Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice.org For Mac OS X Hits 1.1.1 (Finally)
berchca writes "So it looks like OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X has finally hit 1.1.1 (for X11). They've also stated they probably won't do a native (Aqua/Carbon) release until OOo 2.0 is out, in late 2005 or early. Great work guys! Now I can get decent macros." I hope 1.1.1 has some speedups over 1.1.0, which works well but takes forever to start.
I remember reading how you can check the code out and compile of Darwin/Mac OS X, but the code checkout itself took an hour over my connection, and I only have a 500MHz G3, I'd be old and grey before it finished. Anyway, I'm going to see if this can kill off PowerPoint (I already replaced Execl with Gnumeric, and Word with TextEdit (I found TextEdit to be just more damn efficent at being a word processor then Word ever was), and if not, keep searching so I can de-M$ my machine.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
Otherwise you have to wait for the installer to be finished.
Since building it requires fink (which I hate) and I am building far too many other things at the moment, I will wait.
I am glad to see it though.
I would prefer seeing OpenOffice being able to handle everything from the same build tree like almost everything else I build for OS X.
Maybe one day they will have things together enough to merge the trees.
I expect that they will have to do a lot more work for that to happen though.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
OpenOffice On OS One Oh, one.one.one
Wasn't OO.o 1.1.1 released only TODAY for PC?
Instead of pissing in the wind with X on Mac, all of the effort should be for the native aqua version. The X version looks horrible and performs horrible. I just helped my cousin, who is a complete nube, buy an Ibook online last night for his first computer. It's a damn good thing AppleWorks is coming with it. I'd have hated to tell the guy "well, you know nothing about computers, so I guess you'll either have to shell out huge bucks for MS Office for Mac, or buy an XP box".
While we Nix people like the BSD underneath, one of the Mac's best features is that it's a great machine for for people with ZERO comp expierience to use. Asking one of these people to "put in X, and then compile OpenOffice" kinda kills the easy part, doesn't it? So quit wasting time, and get on that native version, OO.org developers...
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I was using it on Linux daily, I have not used MS Office for years. When I switched 20 months ago, I had to learn that OO.org is sucking on OS X and nobody really cares about it. It does not look native, slow, big and buggy. Suddenly it just sucked. Macs spoiled me. OS X spoiled me. And it's a good thing. I have changed from hardcore geek to somebody wo does not want to use slow unusable crap.
I wanted the ultimative usability experience and OO.org could not satisfy any of that. Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package. Haven't found one yet. I hope Apple is coming up with one soon, my another hope goes to the KDE + Qt/Mac porting project especially the koffice part of it. I gave AbiWord a shot, but it did not performe well. And there is no matching Spreadsheet app.
OO.org is dead for me. Big, slow, and too many of itch-scratch people working on it. No innovations.
In Ulrich Drepper's paper on writing shared libraries, there is a discussion of why it takes so long to start up. Debian lets you use prelink to speed up the dynamic linking time. I dunno how much speedup you get.
From Drepper's paper:
With the knowledge of the hashing function and the details of the string lookup
let us look at a real-world example: OpenOffice.org. The package contains 144 separate DSOs. During startup about 20,000 relocations are performed. The number of string comparisons needed during the symbol resolution can be used as a fair value for the startup overhead. We compute and approximation of this value now.
The average chain length for unsuccessful lookup in all DSOs of the OpenOffice.org 1.0 release on IA-32 is 1.1931. This means for each symbol lookup the dynamic linker has to perform on average 72 x 1.1931 = 85.9032 string comparisons. For
20,000 symbols, the total is 1,718,064 string comparisons. The average length of an exported symbol defined in the DSOs of OpenOffice.org is 54.13. Even if we are assuming that only 20% of the string is searched before finding a mismatch (which is an optimistic guess since every symbol name is compared completely at least one to match itself) this would mean a total of more than 18.5 million characters have been loaded from memory and compared. No wonder the startup is so slow, especially since we ignored other costs.
I'm waiting for the native port. I hate the extra window manager.
More than enough BS
I just installed 1.1 last week. Is 1.1.1 as ass slow as 1.1?
I'm not trolling. I really would like to know.
Definitely gonna try this out. I've messed around with X11/Fink off and on, and recently have been in one of the "on" streaks. Just installed KDE! This will be a welcome addition since I don't use my mac for word processing that much (just editing text files and the occasional rich-text), usually switch to the PC and Word 2k3. Seems that there are a bunch of OK word processors for OS X, but none that really stand out.
Porting OO.org to Aqua is a HUGE project and it's not going to be done overnight-- if you want it so badly, give them some help.
Why not contribute instead of just complaining?
When are people going to stop repeating this tired old line? Just because you have an opinion about the direction of some software, doesn't mean you have time or skills or motivation to contribute yourself, just because the code is there.
For fuck's sake. The OO.o developers do their shit by choice, and they put the results out there of their own accord, for people to use and consume. That means if other people want to use it, and be critical, or say what they think on Slashdot, then they're fucking well entitled to do so.
So can you please stop repeating that tired old mantra of 'shutup or contribute'. It's completely silly and unrealistic.
Porting OO.org to Aqua is a HUGE project and it's not going to be done overnight
All the more reason to be doing it now, rather than, as the parent said, 'pissing in the wind'.
if you want it so badly, give them some help
And finally, he doesn't, he said he's a Nix user. It's other people who want it. And those type of people are the LEAST able to contribute.
For those who need a good, basic word processor with advanced language and academic style features, it's hard to beat mellel. Check it out at redlers.com. Cost is $29 shareware, so you can't beat the price, and it is definitely much better than MS "I reformat every document to make it not really Turabian because 'it looks like you are trying to write a letter!'" Word.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I'm not sure why you'd have to build from the source, since binaries are available.
Installing X11 and OpenOffice is trivial. Although, I agree that OO.org under X11 is not pretty, but does that matter so much?
hahahah hahha haha hahhahahahahah
i thought i'd be able to ask that straightfaced...
sadly, though, i use microsoft office on my work pc.
for opening word documents on my tibook i use textedit, but that's probably because i'm not doin much more than copying text from word docs to dreamweaver or something basic like that.
for a minute there, i lost myself...
Having ported other (admittedly small) apps from Linux to OSX, I'd have to say that it's highly unlikely that any work that is done for the OSX/X11 is "wasted", as most of the porting is likely to be from the library/kernel differences, not from moving from one XFree86 install to another.
The waiting-on-2.0 is because 2.0 will have an abstraction layer above the UI toolkit, which will also allow native Gtk/Qt builds.
If nothing else, this can help them gather interest (and thus developers) *now* instead of in a year or more, when the native version might be ready. Except it won't without help...
I installed OpenOffice last last friday from the 1.1.1RC3 source and it doesn't seem slow on my comp. Personally I think it looks good in X11 with KDE as the wm. Takes less time to start than any of the MS Office apps.
According to the OO website, they will not be doing an Aqua port until 2.0 because the graphics code is to be completely rewritten then; any work they did on it now would be thrown away in just over a year.
Who cares about OpenOffice.org? People who want free software and recognize that software freedom is worth the work of development and the wait (or the cost, if one pays for it). Your post reminds me of one of the big differences between the free software and open source movements--and why the open source movement can be self-defeating at times.
Proprietors can't compete with software freedom; by definition, they cannot supply it. This makes free software superior if you learn to value software freedom (as the free software movement advocates). If you play down software freedom and instead favor technical superiority (as the open source movement teaches), you will face an ironic situation: you will be compelled to use and recommend software that is not "open source".
With time and effort, free software becomes better on a technical scale. So the challenge is to teach people to value software freedom.
Digital Citizen
Looks like you don't know how to use fink. I use it since its first availability, and I have never had such problems. Even Apple X11 is handled correclty with system-xfree86 package.
Hub
I had been using OpenOffice on my Mac to remain compatible with the OO.o docs I had created on my Linux systems but as you say it was ghastly. Recently I tried out NeoOffice/J (http://www.neooffice.org) which removes the need for X11 and looks better as it is at least somewhat integrated with the desktop. Still not aqua but it is a definite improvement. It is based on 1.0 which means it isn't quite as nice as 1.1, maybe it will be updated with this new release of OO.o. They are also working on testing approaches to aquafication but are rightly waiting until 2.0 of OO.o comes out as it is going to be more portable.
In then end I had to stump up money for MS Office X which frankly I hate. It is unreliable (crashed 6 times while trying to edit a powerpoint file created on Office XP) and doesn't produce files that are completely readable by Office on a PC so it is barely and improvement over OpenOffice. However, it does start pretty quick and people don't seem to complain about the necessary tweaks to fix font problems and layout as that is expected when moving docs from one version of MS Office to another. Of course, when the same thing happens with conversions between OO.o and MS Office it is the fault of OO.o and I should use MS Office even though OO.o rarely produces more severe problems than my copy of Office X....... sigh.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Since when did they start bundling Microsoft Office for Windows with XP?
Or were you going to explain that he'd need to spend big bucks for Office no matter whether he used XP or Mac.
The problem is not that he has an opinion -- we all have opinions. The problem is that the orginal poster was an ass and suggested that other people spend time on his priorities. Since he isn't a customer he has no basis to make those demands. It is reasonable to say "it would be nice and useful to have an OSX version" but stupid and childlike to say "you suck because you don't spend your time on what I want." I'm sure the OOo developers had a very good reason to finish up the 1.1.1 release instead of devoting all of their resources to the far-distant 2.0 release, so unless you are willing to contribute with your own sweat and time, at the very least keep your suggestions polite.
501 Not Implemented
...so much marketing speak - and not one Screenshot on their page. I think I will pass on this one.
my ibook doesnt have enough resources to run it with X11. I'll just have to stick with the lighter faster Office X or the native Koffice port when it gets better.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Once more with feeling: "if it is to be, it's up to me" - if you don't like it, you have all of the pieces and all of the tools. Fix it.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
well, I'll tell you what, I had exactly the same idea as this guy last night and tried to download the subversion package, and gave up half way through recompiling the new version of Fink (WTF, I just downloaded it as binary and it wants to download (AND COMPILE!!?!?!?!?!?!) a new version of itself??). You're about as helpful as the myriad documents I had to plough through to get that far.
It's a mess, and if you're used to that kind of software deployment and want to put up with it, great, but frankly, it's about 10 years behind the rest of the world. I don't mind messing around on the command line to get a command line tool up and running, but what's with this 'auto-update' that actually has to compile most of the software again and a graphical client that doesn't even manage to hide the command line (please type in your response (what, you mean, like on a command line but with a little dialog that gets in the way?)) and has lots of cryptic menus (selfupdate-rsynch)? Yes, I *can* go away and find out what the menus in the app mean, but it's a tool for getting new software, not photoshop; I'd expect the menus etc to be straightforward and legible for someone who's not familiar with the program. It could at least have chosen a default update method rather than sticking at that point. The flat file layout (just like on the command line then, how about nested trees of categories at least?) and basic GUI I could put up with, but it took two hours to get software that should have been painless to install.
Why exactly should I have to download and compile a new version of software and all the libraries it depends on just after I've downloaded the binary?? Then it gives me messages like this... (note the mistake (at least I damn well hope so) in file size). The only advantage is the dependency checking, which it doesn't even seem to work all the time.
Need to get 4933kB of archives. After unpacking 1980MB will be used.
Take a look at bundles on OS X (ship the used version of the library with the app, in a nice neat package), then look at fink and tell me it *just works* if you know what you're doing. For certain values of knowing what you're doing, yes it just works. I think the point of the parent poster was that he doesn't want to have to go through all that pain just to try out some software. Not that he can't 'learn fink' but that he doesn't see the benefits which repay all that effort. Ah, I must go, I have another 'please provide your response to the command line' message.
You, Sir, are watching way too many TV ads...
Since 20 months I am on search for The Office package.
I just bought my first iBook (I'm a Linux native), and I agree that there is no good office package for Apple. AppleWorks is a joke, AbiWord doesn't do enough, and OpenOffice.org has to be fed through Apple's rather klutzy X implementation.
But make no mistake: This is Apple's problem, not OpenOffice.org's. There is no serious office package for Mac OS X except for MS Office -- but there is no way I am going to pay that much money, and I'm one of those old-fashioned people who things stealing is wrong. Given that OS X's Mail is too primitive (no TLS, so im using Mozilla Thunderbird), Safari doesn't work with online banking (so I'm using Mozilla FireFox), DVD Player is anal about region codes (so I'm using VLC, which has better quality anyway), I don't see much point in Mac OS X over Linux KDE 3.2 -- living without virtual desktops is simply hell, Expose or not. As soon as YDL gets sleep to work on the iBook, Linux it is again.
Apple is making a big mistake by not dumping AppleWorks and putting its programers to work on porting OpenOffice.org to OS X. They are not going to build a good office suite on their own, any more than they are going to make a good OS on their own. OpenOffice.org is there to help them, just as BSD was there to help them with the OS. Financing Microsoft through Office doesn't seem like a clever move.
On a more general note: One of the interesting things about native Mac users is that they are so in love with OS X they don't realize how Linux & Co are breathing down their necks, too. There seems to be a belief that Linux can only replace Windows, not OS X -- a form of "can't happen here" that is just fascinating. Apple is going to have to pedal really hard to stay ahead of KDE and Gnome, especially now since Novell, Sun, and (maybe) IBM are getting serious about the desktop: Mac OS X 10.3 is okay and flashy, but there is little there that won't be in KDE in a year, too.
NeoOffice/J does this (apparently). I've not tried it myself (yet).
Can I just mention LaTeX as the best solution for all your typesetting needs? It is by far the best solution to give quality output. Obviously it isn't quite as easy to use, but goddamn does it look good. There are a number of front ends for osX as well, such as TeXshop. If you are looking for international languages, oddball symbols, or anything else, TeX is the way to go!
But it's available now. If they'd insisted on doing a native Aqua port instead of building and maintainging the X11 version first, OpenOffice for OSX would still be vaporware... vaporware that a lot of people would be sitting on the sidelines questioning whether it was ever going to happen. This way we know that OOo is going get ported to OS X, because it already has. That builds confidence, establishing that OOo is a real cross-platform app, not just a Linux app that's been successfully ported to one other OS.
That's particularly important to me, because it means I can finally run the same wp and work on the book I'm writing (on a USB keydrive) on my iBook out on the front porch, during my lunch break on my Windows machine at work, or in the wee hours on my main desktop running Linux. That's so much more convenient than some kludge importing/exporting files with AppleWorks, and worth putting up with the painfully long launch time of OOo 1.0 on a G3/500 (I leave it running and put the iBook to sleep between uses) and the Win/Lin-looking UI.
It's a damn good thing AppleWorks is coming with it....
Depending on what functions your cousin needs, there are other non-MS apps available for OS X (Nisus Writer, Mariner Write/Calc, FileMaker).
Asking one of these people to "put in X, and then compile OpenOffice".
Compile? 1) Download X11 from Apple.com and run the install package. 2) Download the latest OOo*.dmg file (one for 1.1.1 should be along soon) and run the install package. It may not be fully noob-compatible, but it's not as difficult as you make it out to be.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The native KDE stuff is still a beta thing but if you don't mind to leave some of its functions like import filters you might want to give it a try. Works fine for me. Have a look at its Wiki over at KDE on Darwin.
Also available are binaries.
Yes I know it's slow and I know it's hard to build and I know the average computer user won't probably know how to install it.
But just having it there is already a step in the right direction. It means all the docs I developed on my Linux box are openable one way or another on a Mac, and that gives me a lot more confidence to keep using the sxw file format. I'm feeling patient (already had my coffee today) so I can wait for 2.0 to come out in Cocoa. Keep investing in that file format. Send your docs to everyone you know, with links to the OO.o website to solve their "incompatibility" problems. We'll get there yet.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
The people at NeoOffice.org are working on two parallel OOo ports. The first, NeoOffice, attempts to port OOo to Aqua. It seems to have stagnated, but the very promising NeoOffice/J is rapidly approaching 1.0!
/Library/Fonts folder.
NeoOffice/J replaces the dependency on X with a dependency on Java, which is treated as a native toolkit in OSX. NeoOffice/J may not look like an Aqua app yet, but it does integrate nicely with the AA fonts and can use OSX's copy and paste. It takes a good 30 seconds to launch on my G3 iBook 700/640MB RAM but once it's up and running it is quite fast. I recently removed the OOo X11 port from my machine, as NeoOffice/J works more consistently for me.
NeoOffice/J is based on OOo 1.0 but it's still much better than nothing, not to mention much better than the X11 port. It's very easily installed with a DMG file and the standard Apple installer, once installed it behaves like any other OSX app, setting up the MIME types properly, etc.
I've installed 0.82 in the Mac lab here at work, as we didn't purchase MSO with the machines and students were trying to open PPT lectures. Anyway, I'd take NeoOffice/J over AppleWorks any day of the week. I even prefer it to MS Office on OSX. (Sorry, it may look Aqua-ish, but it's an odd duck too.)
----------------------
From the NeoOffice/J site:
No X11 software required
NeoOffice/J uses the JavaTM technology that is built into Mac OS X. By using Java, there is no need to download and install the X11 software that OpenOffice.org requires.
Integrated with Finder and Mail
The Mac OS X Finder will automatically launch NeoOffice/J and open OpenOffice.org and MicrosoftTM Office documents that you double-click on. Also the Mac OS X Mail application will open OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office attachments in NeoOffice/J.
Uses Mac OS X fonts
Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J uses the same fonts that all of your other Mac OS X applications use. This means that NeoOffice/J will handle reading and writing of Western European characters (e.g. characters with accents, umlauts, circumflexes, cedillas, etc.) and some fonts will even handle Japanese, Chinese, and Korean ideographs. Also, NeoOffice/J is able to use any fonts that you install in your Library/Fonts subfolder or the
Handles international keyboards
Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J will use an keyboard layout that you use. I routinely switch to a Spanish keyboard without a problem. Also, if you switch your keyboard layout while NeoOffice/J is running, NeoOffice/J will automatically switch as well.
Native printing support
NeoOffice/J supports printing using Mac OS X's native printing functionality. Like other Mac OS X applications, you can use NeoOffice/J to print, preview, or save a document to a PDF file.
Native copy and paste support
NeoOffice/J supports copying and pasting using Mac OS X's native clipboard so you can copy and paste text and images between NeoOffice/J and other Mac OS X applications.
You've not met a lot of Mac users, I take it...
I've tried several versions of OpenOffice.org on OSX and on other systems. My major issue with this project is that it's a complete carbon copy of MS Office. I realise that compatability with MS Office is vitally important to any success of this project, but the entire user interface does not need to be copied. The major reason that I hate using the Windows version of MS Office and earlier versions for the Mac was the god awful interface. It was far too much effort to do simple things like change the font on type size. OpenOffice.org has copied this atrocity of an interface. Frankly, the OSX vesion of MS Office is far better, and pricewise, isn't too bad for a student (3 licenses for $150). If OpenOffice.org can't come up with their own interface, they could at least copy a good one. I have fond memories of Corel WordPerfect 3.5 for MacOS. Look at that.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
I lov to rit pappers and esays in vi. Who neds splel chek anney waeys....
:-)
Best of all its already on your mac.
I am just kidding
"The problem is not that he has an opinion -- we all have opinions."
..."
Yup, opinions are like assholes; we all have them. And I'm an asshole...
"The problem is that the orginal poster was an ass..."
Show me where it says 'Thou shalt not offend'...
"...and suggested that other people spend time on his priorities."
No, I'm not personally a Mac user. They're not MY priorities.
" Since he isn't a customer he has no basis to make those demands."
Maybe not me personally, but are you SERIOUSLY going to suggest that new Mac users would like the current OO for the Mac? Come on...
"It is reasonable to say "it would be nice and useful to have an OSX version"
It would be reasonable, but it wouldn't get a fucking thing done. The squeeky wheel gets the grease.
"but stupid and childlike to say "you suck because you don't spend your time on what I want."
I never said that. What I was trying to get across was that OO developers would be better off serving Mac users by putting maximum effort into an aqua version NOW, rather than spending time on the ugly and horrid X version.
"I'm sure the OOo developers had a very good reason to finish up the 1.1.1 release instead of devoting all of their resources to the far-distant 2.0 release"
Not that I see. OO on X is bad enough that no more time should be spent on it. I say this because I have friends that ARE primarily Mac users, and they say this.
"...so unless you are willing to contribute with your own sweat and time, at the very least keep your suggestions polite."
See my earlier squeeky wheel comment. And let me suggest to YOU, Mr. Indignant, that if your're this damn easily offended, you find someplace other than Slashdot to hang out.
As to why I give a shit AT ALL what goes on with OO or any other app for the Mac, simple; I want the Mac to succeed as much as possible. When anyone is buying a new computer, I always recommend they buy a Mac now (unless they're rabid gamers), because this way I wont get called constantly about fixes for trojans and worms and spyware. Understand now? So, you can continue to look forward to my asshole opionion on this, and hell, everything else for that matter. Ain't freedom grand?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
So I went through the suggested Word processors, mostly I had tested the apps before already.... Here are the results:
.doc 337kb (the original) .doc Word 95 compatible mode 272kb .rtf 2.2mb
.doc (TextEdit does!), Does handle rtf same as TextEdit. (no images, etc..)
.docs
;)
(totally unscientific test, mostly based on personal preferences)
Testing on my wifes iBook G3 700, everything that needs three times longer than MS Word, fails (Thinkfree office, Nisus)
MS takes ~8sec launch and open a file with 21 pages, several images, some text is highligted. Header, footer and page counter. The file has been created with v.X and then tortured by MS Office 2000 on windows.
Three formats saved in Word v.X:
NeoOffice/J is disqualified. It's over 100MB, based on OO.org and using Java - no chance it can start and load a file in less than 25sec.
koffice qt/mac is pre-alpha and last time I checked it was a load of files to dl and it too quite a while to load on a Powerbook...
TextEdit: ~4 sec.
Pros: opens all pages in the DOCs and the RTF, the result is acceptable.
Cons: No headers/footers or images. No highlight in rtf and 95 compatibility mode. Original v.X save does have highlight. Core functionality.
AbiWord v2.1.1 ~12sec
Cons: RTF fails totally to open, resulting in a crash. both doc files end after the 3rd page for no reason. The toolbar is OSX unlike fixed under the menu bar... destroys the overall good look. The file opening process has no indicator and looks broken ugly until suddenly the file opens.
Pros: The opened 3 pages look good, nearly like they are supposed to look like. The icons in the toolbar look simple nice the toolbar is usable.
Nisus Writer Express: ~26sec (rtf:14sec)
cons: converts docs to rtf. no highlighting, some images are missing slightly too simplistic toolbar. rtf looks more broken than the doc>rtf conversion, all images loaded however
pros: result looks good except for the mentioned things, good use of the OS.X drawer. big plus for functional thesaurus. I would use it if it had better MS rtf/doc support.
Mellel ~6sec
uses that safari metal interface - basically TextEdit with usable interface around it.
pro: cute floating functions thingie
cons: does not open
Papyrus ~16sec (plus bugging me to replace missing fonts? whatever.)
cons: no images, Ugly toolbar. Confusing icons. Need to use menus a lot. did not open both
pros: best import of header/footer and pagecouter so far. Slightly better than TextEdit.
Thinkfree ~36sec
cons: takes too long to startup and load the file it's actually unacceptable to wait this long.
pros: loaded text looked acceptable... RTF: TextEdit quality with some images. DOC: good text import with some images and some were cut/misplaced. Windows Office like toolbar. not the prettiest interface
Vi: ~3sec
pros: opened all files.
Conclusion:
Vi loaded the fastest and opened all files. Nisus performed ok, took it's time to load docs, but I would like to highlight the interface. I really liked how they use the drawer, the thesaurus functionality was nice and I have not seen it before in any other app. It would be my personal favorite if it opened files like AbiWord did to the first three pages, the toobar might have some more icons/functions to add too... My second choice would be AbiWord (if you ignore the rtf crash), I hope future updates can fixed that cut document bug and somebody can make it more native. eg take the interface from Nisus
Everything else was not so ok... partially TextEdit was better.
Overall, I am still waiting. My bets would go on the AbiWord project.
Let's face it - MS compatibility is important. I think I will keep Nisus on the disk to play with until it expires and check out future releases of AbiWord.
As always: I'm not a developer, it's the coolest thing, people giving their time and brains to OSS projects.
;-)
;-)
Still: a major gripe:
The installation instruction page is baffling. Too many dependencies, too much stuff to be installed and set up. And what non-programming user will install developer tools?
I've dabbled with Darwin and fink just enough to know it isn't for me. In the end it was able to download and install 0 software, in countless hours of fiddling. That's when I decided I'd use my time more productively begging for binaries than re-schooling myself. You see, contrary to popular belief, most mac users aren't normally blessed with a background in UNIX/Linux
But also for organisations and companies using OS X, what's the advantage of OOo when you have to depend on such a cumbersome process?
Suddenly - when including IT hours - MS Office is cheaper or at least not that expensive. Insert CD, drag and drop Office folder in your Applications Folder, done. Oops, that seems to have cost the organisation the better part of a whole minute
ANSCD (and now something completely different):
The Gimp 2 has recently come available, and a developer has compiled an OS X binary that's just wonderful to install. Brainless one-click totally OS X standard installation process. Meaning you can install Gimp on a bunch of macs in say one hour or less? And just about anybody could do this, not just the IT guy/grrl.
And when starting up Gimp - double-click the icon, duh! - X11 is launched in the background. Meaning that although it needs an extra Windowing manager, it doesn't distract you with this. X11 is standard in OS X 10.3 (Panther) so that made it a total non-issue for me. Sweet.
Meaning: although Photoshop is still A Better Product(tm), Gimp is an OSS package that every low-budget mac user - or organisation with few graphic needs - should, can and most likely in the future WILL consider.
OOo at this moment is not. And that's solely based on the install process. Pity, no?
Two final remarks:
1) I try to keep informed about OOo and understand it's an uphill battle for the two (2????) OS X porters. Kudos to them for turning out the update.
2) It's a myth that every mac user is loaded and loves to spend tons on software. OSS is eyed very very closely by the mac community since OS X. When - if - KDE gets its native port, you'll be surprised by the amount of KOffice downloads. I didn't get the pre-alpha to run yet, but at least installing was a no-brainer.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
aw snookums... I didn't meant for you to get your panties in a bunch! Perhaps you can understand the contradiction between "They're not MY priorities." and "I want the Mac to succeed as much as possible.", but perhaps I'm giving you too much credit. No matter.
"It would be reasonable, but it wouldn't get a fucking thing done. The squeeky wheel gets the grease."
Clearly you have never managed or worked on an OSS project, because you are dead wrong. A chorus of users requesting a feature will get attention from the developers, an annoying asshole making persistant demands of our time to satisfy his needs will be ignored. When you are dealing with companies you can bitch and moan and people will listen because they are paid to. I know few people that are willing to volunteer their time to be bitched at by asshole strangers and in my experience I find they don't respond well to people like you.
"And let me suggest to YOU, Mr. Indignant, that if your're this damn easily offended, you find someplace other than Slashdot to hang out."
OT: How in the bloody fuck did you know that my real name is Mr. Indignant?!?! You CIA/FBI/NSA or what?? In any case I wasn't offended, I was just pointing out that you are an asshole... something we both seem to agree on. Please feel free to continue being an asshole, it doesn't bother me at all. Also, have a nice day.
501 Not Implemented
Perhaps it's just because I'm insane or blind, but I can't seem to find the binaries for 1.1.1 at all. I'm busy building it from source on my work machine, but if there's a binary, that would be better.
You don't need Geeksintraining if you're on Slashdot.
I just helped my cousin, who is a complete nube, buy an Ibook online last night for his first computer. It's a damn good thing AppleWorks is coming with it. I'd have hated to tell the guy "well, you know nothing about computers, so I guess you'll either have to shell out huge bucks for MS Office for Mac, or buy an XP box".
It's not pretty, but OOo for OSX is usable - and that goes for everyone. I provide tech support to a small publishing outfit, whose staff are as clueless as you can get - they need to follow written instructions to open an email attachment.
They get a lot of Word documents coming in, but didn't want to have to shell out for MS Office. So I set them up with OOo.
First impressions: bad. It's slow and ugly. It took them ages to get used to looking for the "file" menu in the document window.
But they can and do use it. I wrote them reference guides to opening and saving files, and how to make PDFs, which is basically all they needed MS Office compatibility for, and while I got quite a few support calls for the first month, now they're used to it and can't imagine why they ever even considered paying for an office suite.
Nobody - nobody - is so stupid that they can't learn to use OOo. Take it from me.
OK, well, I am a customer. I'll pay $50 for OpenOffice, but only when they have a native Aqua version.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Apple has hired about ten OOo developpers who are working undercover fulltime at Apple Inc to make a version of OOo with the GUI dear to the Mac's heart.
No delivery date was announced by the Apple guy who told me that, but I guess others could confirm.
Is when OpenOffice.org has a Cocoa version of OO.org. Any other port won't do. For Apple to build an Office Killer they know it will be written in Objective-C with AppKit/Foundation and additional APIs native specific for their Office Killer, if and when it becomes Reality.
Being a mac user means that we too exist in this open source community. I am disappointed in the fact that Open Office releases are delayed as much as they are for OSX when most other apps migrate over considerably faster. Open Office should encourage mac users to download their software, instead of making it seem like a burden for them to create updates for us.
For me, there is no point in using OOo when I cannot keep current with the rest of the linux/windows community in an app.
Just my $0.02.
-------
artlu.net
Linux iz the suxx0rz becau5e 0Oo doesn't run in Aqua mode in Mac OS X!!!!!!11111111111
I have to agree. One of the reasons the OO isn't being taken seriously by the masses as a replacement for Microsoft Office is because they spend too much time dickering with things that don't matter to the masses. Look and feel matter. Apple built a business on it. Don't force me into some inferior windowing system when I paid good money for OS X, the best GUI around. I loved OO when I had my Wintel box. Now I have a PowerBook, and I'm running Office. Not because I want to, but because OO on the Mac isn't ready for prime time yet.
World's tallest building rises in the desert
X is the standard on unix. porting to obscure window interfaces available on 1 *nix can hardly be number 1 priotity. Be glad it works at all.
I don't know what "base" quality means, but you are repeating the self-conflicting philosophy of the open source movement. If we exclude making value judgements on software we can't determine which program is better at doing a particular job, nor can we accomplish the more important task of helping society by identifying software we can share and modify. It's not a question of making decisions absent value judgements, it's a question of deciding what to value.
People are working on improving the quality of software all the time. Every subsequent version of a program is ostensibly better (on some technical ground) than what came before. But we don't have enough people actively teaching newcomers to our community about how the free software community started and why software freedom is important. If users arrived because of the wonderful features that free software offers over a proprietary alternative, they will leave just as quickly when some proprietor outcompetes our offering. What will keep the people in the free software community is to teach them about the freedoms of free software. People can't value what they are unaware of. One must learn about software freedom to "come to value" it.
Something similar can be said for purchasing athletic shoes--if we expect people to reject Nike shoes without teaching them that Nike's shoes are made by workers who receive less than a living wage (woefully inadequate wages, actually) and work under harsh conditions, we won't get what we want. We have to teach people to think about human rights when they shop. We have to teach people that they can't divorce their purchasing power from politics. It would be irrational to expect people to reject Nike shoes without information on how Nike's workers are treated.
At the same time, we have to provide competitive functional software (or, in the shoe corollary, inexpensive high-quality athletic shoes made by well-treated workers). Thankfully, in the software world, this is perhaps more easily done than making shoes because we can find people to work with who can collectively dedicate a lot of time to fixing bugs and adding features.
I don't think most people set out to make shoddy software. But I do think some people set out to make non-free software.
Digital Citizen
Actually, it's "all the more reason NOT to waste any time on an Aqua port. Please read the FAQ. It clearly states why there will not be any work done Aqua-fying the current version.