Tentative development plans for 2008

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Two updates:

1. A test patch is now available that displays the File :: Recent and several other menus when all document windows are closed in NeoOffice. More details are in this forum topic.

2. Unfortunately, NeoOffice 2.2.3 will only have video support for machines running Mac OS X 10.4.x and higher. Sadly, due to conflicts between Apple's QuickTime and Java code on Mac OS X 10.3.9, we will only be able to support audio on machines running Mac OS X 10.3.9. More details are in this post.

Patrick

OPENSTEP · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 11:15 pm Post subject:

Grammarcheck is still in development; there's support for check entire document vs. selection. The next step is to pass locale of the text, although 10.5 only supports English at this time. The locale stuff is important for skipping unsupported text in mixed language documents.

ed

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

FYI. The development work for NeoOffice 2.2.3 is now done and so we have set a release date. On Monday, 17 March 2008, NeoOffice 2.2.3 will be available for download to all users from the NeoOffice download page.

On the same date, we RetroOffice 2.2.3 will be available for download to all users from the RetroOffice download page.

Edit: corrected typo in date.

Patrick

rpatrick · Councilperson Joined: Aug 29, 2007 Posts: 108

Great news. Thanks for your hard work, there are many thousand of us who appreciate it endlessly.

Not that the exact release date matters a huge amount atm, but my calendar reckons the 18th March is in fact a Tuesday?

Exclamation

Richard

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

rg8766 · Blue Pill Joined: Mar 24, 2008 Posts: 1

Hello,
Thank you for developing Neooffice, which is much better and smoother running than OpenOffice and its great not to have to start X11 each time.

I was just wondering if you had considered porting the NeoOffice code to the iPhone/iPod touch now that the SDK is released?

They are both missing the killer application they need (ie a portable spreadsheet/wordprocessor) to make them meaningful portable computers rather than just gadgets/toys. They don't even have a programmable calculator function.

Neooffice could be the killer application that gives you a spreadsheet in your pocket Smile

Thanks for all your hard work.

ovvldc · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:02 pm Post subject:

No offense, but the iPhone doesn't really have a lot of screen real estate to work with. In my humble opinion, the current NeoOffice interface would murder the amount of space for the actual documents.

That means a new interface would need to be constructed, and refactoring the interface in the OpenOffice.org codebase is a very heavy task. I doubt that Ed and Patrick have the resources for this.

Also, NeoOffice might be a bit heavy in terms of memory and cycles for an iPhone. Apple's iWork might be better suited overall, and be more easily ported if you want to turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a PDA.

Best wishes,
Oscar

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Samwise · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:09 pm Post subject:

Neither iWork nor NeoOffice are suitable applications to be ported to the iPhone. Refactoring the interface is not possible, it needs to be re-written (no Java, X11, or full-blown Cocoa on the iPhone).

An application that can open ODF and/or MS Office documents for the iPhone is feasible, but aside from the import/export filters and maybe a few other things, pretty much everything will have to be written from scratch.

I see Patrick beat me to it BTW.

OPENSTEP · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:51 pm Post subject:

I think even Pocket Word/Pocket Excel are complete different applications and obviously don't support all of the fonts, dictionaries, and other functionality of their desktop counterparts. Most of the things on mobile devices I've seen have either been rendering only (at which point it's not full rendering, at that...) or maybe mediocre rendering and basic editing.

That said, there's really no way to move a full desktop app onto a mobile device. The exception really are "mobile" devices that really are just full desktops (e.g. OQO).

Right now on the iPhone I think the best bet is probably Google Docs. I don't know if it works in mobile safari, however, but if it doesn't I would expect it to soon Smile

ed

jakeOSX · Ninja Joined: Aug 12, 2003 Posts: 1373

as i said before, you don't want neooffice on your iphone.

you want a basic ODT editor. if it is called 'neooffice moble' it helps with brand recognition, but that is neither here nor there.

i had started looking into this by trying the perl libraries for ODT which are well established and turning that into an AJAX program. the problem was getting the perl scripts to run on the iphone, and then my own limiations on CPAN (i am good with normal libraries, it is that 'installing' thing that i get hung up on)

on your phone you need to be able to read and maybe make minor edits to a doc on the fly.

what would be nice is if apple would let adobe or java on the iphone. an adobe air version of google docs would be the way to go. (or similar tech, obviously)

OPENSTEP · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject:

Oh I'm not discounting the idea of working on an ODT editor or little impress deliverer at all...if I ever play with things (if I have spare time!) they certainly won't be a full port of OOo or Neo Smile

It'll be interesting to see exactly how much of Cocoa is full-featured as, in theory, the ODT text rendering may already be supported.

ed