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NeoOffice/J 1.1 Finally In Beta
VValdo writes "Hot on the heels of yesterday's vigorous debate re OpenOffice.org for OS X, the 1.1 beta of NeoOffice/J is now available. Based on Oo.o 1.1.3, improvements include native Mac menus, scroll wheel support, text drag-and-drop, smaller PDFs, new icons, localization for 40 languages, automatic update notification, and much more. No X11 server required!"
The standard GUI API for POSIX-type systems is X11. You can get X11 for OS X (since 10.3 it's been bundled with it, before that it was available from a variety of sources), and OpenOffice.org will run natively on the Mac with X11.
OpenOffice.org was originally StarOffice, and written at a time when the only systems running what today is the Mac GUI were obscure NeXT workstations that hadn't been made in five years, and very small number of "whitebox" systems running NEXTSTEP or OPENSTEP. Most people had pretty much written off the platform as dying, if not dead. Virtually all POSIX systems came with X11, either having that as their native GUI or as a back-up if you needed it.
Additionally, Java was an obscure in-house project at Sun designed to control washing machines in a language that owed more to mainstream programming dynamics and with more modern features than FORTH. Certainly, if you were writing a "cross platform" application, supporting X11 for POSIX systems and Win32 for Microsoft systems, seemed reasonable.
OpenOffice.org is a legacy system. It's easy to claim it should have been done in Java to begin with, but the fact is, it wasn't, it came out at around the same time as HotJava (most people's first exposure to the Java system), and it's not as if Java was "right out of the box" to begin with. Just ask Corel.
It's also easy to claim that the underlying GUI wrappers should have been more modular and better designed. That I'd agree with, but knowing the culture in the mid-nineties, it doesn't surprise me, indeed it surprises me they went to the extent that they did.
A rewrite might be in order, but bear in mind that a rewrite is just that - throwing the code away and starting afresh. There's no difference between a rewrite and an entirely new project, especially in the FOSS worlds where it's easy to grab code from other projects to do whatever it is you want done.
Right now, OpenOffice.org is probably the most full featured office suite available in the FOSS worlds. It needs some work to make it also the most comfortable platform, but the solution may lie in others.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Not to downplay the great achievement of Mac-ifying OOO, it is by far the best MS Office alternative for OS X yet. The only thing that keeps me from deleting the only remaining MS software on my HD is that my work (a publishing house) actually requires me to open and save in MS Word 5.1 for Macintosh format. Am I the only one who misses this? Has that format been reverse-engineered yet?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe not everyone has the skills, or even (gasp!) the desire, to be a computer programmer?
Of course it did. But those people without the skills or desire should not complain about the *FREE* software.
There are many things people could contribute, however. Beta testing. Documentation. Money. Resources. Bandwidth. Artwork. Not every aspect of open source is the code...
Beggars shouldn't be picky.
It is one thing to complain about a product you have PAID FOR. Other than that, understand - THESE GUYS ARE MAKING STUFF FOR YOU - FOR FREE! Please stop saying their stuff is no good when they are improving it every day... It takes time and effort, and they have lives and stuff too...
Maybe I am being a little harsh. I even find myself thinking, MAN, when will the Adium team release that patch they have been talking about... Then I realize, oh geez! It's thanksgiving... Maybe they are eating with their family... Maybe I should just wait a few weeks.
We all want the Mac to have the best and greatest stuff. Me too. But at least if you have criticism, make it constructive and try and help how ever you can. Not just "The interface sucks". That helps no one.