Tentative development plans for 2008

[pluby]

Now that we have worked through the initial issues resulting from Apple's Leopard release, Ed and I feel that it is a good time to post some tentative development plans for 2008.

Our immediate plans are to release a new version of NeoOffice that has the three new features discussed in this topic that we originally planned to release at the end of 2007. While the Leopard issues pushed our work on these new features back a bit, we should be able to get a NeoOffice 2.2.3 release with these features out in the first quarter of 2008. The three new features are listed below:

- Display QuickTime movies
- Display Safari plug-ins
- Display File :: Recent Documents menu when no documents are open

In addition, we will likely have a bonus feature that Ed has been working on in his spare time:

- Native grammar checker (Leopard only)

Normally, we would also upgrade to the latest OpenOffice.org version. However, since OOo seems to be in quite a bit of flux lately due to Sun's engineers work on their native Mac code as well as their preparation for the release of OOo 3.0 in late 2008, it seems safest for us to add these three new features to the existing NeoOffice 2.2.2 code.

This doesn't mean we have stopped updating to the latest OpenOffice.org code. On the contrary, after we get NeoOffice 2.2.3 out, Ed and I are planning on spending summer and fall of 2008 providing beta releases of NeoOffice 3.0 that use the OOo 3.0 beta releases.

While OOo 3.0 will have native Mac support, we will continue to use our native code as we believe that it has one huge benefit to users: our code has been in constant use by hundreds of thousands of users. The OOo 3.0 will likely have some advantages over our code in certain cases. Nevertheless, we believe that it is too risky to abondon the NeoOffice code in 2008 and so we will continue to support it until such time as the OOo 3.0 proves to be as stable as our code.

Patrick

[aussie149]

Thanks Patrick. Another reason why we enjoy using NeoOffice and support this forum: we are so well informed from "the source". You and Ed keep up the good work, but don't forget to have a great break over Xmas and New Year

All the best to you both and to your loved ones
Peter

[ovvldc]

Just for the record: there will be no releases based on OOo 2.3 or 2.4 for NeoOffice. We jump straight to the 3.0 goodness.

Enjoy your holiday .

Best wishes,
Oscar

[OPENSTEP]

Yes, that is correct. We are presently not planning any releases based around 2.3 and the forthcoming 2.4. It is our opinion that 2.3 is still not terribly stabilized, as we think was evidenced by the very quick release of the 2.3.1 maintenance release. Both Patrick and I place a high value on reliability and stability above feature creep and versionitis.

Right now we'll continue focusing on implementing our new features in a stable OOo version, backporting relevant OOo and ooo-build bug fixes and security patches to OOo 2.2, and move into 3.0 for our next OOo core version. That said, we are working on extending Neo 2.2.2 with grammar checking and QuickTime video in the upcoming months, and perhaps other features as well.

ed

[Samwise]

[OPENSTEP]

Just a small addendum: I've also been working on adding direct import of images from image capture supported devices without needed to use the Image Capture application. This includes digital cameras and some scanners and should help overcome the limitations of the built-in OOo twain system.

ed

[aussie149]

Well done, Ed. It's perhaps a relatively minor annoyance, that the feature is in there in programs like MS Word but not in Neo, but it would be nice to have it. Hope you are successful!

Peter

[OPENSTEP]

Thus far I've verified IC via an iPhone. I own an Epson FW scanner so hope to verify that the IC scanner drivers work within the next week, but I already know it works with other IC devices.

ed

[OPENSTEP]

Of course, stay tuned for any EA or test patch releases of this code to verify with your own IC device. In the meantime, to test if your scanner is supported use "Applications > Image Capture" to test. If you camera or scanner is available to that application, the new feature should support it. The interface within Neo will be very similar to that shown by the "Download Some" option of Image Capture.app. If your scanner or camera does not appear in that Apple system utility application, it won't be supported and you'll still need to use third-party software to import your images into Neo documents.

I'm currently investigating whether we can make this feature available to 10.3 users, but it should be available for 10.4 and 10.5 users. Some OS features used may not have been available until 10.4.

ed

[pluby]

FYI. A test patch is now available that implements movie and scanner support. More details are in this forum topic.

Patrick

[ovvldc]

FWIW, the new chart module that will be in the next OpenOffice and later in the next official NeoOffice release is coming along nicely. See this GullFOSS post for some pretty examples.

Now let's hope they work out the kinks that were in the last version .

[jgd]

Very nice…

The equation of trend lines will be specially welcome.
Many pages in NeoWiki will need serious updating

Jacqueline

[OPENSTEP]

Nice Each new major/minor component replacement or addition always seems to need one or two iterations to work out the kinks. Same goes for us.

The chart module won't be available in the next immediate Neo release; we won't be adding the new chart until we move to 3.0. Still, I'd say feel free to update any pages to reflect solutions for OOo in general and once we update we can get rid of the legacy stuff

ed

[pluby]

So now that the QuickTime movie support and the Image Capture support are well into testing, I wanted to give an update of what the plans are.

Next week - I will put out the (hopefully) last patch for NeoOffice 2.2.2. That patch will include the Image Capture scanner and camera support but not the QuickTime movie support.

Next month - In the first half of March, we will release NeoOffice 2.2.3. This release will still be based on OpenOffice.org 2.2.1 so we will not have an Early Access Program for it. Basically, the release will be NeoOffice 2.2.2 plus all patches plus the following new features:

- Display QuickTime movies
- Display File :: Recent Documents and other menus when no documents are open
- Native grammar checker (Leopard only)

Please note that we have dropped Safari plugin support from the list as after looking at the OpenOffice.org code, it became very apparent very little of the QuickTime code that we developed can be reused for displaying Safari plugins in a document and we would rather use our very limited development time to start work on preparing for the NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access Program this summer.

Patrick

[Samwise]

Great! I'm looking forward to this release (and NeoOffice 3.0)

BTW, how good is the Leopard grammar checker in general?