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Aqua OpenOffice for Mac OS X

Posted by pudge on from the aqua-licious dept.

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."

61 comments

  1. Finally by Hungus · · Score: 1

    Now I can hopefully migrate the last of out machines from any microisoft code. $ months ago we got the go ahead for open source (after a 2 year battle) and now this!

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    1. Re:Finally by Hungus · · Score: 1

      make that 4 months. (duh!)

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      Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
  2. I think... by tomthebomb · · Score: 0

    I think MS Word looks better...though that is my opinion. What is that dock program that looks like a world? Never seen that before...

    1. Re:I think... by ruiner13 · · Score: 3, Informative
      "What is that dock program that looks like a world? Never seen that before..."

      That's probably OmniWeb, by the Omni Group.

      --

      today is spelling optional day.

    2. Re:I think... by phillyclaude · · Score: 1

      i followed the link.....it's not omniweb.....very strange....ive never seen that before either

      --
      A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head
    3. Re:I think... by pi+radians · · Score: 2

      It is Omniweb, thats what their icon looked like before the most recent 2 (?) updates to it.

      --

      sin(6cos(r)+5A)
    4. Re:I think... by a_d_white · · Score: 2

      Actually, it is the icon for the 4.1 beta versions of OmniWeb. I was kind of disappointed when they changed it to the current blue/green globe, rather than the more Aqua looking globe seen in the screenshot. But both are vast improvements over the pre-4.1 icon.

      Only Mac users would argue about icons. ;-)

    5. Re:I think... by Peer · · Score: 2

      It _is_ omniweb, however the screendump is not this new release. See http://www.neooffice.org/ for more details.

    6. Re:I think... by phillyclaude · · Score: 1

      i stand corrected.....i just realized i havent updated omniweb in a while :-O

      --
      A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head
    7. Re:I think... by Xenex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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...

    8. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      I believe they were asked by Apple to change it because it looked too much like the globe that sits on their "Network" icons.

      Omniweb is great, but I can see Apple's point, they don't want third parties making stuff that people mistake for Apple software.

    9. Re:I think... by Channing · · Score: 2, Informative
      There are some nice replacement icons sets for Omniweb over at xicons:
      Omniweb Icon
      Omniweb Replacement

      Chang

    10. Re:I think... by Christopher+McCarthy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, it was my understanding that the previous OmniWeb icon looked too much like the icon for the 'Internet' pane under System Preferences, not the 'Network' icon. And, comparing them, they do look pretty similar, especially at the small size at which the 'Internet' icon is usually viewed in the System Preferences window. Too bad, though: I really preferred the old OmniWeb icon to the current blue-and-green one.

      This case doesn't seem to be the classic one of Apple getting tough on third parties over UI issues. I could be wrong, but it looks like Apple simply asked the Omni Group to change their icon, and the Omni people granted their request. It would make sense that these two companies would want to remain on good terms, as the Omni Group, as far as I'm concerned, is setting the standards for how OS X applications should look and behave--in some cases, even more so than Apple is.

      And how could you not love a software company who states that their mission is to "make software that is useful and fun?"

    11. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They look so very crap. Why not just get a copy of the aqua icon from the beta?

  3. great, but... by mkoz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

  4. Finally by soapvox · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    No more Microshaft stuff on my beautiful OS X!!!! I can't wait to use the beta, just wish I could do more than just beta test, but you do what you can, I hope all OS X programmers help out this project where they can!

  5. Red Hat and Apple's Office Suite of choice? by amichalo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With an Aqua version of Open Office soon available, and Open Office shipping as default install on Red Hat 8.0, are we seeing a dominant #2 player in the Office Suite market?

    --
    I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
    1. re: Red Hat and Apple's Office Suite of choice? by tomdarch · · Score: 2

      Believe it or not/sadly enough Word Perfect/Perfect Office is still chugging along. Dell is shipping it instead of M$ Works on low end machines and it has it's fanatical adherents. We even proposed on a project where the final, complicated, should-be-done in Quark or InDesign report has to be in an editable WP file!

  6. well, i WOULD be excited about this by mrpuffypants · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    but being in the UT system as a student, Microsoft has a kickass licensing deal with all UT schools

    i bought my copy of Office.X for $5.00 + tax

    bought winXP for $5.00 + tax

    bought OfficeXP for $15.00 + tax

    but they only let each student buy one copy :(

    1. Re:well, i WOULD be excited about this by SensitiveMale · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Oh no, MS isn't a monopoly. Good thing other competing companies can afford to give any their products.


      Oh wait, what other competing companies are left?

    2. Re:well, i WOULD be excited about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Are you sure it was such a kickass licensing deal, or did your school get blackmailed by MS and as a student you now how to spend a large portion of your student technology fees on these products.

      If its anything like my school, MS blackmailed the school out of Five Million Dollars a year that would have gone to upgrading computer labs and paying technology consultants fair and equitable raises, forcing a maximium numb of non-Windows Servers on campus as well as placing a cap on the funny hardware systems faculty might buy such as Macs.

      Don't kid yourself, MS came to your school and threatened to sue it for piracy and otherwise if it didn't agree to the terms as it has with all the other schools.

    3. Re:well, i WOULD be excited about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      open source companies have to give any of their GPL stuff away for free... isn't that the point of OO versus StarOffice???

    4. Re:well, i WOULD be excited about this by margaret · · Score: 1

      We have the same deal at the University of Cincinnati. Techically, the apps are free - the 5 bucks covers the cost of distributing the media, so I can legally copy my friend's office x disc if I am too lazy to walk to the bookstore and get it. It's microsoft though, so I feel a little dirty participating in this deal. Maybe I'll try openoffice and then be rid of all my microsoft software.

      We also have a similar site license agreement with Adobe, but somebody (either Adobe or the university) decided to be a jackass and extended it to everybody EXCEPT students. So the people who can least afford it because they are busy paying the tuition that partly pays for the license agreement have to pay full price. Nice.

    5. Re:well, i WOULD be excited about this by volsung · · Score: 3, Interesting
      (I'm also a UT student and cashed in on this deal last week. Still waiting for VMWare to arrive so I can keep XP in an emulator.)

      Yes it is way cheap, but you have some really wonderful clauses in the licensing:

      • If UT decides not to renew their site license with Microsoft, you license is immediately revoked.
      • If you quit the university, your license is revoked.

      At least the license converts to a permanent license if you graduate (your parting gift!).

    6. Re:well, i WOULD be excited about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work for the IT department at a university (not yours). We have a number of licenses for software, some of which cover both staff and students, some cover only staff. The claim that "the people who can least afford it... have to pay full price" is largely unfair. Students love to throw the "I pay your salary" argument at the staff at a university, however exactly what proportion of these fees do you think the IT department gets versus the Buildings/Facilities department versus the faculties, etc, etc? And how much of that budget do you think can be devoted to buying software to give away to you?

      When you include students' own computers in a site-license, the cost will corrspondingly multiply by the ratio of students to staff. We have about 3000 staff, about 35,000 students. If the license covers a certain number of seats, the cost suddenly multiplies by about 12 ((35000+3000)/12). For many other universities, the multiplier would be even more. How many universities can afford for every student to have a free or reduced-cost copy of an (otherwise) commercial Adobe product?

      Some license agreements include students as part of the site, some don't. Some count the number of seats, some don't, some require a certain percentage of university-associated use (versus personal use). We have a Macromedia license which allows the Studio suite (Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Freehand) and Director and Authorware to be installed on all staff and lab workstations. To extend this to all student home machines would cost several million dollars more.

      You make it sound like your university just snubbed you, however these license agreements go backwards and forwards between universities and vendors multiple times before they get signed. Our new and renewed licence discussions constantly include the question to the vendor of whether we can include student home machines and staff home machines, and it simply depends on what the vendor is demanding to extend the license.

      As it is, our students receive a CD with in excess of $200 of licensed (and freeware) software. That's certainly not being unreasonable - there are just limitations on what we can do.

  7. A Sweet Suite Situation by Big+Sean+O · · Score: 4, Informative
    Things are looking up for Mac users. Soon we will have three office productivity suites running in Aqua.

    1. Microsoft Office. Probably not coincidentally, it's being sold for 1/2 price when you buy a new Mac.
    2. AppleWorks. Which is almost as free as in beer, since it comes bundled with your new Mac.
    3. and now OpenOffice.org.


    Lots of people would say that having three different suites is a bad thing, but I don't think so anymore:

    1. XML file formats: Both MS Office and Open Office have documented XML-based file specifications. This will make it possible for open source conversion stylesheets. Sure, there will be translation glitches, but the open nature of the file specification will make all types of conversion of content possible.
    2. Variety of Tools. Some people like vi. Some people like emacs. Some people like BBEdit. Same for Office Suites. My wife has AppleWorks and MS Office, but she likes AppleWorks better. Me, I don't care what WP program I use, but I get really fussy when I can't use Excel. Too much finger memory built up.
    3. Evolution. Like the varied Mozilla projects, lots of choices and experimentation is good. The more open code out there, the more new breakthrough projects built on the back of giants.

    --
    My father is a blogger.
    1. Re:A Sweet Suite Situation by goon+america · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, AppleWorks is only bundled with i(Book|Mac)s. Power(Book|Mac)s don't, though they come with other neat goodies like GraphicConverter.

    2. Re:A Sweet Suite Situation by weo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Aaaah but you forget the OTHER office application.

      KOffice run well on OSX using fink or the other linux@OSX distributions. I can't wait for KDE 3.1 to run on OSX.

      OSX+OS(kde+gnu+gnome+X....) = ME+:)

      on a side note I want linksys to make a a box with exportable X session or VNC session running linux. The only difference from what they sell now and what I'm talking about is a harddrive and a beefier processor. I'ld pay for a linux applience for 100bucks.

      weo

      --
      #=-weo-=#
    3. Re:A Sweet Suite Situation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      OSX+OS(kde+gnu+gnome+X....)

      I can't wait to see the Beowolf cluster you're going to need to run this puppy.

    4. Re:A Sweet Suite Situation by Thenomain · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.
    5. Re:A Sweet Suite Situation by tupps · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is also ThinkFree Office. Haven't used it but it has been getting good reviews: http://www.thinkfree.com/

      --
      Go out and get sailing!
  8. read the weblog more closely... by soullessbastard · · Score: 4, Informative

    X11 is going beta next week, not aqua. the aqua version is still in the planning stages.

    1. Re:read the weblog more closely... by soullessbastard · · Score: 1, Informative

      Here's the annoucement from the OpenOffice.org mailing list, alebit with poor formatting.

    2. Re:read the weblog more closely... by foobar104 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:read the weblog more closely... by soullessbastard · · Score: 1

      Umm...neooffice does seem to be using AppKit but not extensively yet. Check out the introduction in the build instructions. Now if only it could use interface builder...

    4. Re:read the weblog more closely... by volsung · · Score: 5, Informative
      If you go to the OpenOffice porting site, you find they ARE going to port to Quartz/Appkit:

      http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/

      They are doing the port incrementally.

    5. Re:read the weblog more closely... by SiMac · · Score: 2

      Bzzt...

      There are three versions of OpenOffice for Mac OS X in development. The first is Darwin/X11. This is what's going into beta. Then there's Quartz. This is the first version that will not require XFree86, but will have a Windows look and feel. Finally, there's Aqua, which will actually look like a standard Aqua app. Quartz is scheduled for beta in Q2 2003, Aqua is scheduled for beta in Q1 2004.

      See the roadmap here.

  9. It's not Aqua yet by l-ascorbic · · Score: 4, Informative
    The article says:
    Next week, public beta of the X11 release for Darwin 6, Mac OS X 10.2.

    This is still the X11 version. Sure, it'll be nice to try it, but it won't have Mac look and feel, and certainly won't obey the Human Interface Guidelines yet. It seems that the Aqua demo was of NeoOffice, which is just a proof of concept for developers, not a real distribution.

    NeoOffice is a mildly functional prototype office suite used for exploring technologies for use in OpenOffice.org. It is not a distribution and not in active development. It is a sandbox for testing out potentially unstable and ugly technologies that are not appropriate for a maintainable source base.

    Looks like there's a lot more work to be done...

  10. dead link! by soullessbastard · · Score: 2, Informative

    The link above should be http://www.neooffice.org.

  11. Aqua Would be nice. by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  12. NeoOffice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    uh, i know the page says its releasing the X11 beta next week, but this link was at the bottom of the oreilly article:

    http://www.neooffice.org/

    There's a download link on the site. Shoulda read the article *and* the comments ;)

  13. OmniWeb icon by MacAndrew · · Score: 1

    But but but ... it's inaccurate! The landmasses aren't all green! Where are the deserts, the mountains, the clouds, the subtle silhouette of the atmosphere??? (see http://www.solstation.com/stars/earth.jpg) I liked the abstract Aqua one better, though I realize Apple is mercilessly aggressive about its intellectual property.

    OK, I'm a Mac (l)user.

    Having digressed to browsers, I hope everyone has tried the very nice free beer/speech Chimera for OS X.

    1. Re:OmniWeb icon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tried it, and rejected it. At least a while ago. Didn't have proxy support, and that was a killer for me. Way too simplistic. Perhaps things have changed since.

      Sean

  14. open source becomes free source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    hmm...interesting subtext: openoffice.org is released under the LGPL and SISSL which allow for closed source extensions to the source base and commercialization. According to the next to last NeoOffice FAQ entry the prototype is under the full GPL license and Sun employees know they can't use its source code directly.

    Is this the first salvo in a free source vs. open source war?

    1. Re:open source becomes free source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find it pretty ironic that Sun has taken a position of total silence with regard to its open source developers in recent weeks. ever since the attempted NDA backfired, they've done their best to completely isolate themselves from the product. it appears to me as if Sun was looking to sweep in and suck up the hard work of the cheap labor force they mockinly refer to as open source programers. excellent move on Ed's part to secure the full GPL and restrict Sun's options. after they essentially tried to steal indepedent programmer's work for free, there's no reason to provide them with any additional means of stealing your work.

      bravo.

  15. Just use BBEdit or bloody emacs.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Only the dickheads in this world want to see a fucken paperclip.

    Documentation is a waste of time. No fucker reads it anyway.

  16. hope it works... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I have Open Office 1.0 running on my OS X machine, but it is so buggy that it is unusable. I hope the new version works better. An aqua version would be awesome; I don't mind running XF86 in rootless mode, but an aqua version would make the whole experience more seamless.

    for now, I use TextEdit which comes with OS X. It is very stable and usable, though not too good at advanced formatting. And why of why does everybody have to use .doc format anyway. it is such a piece of crap and there are major privacy issues with it...don't beleive me? open up a .doc with BBEdit or something...

    1. Re:hope it works... by analog_line · · Score: 2

      Forget TextEdit, I use BBEdit for all my word processing. I have no need in the least for the fancy formatting crap that you get in most office applications. It'd be nice to get some free regular office software (I don't use AppleWorks, you think only MS Office uses proprietary formats?) for those rare occasions when I need something more than BBEdit, but not having it is more a nuisance than a problem.

    2. Re:hope it works... by anarkhos · · Score: 1

      I can't stand TextEdit. You can't move/rename open files (or host directories/non-root volumes) without TextEdit freaking out.

      --
      >80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
      >life
  17. OT, but I'm curious... by interactive_civilian · · Score: 3, Interesting
    IANADeveloper but...
    This is still the X11 version. Sure, it'll be nice to try it, but it won't have Mac look and feel, and certainly won't obey the Human Interface Guidelines yet.
    I know the Apple HIG are meant to guide people developing Macintosh software, but why don't more developer's use them to help when designing GUI based software regardless of the platform?

    IMHO, Apple knows what they are talking about when it comes designing an interface, so the HIG seem to be a great resource for anyone to use.So, any of you programmers for windows and *nix pay any attention to them?

    A lot of people talk about trying to get linux on the desktop and how to do it...call me crazy but perhaps if developers kept the HIG in mind it would push things forward quite a bit as far as linux usability goes...

    note: I am not saying the HIG must be followed to the letter but it seems like it would be a great starting point for developers of any GUI based software...

    Any thoughts on this? Can the HIG be a valuable resource for anyone?

    --
    "Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
    1. Re:OT, but I'm curious... by babbage · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The principle that you're getting at is a sound one, and I don't object to it. That said though, I don't agree that the Aqua HIG document should be taken as the canonical reference for development on any platform. Rather, the Aqua HIG is a pretty good implementation of a more abstract general idea, but in other contexts different implementations of the idea can make more sense. For example, why should Windows developers try to adhere to the Mac user interface guidelines when Microsoft already publishers The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design: An Application Design Guide, which would be far more appropriate for Windows developers.

      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
    2. Re:OT, but I'm curious... by anarkhos · · Score: 1

      The Aqua HI Guidelines fall short in my opinion. There are a lot of things which it doesn't address.

      For example the behavior of NSLayoutManager still doesn't follow Mac conventions for selecting text. Also the behavior of commands like "Save" and "Revert" change depending if the file primitive you're using is an FSRef or POSIX file path.

      As for OpenOffice I warn that the absolute WORST interface is one which looks like a Mac but doesn't behave like a Mac.

      --
      >80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
      >life
    3. Re:OT, but I'm curious... by babbage · · Score: 1
      Well, yes. Subjectively -- I'm no HI expert, just an interested amateur -- the Aqua guidelines seem much less polished & refined than the old Mac ones did a decade or more ago. Among the things that need to be cleaned up & made more coherent & cohesive are the various Mac vs. BSD artifacts: file paths, standard line endings, etc. My hope is that, as OSX & Aqua evolve, things will improve & get better standardized, but we'll see what happens.

      But yeah, foreign interfaces are a plague that should almost always be avoided. Note how Photoshop & family are a dream on Macs, but IMO have never really fit in on PCs. Note how Microsoft adapted Office & Internet Explorer to the Mac from their original Windows versions, and for that matter Palm Desktop. Note how "cross platform" applications like Lotus Notes just looks, well, awful on every platform I've seen it on, and for that matter, most any GUI application written in Java/AWT or TCL/TK. Yuck!

      Like I think I said in the earlier post, the only application I can think of where it brings the same interface to every platform and still works is Gvim -- but if you're the sort of person that's using Gvim then you probably aren't looking for aesthetics or goo menu layouts in the first place :)

      So anyway, IMO the best thing the OpenOffice people can do is come up with a native Aqua/Cocoa interface to their software engine, much as the Chimera people have done with Gecko. The interface can & should draw from the Aqua guidelines if possible, but as Anarkhos says, getting the look but not the feel could be even worse than staying as an X11 app. IMO, anyway...

      --
      DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
    4. Re:OT, but I'm curious... by anarkhos · · Score: 1

      Well I've brought up the two issues I mentioned back in the Rhapsody days, and again when the preliminary Aqua HI Guidelines were released. Nothing has happened except in OS X 10.1 NSDocument behaves a bit better, as if it uses an FSRef internally.

      The "standard line endings" issue was resolved a long time ago, at least as much as it'll ever be. Carbon uses CR, Cocoa and UNIX use LF, Windows uses CRLF, and we're moving to XML so this is all moot anyway. The issue I had is when a mouse gesture in MacOS or Carbon apps behaves one way (the superior way) and Cocoa apps behave another way (the crazy doesn't-make-any-logical-sense way).

      Ironically Swing apps behave the Carbon way when it comes to text selection. I suspect this is because the MRJ people modified their Swing to Toolbox binding for Carbon rather than any high-level decision to do it this way. The problem with Cocoa however seems to me to be due to old NeXT people who won't let go of their crappy HI.

      Anyway if you want any of these issues fixed you have to bitch to Apple about them, because Apple clearly is not taking the initiative.

      --
      >80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
      >life
  18. Thats great but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    the interface is ugly as hell.

    1. Re:Thats great but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      then go buy a Microsoft product.

      it's a computer, not a blow-up doll.

  19. Only complaint with OO by MoneyT · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I've been using Open Office for a while now and it's great. Not quite as polished as commercial apps but certainly nothing to laugh at.

    The only problem I've experienced so far is that after a certain size (haven't quite narrowed it down yet) Open Office refuses to open a file. This isn't any wierd file, just a simple plaintext file, yet for some reason Open Office won't open it. It opens fine under other programs, but not OO. Has anyone else come across this problem or does anyone know how to fix it?

    --
    T Money
    World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    1. Re:Only complaint with OO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      I'm cracking up at you right now. You misspelled weird. This is consistent with your long standing tradition of posts rife with grammatical and spelling errors. You may want to explore using the grammar and spelling facilities in Open Office. Your continued presence on Slashdot serves as great entertainment; your baseless commentary thickly adorned in egregious errors indicative of those who have not yet graduated fifth grade is a constant source of amusement. You have an inability to grasp basic technical concepts, you have ridiculous position on world issues and law and your whiney rants about how life is not fair because someone thinks you are a complete retard.

      About your file size bug; it would be trivial for anyone programmatically inclined to discover the limit. Since you are not person of programmatic inclination, you flop around like a fish out of water scratching your head while you attempt to empirically discover the root of the problem, never considering engaging the programmers in a bug squashing session.

      You are the apotheosis of a person who is thoroughly muddled by technology, but you self aggrandize and project your worthless views with a metaphorical 120 decibel bullhorn and we must sit in the cesspool of your retched verbal diarrhea.

    2. Re:Only complaint with OO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh huh, huh huh... he said "apotheosis." Uhhh huhuhuhuhuhuhuhh.

  20. OOo for Darwin, no OS X by nedron · · Score: 2

    Note that the beta release is for Darwin, which means you need an X server running on OS X to use it. This really isn't worth much to OS X users until the Aqua part comes along.

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    * As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
  21. I can wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, but I don't see what the commotion is about. I don't need office tools. I think the idea of an MS word processor format is about as about as archaic as their BMP desktop graphics spec. We don't need this and we should be moving onto something else. As for Excel - all I have to say is visit John Walker's fourmilab.ch if you want the lowdown on that application. Spreadsheets are cool, and necessary, but proprietary word processing formats are ridiculous.

    Give me a way for me or my corporation to get out from under MS Office shite once and for all. Don't give me a free version of the same thing.