One of the announcements at the current OO.oCon is the decision to build a Cocoa-based version of OpenOffice.org 2.x for Mac OS X. This is a step forward compared to the current X11-based port and the Neo/J Office which is not up-to-date. No timeframe estimation was given for the completion of the project.
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Member since:I wonder how some developers do it. First they deliver the work, then the users cream, THAT SUCKS ITS UGLY. So the developer works on a better looking version, but (in this case) the underlying technology changes. So the developers say, we will wait until the next release so we wont have to do the work twice. To which the user say, YOU SUCK, I WANT THAT NOW. The developer dose just as he said and somehow the users still aren’t happy, you know what, DAMN USERS.
Member since:2005-08-29
It's not only ugly.
a) Neo-Office is DOG slow on a 1.2 ghz machine. It makes me want to buy a windows machine. Try opening a 200 pages document (like a book) and it's really unusable. Like 50x slower than MS-word when repaginating.
b) OpenOffice 2.0 is *much* faster on the same machine. Yet running in X11 brings some real usability problems:
The menus are not in the right place (for OSX), the shortcuts are non-standard (for OSX), you have to use other fonts than you get in other apps and so on.
Windows users don't have to suffer those problems, why should mac users?
On the whole the X11 version just feels bad. I can use it, and I do use it but a native OSX version will really make it good. Now I guess if the X11 implementation itself was better integrated (like it is in KDE or Gnome) you wouldn't need a native version that badly.
Member since:spoken like somebody who doesn't use a mac on a regular basis.
Native mac applications have a certain amount of functionality and system integration that users expect to have available to them. Things like drag and drop support along with .Mac, iLife (this is one reason why iWork is particularily nice), address book, etc. integration are not currently available in the X11 version of OO.o. Also, native quartz rendering would make a dramatic impovement in the visual appearance.
While it's nice to have an app following the interface guidelines, it's not just a pretty interface that mac users care about.
Member since:
2005-06-29
It's pathetic isn't it? Cause they can run it just fine, it's just not "pretty." It's pretty stinkin easy, you just install it with fink after installing Apple's X11 (the xfree one is terrible, it doesn't integrate at all). And you should have both of those anyway (I don't know how anyone can live without x11).