Native floating palette support

[pluby]

Up until now, due to limitations in Apple's Java, floating palette windows in NeoOffice looked and behaved the same as document windows.

Or the last few days, Ed and I finally found a way to bypass Java's limitations and we can now display floating palette windows natively. This means that when you display a palette window like the Styles and Formatting or Color windows, the window will have the smaller native titlebar and the palette windows will always float above the document windows. Also, when you switch to another application, the palette windows will be hidden until NeoOffice becomes the active application again.

You can test the native palette support by installing the following test patch:

PowerPC:
http://sally.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.3-Patch-2-Test-6-PowerPC.dmg

Intel:
http://sally.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.3-Patch-2-Test-6-Intel.dmg

Patrick

[thepoch]

I've hit a weird "bug" here that I'm not really sure I can describe clearly. Basically, I've gotten the "Styles and Formatting" palette to snap into a window without dragging it.

I opened NeoOffice, which by default shows a Writer window. Then I opened the "Styles and Formatting" palette to test things out. All was well. Then I opened another Writer window and Cmd-` to see if cycling through windows works well. The "Styles and Formatting" palette was in such a position (upper right corner of the document area) that it snapped into place in the first window.

I can't repeat it so far, but would just like to note that it did happen somehow. I'm trying to get it to happen again, but have been unsuccessful the past 15 minutes.

[sardisson]

Can we bottle you guys up and sell you for millions as "genius water" or something?

This is so cool!

Smokey

[thepoch]

I've so far made NeoOffice crash consistently. What I'm unsure of is if this is the result of this latest patch.

1. Open NeoOffice
2. With the blank document, open the following 2 toolbars via "View" --> "Toolbars":
- Bullets and Numbering
- Table
3. Open a new Text Document "File" --> "New" --> "Text Document".
4. The 2 toolbars won't be showing up on the new document.
5. Cmd-` back to the other document.
6. Beachball and crash.

Anyone else seeing this?

Running Mac OS X 10.5.2 completely updated with all software updates.

[Edit: Bugzilla link]

I've opened a ticket for this:

http://bugzilla.neooffice.org/bug.php?op=show&bugid=3045&pos=1

[sardisson]

Patrick, is this 10.4 and above only? I don't see that in your post, but I also don't see floating palettes with the patch on 10.3.9

Smokey

[amayze]

This is great!! What an improvement, but is it possible to stop the palettes taking the focus from the main window when you click on them?

e.g. in iWeb if you are typing in a text area and click on buttons in the Text palette there is no need to click back in the text area to keep typing as the main window has not lost focus.

If this were possible it would also fix the problem of the correct pointer being displayed e.g. when using the text colour palette.

Then again maybe iWeb breaks Apple's guidelines for palettes - they wrote it after-all!!

Oh, just had bit more of a play with iWeb and NeoOffice. Doing what I suggest above would stop you using the keyboard to select items on the palette and iWeb does take the cursor out of the main window if you click on a text box in the palette.

Maybe not such a good idea then.

Sorry about the ramble.

Andy.

[pluby]

FYI. I have fixed the following bugs found in the previous test patch and I have posted a new test patch:

- Some toolbar windows (such as the Bullets and Numbering and the Table toolbars were not displaying as native palette windows and, instead, were still displayed using OpenOffice.org's Windows-like titlebar.
- In certain cases, when switching between document windows some of the native palette windows would automatically dock themselves.
- Crashing was occurring with certain toolbar windows displayed as described in bug 3045.

You can download the new test patch from the following URLs:

PowerPC:
http://sally.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.3-Patch-2-Test-7-PowerPC.dmg

Intel:
http://sally.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.3-Patch-2-Test-7-Intel.dmg

Patrick

[djpimley]

[pluby]

Correction: there was a typo in the code changes that I made in the last test patch. This typo disabled the hiding of the empty OpenOffice.org window when all document windows are closed. I located the typo and have spun a new test patch. So if you downloaded Test-7, please download the new test patch.

You can download the new test patch from the following URLs:

PowerPC:
http://sally.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.3-Patch-2-Test-8-PowerPC.dmg

Intel:
http://sally.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.3-Patch-2-Test-8-Intel.dmg

Patrick

[kberg]

8 works here!

[flix]

This is what I have been waiting for! I tested the tool very briefly, it seems to work as described.
Only the docking behaviour is a bit uncomfortable. E.g. in Impress I found that the "Folienbereich" and "Aufgabenbereich" tool windows (should be something like "Pages" and "Tasks" in english) can only be docked to the right side and the top of the main screen. This is even more problematic with the "pages" tool in draw.

[pluby]

I can dock those windows without a problem. Docking is triggered by the position of the mouse when you are dragging the window so does docking work when you drag the window and position the mouse just a couple pixels to the left of the window's right edge?

Patrick

[flix]

You are right, it does work. I was a bit impatient with the program on my first try.
Docking works if I position my tool windows close to a border and wait a few seconds until the grey border appears in the main window.
I am using a 2.1 GHz MacBook, 2GB RAM, OS X 10.4.11, so the slow reaction should not be due to my system.

[pluby]

I will take a closer look at this as I noticed that if I drag the mouse to quickly and stop moving just over the scrollbar on the window's right edge, nothing happens until I drag the window a few more pixels. So, it seems that a window moved event is getting missed.

Patrick

[pluby]