pssh - once you mention the 'p' word, it's downhill all the way, eh? Maybe this forum should be NC-17? ;)
Actually, if a really buggy, crashable version of software is alpha, and a still buggy version is beta, doesn't that make the release version gamma? No, it doesn't. So...
Why bow to an inconsistent convention? You could mess with the software community's collective head: keep releasing e.g. NeoOffice 1.1 gamma, delta, epsilon - or you could just jump straight ahead to NeoOffice mu and then you can stay there forever, smiling enigmatically and not justifying anything to anyone... sabbe satta sukhi hontu!
Or you could really freak us all out by changing the name to AgentSmithOffice... or SpoonBoyOffice ("There is no bug...")?
- yoxi _________________ If it's brokenless, don't suffix it...
This topic has been very entertaining and made me laugh a few items.
Anyway, I have been thinking about the original question and since the number of new bugs being filed is very low (much lower than Neo/J 0.8.x ever had) and the first Aqua menus patch is out, I think that a beta release in the near future is something that I can do.
So, here is stuff that I have on my list that I think needs to be done before a beta release can go out. Once I and Ed get these done (and I finish a contracting gig later this month), I will spin a beta release:
1. Add Fridrich's Strba's WordPerfect filter patch to the Neo/J code.
2. Optimized the text rendering when saving files to PDF.
3. Fix any Aqua menu bugs and any other important bugs that get filed in Bugzilla
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 11:43 am Post subject: Things to add
I have been following the recent development with exitement, but from an outside position. I am still on a modem, and do not have the time to make large downloads unless really necessary. I am currently using the X 11 OOo 1.1.2 with the font rendering patches applied and I am very happy with it, in spite of the limitations the X11 environment has.
What I use often is 'drag and drop' in OOo X11 and I feel this is an essential function missing in the Neo/J effort. If I have read the release noticies right, this is still to implemented. I would rise this to top priority, rather than Aquafied buttons and overall appearence. I would like to have the application completely functional before the cosmetics.
Keep up the good work! I am amazed at how fast the latest improvements have come, punch by punch! You have all my admiration!
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 4:40 pm Post subject: Re: Things to add
Fredrik Stendahl wrote:
What I use often is 'drag and drop' in OOo X11 and I feel this is an essential function missing in the Neo/J effort. If I have read the release noticies right, this is still to implemented. I would rise this to top priority, rather than Aquafied buttons and overall appearence. I would like to have the application completely functional before the cosmetics.
He's got a point. But I loved the new menus when I just tried them . Fixing this drag and drop feature would probably also help Louis convince the OO.org stalwarts on the dev mailing list to support NeoOffice/J and bring new people to the effort. Looking forward to the other 3 improvements as well.
I will add drag-and-drop to my list. Most likely, Ed will work on adding buttons, etc. (when he has time, of course) so there is not much I can do there so doing drag-and-drop shouldn't be a problem.
Most likely I will implement drag-and-drop within Neo/J only for the beta release. This cover 90% of OOo's drag-and-drop support in only a fraction of the time of adding drag-and-support between applications.
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:17 am Post subject: Link to OpenOffice.org?
Patrick and Ed, maybe it would be a good idea to have some sort of announcement in the OpenOffice.org page for that version whenever you feel like releasing it. For what it's worth, it might even be good enough to be considered like a native version of OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X, even though it really uses Java.
My opinion is that such a move would do 2 things: a) expose the advanced state of this port, so that it could gain mindshare (and maybe a few developpers!) and b) give you more leverage with the structural decisions, API modifications or additions that OpenOffice.org have to make for version 2.0.
In any case, I would like to know what you think for sure!
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:29 am Post subject: Re: Link to OpenOffice.org?
Boukman wrote:
Patrick and Ed, maybe it would be a good idea to have some sort of announcement in the OpenOffice.org page for that version whenever you feel like releasing it. For what it's worth, it might even be good enough to be considered like a native version of OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X, even though it really uses Java.
Take a look at the following dev@porting.openoffice.org posting and its responses and you will get an idea of why I don't waste much time dealing with trying to put Neo/J announcements, etc. in OOo:
That was quite a long read, however I now see that there are a few differences of opinion on the OOo mailing list. However, most of them seem to come from misunderstanding more than anything else. I believe your latest posts on the mailing lists cleared up a lot of things for many, but I guess there should be a "relations officer" to help smooth things out between the two projects.
I have another question though. Please forgive my ignorance if it doesn't make sense, but I am not a developper. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Java code could be compiled to machine code (not bytecode) using gcc or something. Could this be done for Neo/J or is it impossible to link the different parts together this way? I guess that could speed up Neo/J quite a lot, and you could then rightfully call it a "native" port.
Thanks for your time and for the wonderful work you are doing!
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 1:23 am Post subject:
Anonymous wrote:
Could this be done for Neo/J or is it impossible to link the different parts together this way? I guess that could speed up Neo/J quite a lot, and you could then rightfully call it a "native" port.
Well, the speed issues aren't really Neo/J's fault. OOo itself is a dog to begin with
While tools like gcj can compile native code, the performance gains in actuality are minimal depending on the efficiency of the JIT in the virtual machine. The JIT actually dynamically generates machine instructions for Java code...kind of like a compile on the fly.
The problem for us, though, is that there is no option on Mac OS X aside from Apple's virtual machine. While there may be functional versions of gcj and the like, what makes Neo/J work isn't the Java language itself (only about 1% of Neo/J is in Java...see my postings to the dev@porting thread referenced above) but rather the libraries that come with the virtual machine like Java 2D for drawing and AWT for menus. Those are actually already "native" in the Apple VM in the sense that Java 2D is really Quartz and AWT is really Carbon. Regardless, Apple doesn't provide the Java source code for their VM, so even if we could recompile the code for Neo/J we still couldn't compile the Apple libraries...
Not sure if that gets at your question or not, but the short answer is "probably not"
Joined: Jul 01, 2004 Posts: 45 Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 2:46 pm Post subject: Return of the native
... and there I was thinking all these open source folks got on well together...
naive? moi?javascript:emoticon('')
I'm a new mac switcher, but I'm happier with the neo/j duck-a-like that quacks than fearful X11 (two evenings of my life sucked away) which fits in with the fossil record in the OOO family tree but only croaks. And that's without even the native menu patch (which I will risk this weekend).
I think I grasp some of the implications of the various paths to OS X native enlightenment and understand why X11 work is vital, but to build momentum of OOO on the mac there needs to be something which will work outside X11.
Like Robinson Crusoe, for me a native is what's there on the island when I arrive, not a visitor from a neighbouring atoll. I suspect a lot of other people think the same way and can't tell if there's carbon in their cocoa.
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:35 pm Post subject: Re: Return of the native
MrGruff wrote:
Like Robinson Crusoe, for me a native is what's there on the island when I arrive, not a visitor from a neighbouring atoll. I suspect a lot of other people think the same way and can't tell if there's carbon in their cocoa.
In addition to your new analogy and Oscar's duck one, I think the next time someone goes "postal" we might try likening OOo/Mac (X11) to running a DOS app under Win95. The Windows folks among them might actually get it then
Do you think it is possible to use the QT 3 framework as they do in Linux to be able to have Mac OS X look and feel for the windows ?
Implementing the QT 3 framework would be a huge amount of effort. Probably just about as much as it took to implement Java.
Patrick
Sorry for bringing this thread further and further off-topic, but it looks like the KDE folks have started to do this (implement the QT 3 framework in OOo) already. http://kde.openoffice.org/ooo-qt/index.html They are targetting the 2.0 release (680 code base) for their modifications. Do you think that in the long-term, this could help you to make a native Mac OS X port in any way? Could you use this plus the experience you have gained with Neo/J and to bring the whole thing further?
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 9:51 pm Post subject:
FWIW, the KDE approach is akin to the native widget framework approach. The code for font handling, printing, and the like will still be the X11 code; it's not all going to be replaced with pure Qt from my understanding of the project. It's most likely that their work will still have X11 dependencies and thus not be too helpful...
Getting all of those crucial "last mile" kind of platform integration things have proven to take months and years of work to get right. I think even the KOffice Mac OS X guys are finding that one too. Since Patrick's done such an amazing job on addressing them already I'm not sure if the Qt work for OOo will be any more beneficial then just implementing the rest of the NWF for NeoJ
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