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At Long Last, NeoOffice/J 1.1 Released
VValdo writes "After nearly five years of development, NeoOffice/J has made it to its first stable release. NeoOffice/J 1.1 is a Mac OS X-integrated office suite based on OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 that includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing applications. Key Macintosh features include a standard Mac OS X installer, a native Aqua menu bar, use of the native printing system, full clipboard support, drag-and-drop, Mac "command" key shortcuts, mouse scrolling, integration with major Mac email clients and native support for Mac fonts. The full announcement is here."
Apple go and change the architecture they're running on :D
J stands for Java.
I'll keep my client running today. Will you? http://play.aelitis.com/torrents/NeoOfficeJ-1.1.dm g.torrent
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I have begun to think that most, if not all, free software applications ought to be written in Java or a reasonable facsimile. Ideally, a common language and runtime that all free software could target would be available that would allow immediate porting to take place.
To some extent we have this now with Linux as a standard OS, but even with it there is a lack of common binary compatibility. Java takes care of that such that the same binary application on one platform works on another, only relying on the base runtime to be ported.
How much quicker could we have had NeoOffice on MacOS if it were written in an easily-ported language like Java?
Are there any plans for such a common language runtime to which applications can target themselves in the free software ecosystem?
Before anyone complains about the lack of Aqua widgets and the continuing Windows 95-like appearance of the program, from experience that's probably the last remaining area to be completed.
Everything else is great, and infinitely superior to the old port of OpenOffice.org to the Mac's X11 - for instance, copy-and-paste works fully (styled text is no problem whatsoever); file associations work correctly; native printing, fonts, anti-aliased line art are just fine. Even more recent, esoteric stuff like Spotlight searches are fine - when I installed Tiger, all my documents got neatly indexed without me lifting a finger.
It's in an application bundle, it stores its settings in ~/Library/ - apart from those grey, rectangular buttons and controls, it's a complete, modern Mac application.
Honestly, don't judge it on first appearances or screenshots (I've found numerous Mac 'ports' of software which seem to concentrate too much on cosmetics rather than functionality) - it's truly wonderful. For anyone looking for a free office suite on their Mac, here it is!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
a working link
See pictures of tits
NeoOffice isn't the one.
and that quite possibly
there is no server.
So, once upon a time there was a NeoOffice/C which used the C bindings, but for some reason it was very difficult to develop. The authors then abandoned it and used the Java bindings instead, producing NeoOffice/J. This was only feasible because OpenOffice makes heavy use of Java internally.
(One minor point of confusion for me: The NeoOffice FAQ claims that NeoOffice/C used the Cocoa API, but I thought that was only for Objective C and Java. I thought for pure C you had to go with the Carbon API.)
This 800x600 screenshot should survive a slashdot throttling.
Just as with C++, regular C code can be used in an Objective C program, but still be treated the same, so you can us C with Cocoa.
I have used the last release candidate to do "real" work on personal projects. That is, I actually tried to get things done with it rather than just clicking around to see how "Mac" it is. I have both MS Office X and NeoOffice/J installed. Office X is used for school work, where I cannot take a chance of my professors not being able to read a document.
1) In the early releases NeoOffice/J was sluggish. There were rendering delays with first word typed, pull-down menus, and switching tools, among other things. I am pleased to say that the interface speed has increased through the release candidate schedule. That said, you will find there are still delays here and there that may bother you. They bothered me until I used Office X again. That product has UI delays as well, just in different places. At this point I think it is a wash.
2) Stability (e.g. random crashes) was an issue on the earlier releases. These have been largely successfully addressed. In fact, when using the last RC to get work done I did not experience any crashes. Very nice.
3) The UI is somewhat confusing, since it departs from some of the standard metaphors we usually see in office software. The primary example is the tight coupling of the different suite functions. Those that are used to using one application for spreadsheets and another for presentations will need to aclimate to a monolithic application. This is not a big change per se; it just takes some getting used to. There are other minor departures, such as the lack of aqua widgets and different locations of buttons and menu items. Once I got used to these differences, I found the product usable for my project work.
All that being said, I have decided to do all my personal project work in NeoOffice/J. Why? The data I generate in my personal projects is valuable to me personally. I would like to maximize the chances of being able to read it in the distant future. Since the Open Office file format is completely open and documented, I believe that the OO.org file format has the greatest chance of being read 15-20 years from now. If there is not any software in 15-20 years that can read the format, then due to the open licensing on the format I could write/hire someone to write a program to read the documents. Try doing that with some archaic closed format. I will deal with quirks today to enable access to the my data tomorrow.
-LLM
Annoy a Conservative...
For that reason alone (and the price), I recommend NeoOffice. I've been using it as my sole office application for some time now with no problems.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
I've been using NeoOffice/J on my Macs for a couple of years now. (I have a rather dated review here.) Without a doubt, it's my favourite office suite for OSX.
What's really amazing is that almost all of the coding work is done by Patrick Luby (pluby) with a fairly small group of very dedicated testers and contributors. Despite the complexity of the code and the magnitude of the task, Patrick and the rest of his small team of volutneers has managed to release the only viable alternateive to MS Office for Mac OSX.
I have been installing NeoOffice/J on lab machines at work for over a year now. NO/J 1.1 is a significant improvement over the earlier versions. It now integrates with the menubar, opens and closes like a Mac app, and even uses OSX's keyboard shortcuts. Heck, they even managed to integrate it with SpotLight!
For everyone out there using a Mac, be sure to check it out. Also, if you like the program don't forget to donate. Even $50 is much appreciated. Think of it, an entire office suite on your platform of choice with perfect interoperability with Linux, Windows and Solaris. And it's Open Source. Surely that's worth a donation.
Over time, it appeared that NeoOffice/J was developing faster, and it would be easier to get it to a usable state than the OpenOffice OS X port, so the OpenOffice OS X port was abandoned. NeoOffice/J is the `official' OS X version of OpenOffice. Additionally, the NeoOffice/J people will be handling the official port of OpenOffice 2.0 to OS X.
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