Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:13 am Post subject: Correction: NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 3 replaced with Patch 4
Unfortunately, shortly after Patch 3 was released on Monday, two of our volunteer testers found that our the support for Mac Services menu that was added in Patch 3 was still disabled for some users. This problem was found to only occur on Mac OS X 10.5.5 Leopard machines and no problem exists on Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger or 10.3.x Panther machines.
We found that on these machines, Apple's Java code was causing this problem by responding to Services menu events. As a result, our new code never gets invoked.
Although this problem does not cause any harm (it only disables a new feature), the problem has already been fixed so we have released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 4 with the fix.
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:23 pm Post subject: NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 5 released
Since we released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 4 more than a month ago, we have been busily fixing any significant bugs reported by users. To ensure that NeoOffice users have the most stable code available, we have combined all of the latest bug fixes with the fixes in previous NeoOffice patches and we have released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 5.
This patch also provides a way for MacBook users to disable trackpad gestures with NeoOffice. Many users have reported that their MacBook laptop's trackpad is too sensitve and that causes NeoOffice documents to zoom in and out unexpectedly. While Mac OS X does not provide any way to reduce trackpad sensitivity, users can stop unexpected zooming by disabling all trackpad magnify and swipe gestures in NeoOffice using the steps listed in the following NeoWiki article:
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in this patch:
3038 - Writer crashes when trying to play sound from the Gallery
3294 - Print dialog options grayed out
3305 - Radio and checkboxes remain enabled when application is not active
3306 - NeoOffice ignores the "Jump to Here" setting in the System Preferences application
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in Bugzilla so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 8:43 am Post subject: NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 6 released
Since we released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 5 nearly two weeks ago, two users have reported that running QuickTime movies in their documents only play sound and do not show any video. We have fixed this bug and we have released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 6.
If you experience problems playing QuickTime movies in NeoOffice, we recommend that you install NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 6. NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 6 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may stillhave some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in Bugzilla so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:50 am Post subject: NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 7 released
Since we released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 6 nearly six weeks ago, we have been spending most of our time fixing bugs in our NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access 2 release. When we have fixed bugs in that release, we have also integrated the fix into NeoOffice 2.2.5 and so we have released all of these integrated fixes in NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 7.
NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 7 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in this patch:
3356 - Quit while document is minimized does not display dialog
3398 - Crash when Help window is displayed from Find and Replace dialog
3400 - Crash when pasting table copied from Microsoft Word
None - Grammar checker fails for some files when Entire Document menu is selected
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in Bugzilla so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:18 am Post subject: NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 8 released
Since we released NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 7 nearly seven weeks ago, we have been spending most of our time fixing bugs in our NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access 2 release. When we have fixed bugs in that release, we have also integrated the fix into NeoOffice 2.2.5 and so we have released all of these integrated fixes in NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 8.
NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 8 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in this patch:
3416 - Second monitor not detected when connected
3425 - Occasional deadlocks in menu update
3428 - Deadlock when opening document with control characters in name
3429 - Stopping printer causes crash
3431 - Patch installer hangs when installing on Snow Leopard
3432 - Key combination Command-Shift-F10 does not dock windows
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
NeoOffice 3.0 includes nearly all of the features in OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 and includes many of the most commonly used features in Microsoft Office. The only OpenOffice.org feature that is missing from NeoOffice 3.0 is Mac OS X Universal Access support. Unfortunately, we have not been able integrate OpenOffice.org's Universal Access code into NeoOffice so if you need Universal Access support, we recommend that you use OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Office, or Apple iWork.
Since OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 has many changes to existing features and does not support Mac OS X 10.3.x, we will continue to provide NeoOffice 2.2.5 to all users from the following URL:
Below is a list of some of the Mac OS X features requested by our users that are in NeoOffice 3.0 but are not in OpenOffice.org 3.0.1:
* Mac OS X Services support
* Media Browser support
* Native floating tool windows
* Magnify and swipe trackpad gestures
* Menus available when no documents are open
* Import images from scanners and cameras
* Command-clicking on window titlebar
* Mac OS X Leopard grammar checking support (Mac OS X 10.5.x only)
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:11 pm Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 1 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 9 released
Since we released NeoOffice 3.0 two weeks ago, we have been spending most of our time fixing any critical bugs reported by our users. We have fixed those bugs and we have included those fixes in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 1.
Also, because many of the bugs found in NeoOffice 3.0 also existed in NeoOffice 2.2.5, we integrated the matching NeoOffice 3.0 bug fix into NeoOffice 2.2.5 and we have included all of these integrated fixes in NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 9.
NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 1 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in both patches:
3425 - Occasional deadlocks in menu update
3435 - .xls file causes crash when opened on PowerPC
3438 - Carriage returns are copied instead of newlines
3443 - Drawing artifacts remain when dragging tabs in rulers
3444 - NeoOffice fails to launch on Snow Leopard
3446 - Font ascent sometimes returns zero
Below is a list of the bugs that only occurred on NeoOffice 3.0 and are only in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 1:
3436 - No contrast on check and list boxes in form
3437 - Cannot unhide rows in spreadsheet
3439 - Base crashes after creating report
3440 - Percentages in Calc cells are treated as zero
3441 - EPS images larger in slideshow than in edit mode
3442 - Improper kerning when exporting to PDF
3445 - File :: Send :: Document as E-mail always uses Apple Mail
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 9:19 am Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 2 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 10 released
Since we released NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 1 nearly three weeks ago, we have been spending most of our time fixing any critical bugs reported by our users. We have fixed those bugs and we have included those fixes in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 2.
Also, because many of the bugs found in NeoOffice 3.0 also existed in NeoOffice 2.2.5, we integrated the matching NeoOffice 3.0 bug fix into NeoOffice 2.2.5 and we have included all of these integrated fixes in NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 10.
NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 2 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that only occurred on NeoOffice 3.0 and are only in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 2:
3447 - Incorrect layout when pasting hidden rows or columns from NeoOffice Calc into Microsoft Word 2004
3448 - PDF export of rotated text is distorted
3449 - Crash when copying table and saving to a .doc file
3451 - Hangs when pasting text into Base SQL window
3452 - Hangs when selecting a choice form control
3454 - Crashes when opening a .doc file with certain form controls
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in both patches:
3450 - Crash when dragging Finder document while window is opening
3453 - Command key ignored when released at same time as mouse button
3455 - Crashes in certain cases when a NeoOffice is updating the system clipboard
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 8:29 am Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 3 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 11 released
Since we released the last NeoOffice 3.0 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 patches over a month ago, we have continued to fix any critical bugs reported by our users. We have fixed those bugs and we have included those fixes in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 3 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 11.
While many of the bugs reported our users since the last patches were released were found to be bugs in Sun Microsystems' OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 or Novell's Go-oo code, stability is very important to us and so we try to fix any crashing or hanging regardless of whose code causes the bug.
In addition, in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 3 we added the following significant speed improvements:
Below is a list of the bugs that only occurred in NeoOffice 3.0 and are only in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 3:
3462 - Cannot dock slide pane in Impress
3463 - Crashes when opening .doc file
3464 - Slide handout always prints 6 slides per page in Impress
3475 - Extension update check fails on PowerPC machines
3477 - Form controls are clipped out completely when printing
3484 - Export as PDF of spreadsheets embedded in Writer documents are stretched
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in both patches:
3461 - After Impress slide pane is undocked, menus are blank
3467 - Spinning beach ball pointer frequently appears when accessing menus
3481 - Export as PDF creates incorrect output
3485 - Excessive CPU usage when quitting
3486 - Transparent pixels in pasted images are shown as black pixels
3487 - Thonburi font kerning errors on Mac OS X 10.5
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:13 am Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 4 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 12 released
Although we released the last NeoOffice patches only a week and a half ago, in that short time we have fixed several critical bugs and we have improved menu display speed. We did not want to hold back these bug fixes and speed improvements so we have released NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 4 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 12.
While we had made some menu display speed improvements in the last patches, many users with older Mac machines did not see much speed improvement. So we spent a lot of time since the last patch was released working on NeoOffice's Mac OS X menu handling code. As a result of this work, we were able to regain the lost speed without causing the critical crashing bugs to reappear.
NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 4 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that only occurred in NeoOffice 3.0 and only so the fix is only in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 4:
3488 - NeoOffice crashes after pressing Command-Z keys
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in both patches:
3489 - Cropped EPS image does not appear in slide show
3491 - Cannot keep focus in Media Browser when Java 1.4 is used
3467 - Spinning beach ball pointer frequently appears when accessing menus
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 8:57 am Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 5 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 13 released
Although we released the last NeoOffice patches only a week ago, bug 3494 was found by our volunteer testers shortly after the patches. This bug, which is a side effect of the fix for bug 3478, causes odd glyph kerning behavior with some fonts.
While we wish that we could have found this bug before the last patches were released, we want to reiterate one very important risk that users of free software assume: users are the testers.
While NeoOffice is free, there is no big corporation funding it and it is funded entirely by the time and money donated by its users. What this means is that hundreds of thousands of NeoOffice users are relying on a single full time programmer and a handful of part time volunteers to do all bug fixing and testing.
While our small team of volunteers do an amazing job of answering support questions and testing, such a tiny group is not going to be able to thoroughly test all features in a very large, complex application like NeoOffice after each bug fix. Since our existing donation levels preclude hiring any staff, we have attempted to mitigate our limited testing by releasing patches frequently so that if any big issues occur in one patch, a fix is available very soon after the issue is reported by users.
NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 5 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that only occurred in NeoOffice 3.0 so the fix is only in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 5:
3493 - Cursor jumps when Delete key is pressed
3496 - Command-arrow key does not move to end or beginning of line
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in both patches:
3492 - Base crashes when using Mac OS X address book
3494 - Problem with user defined date modification in Calc
3497 - Some information in a .doc file not displayed
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:14 am Post subject: NeoOffice service level cutbacks
I have bad news to report: due to very low donation levels this year, we must make severe cutbacks in the services that we provide users. In the past few years, users donated enough each month for us to provide the following:
- Rapid, thorough responses to any user support questions even if they have never donated to NeoOffice
- Rapid fixes for any crashing bugs that users find even if it the bug is caused by OpenOffice.org or Go-oo code
- Free downloads for hundreds of thousands of users each month
Although we have always operated on a very tiny budget, these three services do require money. The first two services require full time staffing so money is needed to pay Fran and I a small salary and health care. The last service also requires money to pay for servers and the huge amount of bandwidth that our users use.
Unfortunately, few users donate anymore and neither Ed, Fran, nor I have the ability to work and fund large bandwidth bills without any donations. So, we must significantly reduce our costs to match the steep decline in donations from our users.
Of course, if donations rise in the future, we can look at reversing the cutbacks. However, with the current economic situation in most countries, we do not expect donations to rise this year.
How these cutbacks will affect users
While we have been able to use donations saved from past years to avoid cutbacks in the first half of 2009, the drop in donations this year has quickly used up any surplus from prior years so, in order for us to make ends meet, users will see the following changes:
1. Fran and I will only answer support questions from large donors
Many users may not realize that handling all of the user support questions and investigating the many NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org bug reports that we receive is a full time, seven-day-a-week job. In addition to this work, Fran and I spend many hours doing the maintenance that is required to keep our website, forums, and NeoWiki running, backed up, and prepared for failover.
Since Fran and I must start to devote significant hours each week finding consulting work to pay our personal expenses and since we cannot immediately reduce our server maintenance work, users that donate little or nothing must absorb our reduced service.
What we will do is continue to answer NeoOffice and NeoOffice Mobile questions from our large donors. We will also investigate any crashing or hanging bugs that users have verified do not occur in OpenOffice.org. A small number of large donors - donors that donate enough to be Early Access Program Members - are now paying more than 50% of our costs so we believe that if we have to ration our resources, large donors deserve our attention as they have been subsidizing most of the cost of our services for the 99.9% of users that donate little or nothing.
If you have donated a large amount in the past year and you see no "donation stars" next to your name when you are logged into Trinity, we recommend that you ensure that you have linked your Trinity account to your donations by clicking on the Profile link at the top of this page and filling in the Donation Preferences section.
2. Users that donate little or nothing should expect very little support
Since Fran and I will only have enough time to respond to support requests from large donors and, realistically, the number of NeoOffice support volunteers is too small to replace the hours Fran and I spend on NeoOffice, users that donate little or nothing should be prepared to find answers to their questions themselves.
I am confident that if a user has a question that someone else has asked before, they will find the answer if they devote some time searching for it. While this site may not have the answer, NeoOffice is based on OpenOffice.org so searching for the same question for OpenOffice.org will significantly increase the chances of finding an answer.
3. Downloads may become restricted if we lose more mirrors
Mirroring NeoOffice is expensive. The bandwidth costs for each mirror are, at a minimum, a few hundred dollars per month for each mirror site. Because many of our mirrors are non-profit organizations and they have needed to make cutbacks in their own organizations, we have lost several mirrors so far this year including two in the last week alone.
Losing mirrors increases the bandwidth costs for both us and our remaining mirrorsk. Although we are still able to cover our bandwidth costs, if we lose several more mirrors or our bandwidth costs become more than our donations can cover, we may be forced to reduce bandwidth usage by limiting downloads to only donors.
What has caused these cutbacks
Unfortunately, since the economic crises that started in last fall, we have seen the amount of donations dropped significantly each month while the number of downloads and new user support postings have not dropped. While we do not like having to cutback our services, even after Fran and I made significant reductions in our already small salaries, donations are not covering our operating costs.
Furthermore, the bandwidth costs for the hundreds of thousands of free downloads each month has already caused us to lose two mirrors this month. Since the downloads are not slowing down, bandwidth costs for us and the other remaining mirrors is increasing.
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:16 am Post subject: NeoOffice Early Access Program starts 15 September 2009
We are pleased to announce that the NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access Program will start on 15 September 2009. We estimate that it will last 6 weeks and will end on 27 October 2009.
In June, we announced that NeoOffice has been forced to significantly reduce support levels for non-donors. Many NeoOffice users responded to our announcement and have generously donated to the NeoOffice.org project. In addition, three websites have donated their unused bandwidth and setup NeoOffice mirrors.
We are very grateful for the support that our NeoOffice donors and mirrors have shown for the work we do. While we still must limit the support services that we provide for non-donors, the donations that we received since our announcement has made a huge difference and will ensure that we can continue to provide new features and high quality and rapid support for our donors.
With the recent generosity of donors, we are able to start the NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access Program on 15 September 2009. More importantly, the donations that we have received recently will allow Fran and I to dedicate 100% of our work time answering any support requests posted and investigating any bugs found by NeoOffice Early Access Program members over the entire NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access Program.
Starting on 15 September 2009, NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access Program members will be able to download either of the following two releases:
- NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access
- NeoOffice 2.2.6 Early Access
NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access will include all of the features in NeoOffice 3.0 plus the following new features:
Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:37 am Post subject: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 6 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 14 released
Although we are preparing for next month's NeoOffice 3.0.1 Early Access Program, we still have been busily fixing any significant bugs reported by users. We have fixed those bugs and we have included those fixes in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 6 and NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 14.
In addition to fixing the critical crashing or hanging bugs that our users have found in NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code, in these patches we have added the following new feature: the ability to change the default document type that is opened when launching NeoOffice.
Until now, NeoOffice would open a new Writer document when launched. With this new feature, users can configure NeoOffice to open a new Calc or Impress document or no document at all instead of a Writer document. Details on how to configure NeoOffice to use this new feature are in this NeoWiki article.
NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 6 can be downloaded from the following URL:
Below is a list of the bugs that only occurred in NeoOffice 3.0 so the fix is only in NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 6:
3500 - Crash when opening a certain .doc file
3501 - Sun Presentation Minimizer crashes NeoOffice
3503 - Update check dialog window appears twice when starting with the "-nodefault" launch option
3505 - RTF files with MacRoman encoding cannot be read properly
Below is a list of the bugs that we fixed in both patches:
3502 - PDF export does not work with some fonts on Snow Leopard
3504 - Chinese text input gets lost when using the ITABC input method
3506 - Mozilla address books cause very high CPU usage
If you have any support questions, please visit the NeoWiki or post a question in the NeoOffice Support forum:
Since NeoOffice is tested by the NeoOffice user community, it may still have some undiscovered bugs that may cause NeoOffice to crash. So please post any bugs that you find in the NeoOffice Support forum so that we can continue to improve NeoOffice:
Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:43 pm Post subject: Correction: NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 6 replaced with Patch 7
Unfortunately, shortly after NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 6 was released yesterday, two users found that the patch installer would never finish installing. From the log messages that the two users posted, we determined that the updated version of the Sun Microsystems Presentation Minimizer extension that we bundled with Patch 6 was preventing the installer from finishing.
Although this problem does not cause any harm (force quitting the patch installer only disables the Sun Microsystems Presentation Minimizer extension), the problem has already been fixed so we have released NeoOffice 3.0 Patch 7 with the fix.
We found that this extension would cause the patch installer to not finish because the Sun Microsystems Presentation Minimizer extension requires the user to read the extension's open source license and confirm that they agree with the license. However, since users have already accepted NeoOffice's GPL license in a previous patch installer panel, Patch 6 suppressed the display of the the extension's license but, in some cases, the our method for suppressing display of the license failed.
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