Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 8:04 am Post subject: Aqua menu patch available for testing
Ed cranked out a lot of code in the last week and, as a result, we now have Aqua menus working in Neo/J! Since this is a major change (and the first step in the long process of Aquafying Neo/J), we need help testing this code.
It may be buggy and it may either crash or hang Neo/J. But if you would like to test the new Aqua menus, you can download "Patch-3-Aqua-Menus" from here:
I hope everyone likes the new menus. Also, special thanks go to Ed. He did all of the work to make this happen and I couldn't have done this work without him.
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 8:59 am Post subject:
One slightly jarring behaviour is that the menus disappear while loading a new document and only reappear once it has finished loading (you'll need a document that is relatively slow to load to see this, a simple blank new document may not do it in a detectable manner). Other than that, no problems initially. _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:03 am Post subject:
pluby wrote:
JKT wrote:
Just installed and, dare I say, initially it feels really, really weird after their having been in the window for all this time!
I get the same feeling. It feels like something is missing without the windows-like menu items at the top of each window.
I think it proves that if you stare at something strange enough times, it starts to look normal.
Patrick
The dilemma becomes - what if I find I preferred it the old way? Do I need to start using Windows again and give up my Mac?
It's funny, but I reckon this single change will make OOo/NOJ so much more acceptable to the Mac using community. It immediately makes the app so much more Mac-like, even with the horribly non-aqua interface for the rest of the app. _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
It's funny, but I reckon this single change will make OOo/NOJ so much more acceptable to the Mac using community. It immediately makes the app so much more Mac-like, even with the horribly non-aqua interface for the rest of the app.
The cool thing is that menus are probably the most difficult piece to Aquafy. If we can get menus to work well, then adding Aqua buttons, scrollbars, etc. is much easier. It will still take a lot of time, but at least it is now a workable goal.
One slightly jarring behaviour is that the menus disappear while loading a new document and only reappear once it has finished loading (you'll need a document that is relatively slow to load to see this, a simple blank new document may not do it in a detectable manner). Other than that, no problems initially.
This behavior is normal. It is due to OOo's code clearing and then recreating the menubar when a new document is opened. Since the clearing occurs at early in the document loading process and the recreation occurs late in the loading process, you get this time where there are no available menus.
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:35 am Post subject:
I imagined it would be normal (i.e. menus disappearing), but it still feels a little odd to see it happen...
Having been away from my Mac for a half hour or so and then coming back, the aqua menus now look normal to me, so it wasn't a long lasting effect, thankfully! _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 434 Location: London, UK
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 9:47 am Post subject:
Probably way to soon to be asking this, and it is by no means a top priority in any sense whatsoever, but what are the chances of your being able to rejig the location of some of the menu items to make them more Mac-like (specifically the Options menu, which I would love to see moved to the application's menu and renamed Preferences)? Is that ever going to be possible or is it something far too difficult to achieve? _________________ PBG4, 1.5GHz, SuperDrive, 1GB RAM, 128MB VRAM, 5400rpm 80GB HD, MacOS X 10.4.5
Probably way to soon to be asking this, and it is by no means a top priority in any sense whatsoever, but what are the chances of your being able to rejig the location of some of the menu items to make them more Mac-like (specifically the Options menu, which I would love to see moved to the application's menu and renamed Preferences)? Is that ever going to be possible or is it something far too difficult to achieve?
Unfortunately, moving things around is a whole new level of complexity as it is controlled by each application module in the OOo code. So, don't expect that kind of change anytime in the near future.
As well as the aqua version's 'no menu items while doc is loading' that was mentioned above, I've noticed that if I move a window while the doc is loading, it just dumps it back where it started from before drawing the doc. It starts by drawing the empty window in the the remembered window position, but then the remembered window position must be getting loaded a second time just before the contents is drawn.
I never tried this with previous versions, so I don't know if this is a new 'feature' or not. ;)
Otherwise, switching between the aqua and non-aqua menus versions of patch 3, both seem to behave very well - though it does seem to me that complex spreadsheets are loading/saving slower than they were in previous versions, i.e. patch 2 and earlier. It's so hard to tell, when things get cached and so on.
Oh, and with the aqua menus version, I can no longer close all docs but keep NeoJ open as an app - sob... I'll have to make do with remembering to keep an empty doc open and hide the app instead - this feels like a step back, somehow, as most OSX apps will happily stay loaded with no docs open. What does anyone else feel about this?
- yoxi _________________ If it's brokenless, don't suffix it...
A fantastic addition - and in my limited use since applying the aqua-menu patch it's not caused me any grief. I agree that it was a little strange at first to not see the window menus, but it makes a big difference in the way the application feels.
Yoxi - I am still able to keep the application open with document windows closed. I used the cmd-w keyboard combo to close the open document, but the application stays open in the same way that it did before. That is to say, it does keep an empty place-keeping window open (grey background) which is different than most applications, but it works.
As well as the aqua version's 'no menu items while doc is loading' that was mentioned above, I've noticed that if I move a window while the doc is loading, it just dumps it back where it started from before drawing the doc. It starts by drawing the empty window in the the remembered window position, but then the remembered window position must be getting loaded a second time just before the contents is drawn.
I never tried this with previous versions, so I don't know if this is a new 'feature' or not.
That behavior is not new. That is just OOo's "open in last saved position" code kicking in.
yoxi wrote:
Oh, and with the aqua menus version, I can no longer close all docs but keep NeoJ open as an app - sob... I'll have to make do with remembering to keep an empty doc open and hide the app instead - this feels like a step back, somehow, as most OSX apps will happily stay loaded with no docs open. What does anyone else feel about this?
That feature is still there. Just select File -> Close.
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 10:45 am Post subject: Re: Menu Patch
gldfshkpr wrote:
Downloaded and installed the Menu Patch and I get nothing diffrerent when I run NeoJ. I have the latest patches. Any ideas?
Did you download the patch from the main Neo/J download site? If so, you got the non-Aqua menu patch. I didn't feel that the Aqua menus were fully tested so I only have links to the non-Aqua menus patch on the main download site.
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