working out of the box.
Though I'm constantly happy to see OS/X offering the more-or-less best of both worlds. Definitely the better-than-anyone-else of both worlds. And I'm downright giddy that OpenOffice is embracing the OS and philosophy.
This now concludes our broadcast day.