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Aqua OpenOffice.org v2.0 Cancelled

Posted by michael on from the learn-to-like-X-like-everyone-else dept.

Ant writes "According to MacSlash's story, a recent post on OpenOffice.org said no Mac OS X work has been done since 2003 and that there are no longer any plans for an Aqua version 'due to various licensing, political, and fundamental engineering difficulties'. :("

6 of 689 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What's the downside to using X11? by Zelet · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, I run OO under X11 on OS X - but it is as ugly as it is on Linux. Which is pretty damned ugly and slow.

    --
    ...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
  2. So? Use Neooffice by mr100percent · · Score: 5, Informative
    Neooffice is coming along nicely, it's finally in Beta. It's got an Aqua interface, Openoffice core, and doesn't require X11.

  3. Re:What's the downside to using X11? by JayDiggity · · Score: 5, Informative

    Functionally, there is little difference except that is certainly slower than running it natively. Where the big problem lies is that Mac users (and I'm one of them) expect coherence and integration in their UI. A Mac version of OpenOffice that runs using X11 will not provide this.
    Also, think of anyone who's switched over from Windows with a sour taste in their mouth - they want to avoid Microsoft at all costs, including MS Office. They've heard great things about OpenOffice, but when they go to try it, it's slow and kludgy. Not a very good impression at all.

  4. Re:What's the downside to using X11? by Dr_LHA · · Score: 5, Informative

    It just doesn't work very well. It's interface runs slowly (on my 1Ghz G4 Powerbook) and it doesn't fit in well with the rest of the operating system. Also the Powerpoint clone doesn't actually work properly as I was unable to get it to run the slideshow full screen, which makes it effectively useless for anything other than composing presentations.

    I use OpenOffice all the time on Linux, but for my Mac I went out and bought MS Office as I needed Office software. OpenOffice on X11 just doesn't work well enough for it to be any use.

  5. there's always Ragtime solo.. by Wire3117 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.ragtime-online.com/ it beats Openoffice hands down. just my ,02

  6. Re:What's the downside to using X11? by Yaztromo · · Score: 5, Informative
    Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't OS X include an X11 server?

    Ignorance forgiven :).

    Mac OS X Panther (10.3) does indeed come with an X11 server. However, there are two caveats to this:

    • It isn't installed by default, so if the user didn't select it for installation, it won't be on their system,
    • Apple doesn't include the X11 server on systems with OS X preloaded (which is all of them). (It is included on the CDs/DVDs you get with the system, however),
    • Installation of X11 after OS X is installed typically requires the user to reboot their system with their OS X install disc, and then install the X11 support atop their existing OS X installation.

    Not a major problem for power users who need X11 support (this was virtually the first thing I did when I took posession of my first PowerBook last year), but hardly something you can expect your average user to do.

    Is there any major drawback to running OpenOffice as an X11 application rather than a native one?

    Yes, there are multitudes of such problems, including:

    • Unlike every other OS X application, OOo has an in-frame menu bar, and doesn't use the system menu bar (perhaps worse, as X11 does provide a menu bar, you wind up with two menu bars that have some duplication -- for example, both the X11 server and OOo's frame have an "Edit" menu, which can be confusing to a user),
    • The installation and program launching routine isn't terribly user friendly,
    • Apple's excellent font subsystem isn't integrated into OOo, thus you don't get good anti-aliases text,
    • No Aqua look and feel -- everything in it looks quite a bit different from every other application. No nice Aqua scroll bars, for example. Or list boxes. Or other standard controls.
    • No desktop integration. The icon in the title bar can't be dragged (in most OS X apps, the icon in the title bar actually represents the document or data being worked on, and you can drag and drop it as if it were the applications icon in the finder, allowing you to do stuff such as e-mail a document by dragging it's title bar icon and droppinng it into the Mail applications icon in the Dock), no text drag-and-drop with the rest of the system, can't use any of the Mac OS X services (like summarization, or text-to-speech), etc.
    • Doesn't even use the standard OS X mouse pointers. Even the plain old black arrow pointer is different as soon as you mouse over OOo,
    • Doesn't use the standard OS X printing subsystem controls (which is too bad, as the standard OS X print dialog makes it easy to print, fax, or save to PDF all within a single dialog),
    • In fact, all of the dialogs are non-standard. File load/save dialogs are another area where this is readily apparant.

    That's just a sampling of issues off the top of my head.

    The one thing they did at least do was to integrate OOo with OS X's clipboard support directly, making cut and paste between applications work as expected. But that appears to be the extent of OS X support.

    I'm rather disappointed in the attitude of OOo in this regard, because OS X really should have a native port of OpenOffice. The only way OpenOffice can take on Microsoft is to not only build a better office suite, but to make sure it's available virtually everywhere in versions that integrate well with whatever operating system it's being used on.

    Anyone other than me remember when StarOffice's target operating system was IBM's OS/2?

    Yaz.