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NeoOffice :: View topic - Concerns about OO 1.1.2 preview release
Concerns about OO 1.1.2 preview release
 
   NeoOffice Forum Index -> OpenOffice.org X11 Testing
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jimlaurent
Captain


Joined: Jun 23, 2003
Posts: 55

PostPosted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 1:08 pm    Post subject: Concerns about OO 1.1.2 preview release

I have a few concerns about the recently posted OOO 1.1 PR 1 and 2 that have appeared.

There appears to be no mention of them on the OO or trinity web site. They simply appeared magically (in two different locations no less). This not only causes confusion among the users (even us experienced beta testers) but introduces a fear of trojan horses and splintering of the various Mac versions of OO.

I suggest that the main page of ooo.org as well as trinity have some comments about the stability, bug reporting, change history of these releases to instill a bit of confidence.

Although I've been a staunch supporter of Neo/J within Sun I'm obviously interested in anything that gets us closer to StarOffice 7 capabilities on the Mac platform (even if it requires X11.) The Sun alias of mac-users has much discussion of this topic and some definitive answers would be helpful.

In a perfect world my priorities would be:

OO 1.1 for Aqua
OO 1.1 Neo/J using JVM 1.4.x release
OO 1.1 X11
OO 1.0 Neo/J 0.8.2

That said, I have downloaded it and find the performance to be blazing fast even on my measley 400 MHz iMac. It starts up in less than 30 seconds.

I found a few interesting problems that I'd like tips or corrections for:

1. In OO 1.0.3 and Neo/J after the first launch, if you zoom the window, OO remembers the window size on the next launch.

2. OO 1.1PR2 open to blank window (not a text document) forcing the user to choose File: New before starting to work. Can you (or is there an option) make a blank text document the default.

3. Command keys seem to be gone again. I though OO 1.0.3 fixed this. Neo/J obviously does.


Thanks to all who work on these projects.
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Terry Teague
Guest





PostPosted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 12:17 am    Post subject: Re: Concerns about OO 1.1.2 preview release

jimlaurent wrote:
I have a few concerns about the recently posted OOO 1.1 PR 1 and 2 that have appeared.

There appears to be no mention of them on the OO or trinity web site. They simply appeared magically (in two different locations no less). This not only causes confusion among the users (even us experienced beta testers) but introduces a fear of trojan horses and splintering of the various Mac versions of OO.

I suggest that the main page of ooo.org as well as trinity have some comments about the stability, bug reporting, change history of these releases to instill a bit of confidence.

I understand your concerns.

I think the issue is there is no formal Mac "team" with defined roles for the team's members, and any centralized communication - what you have is a (small) collection of individual volunteers with differing agendas and schedules.

Anyone is free to build and release open source software, according to the license. There are upsides and downsides to the open source model.

The Tech Previews are just that, and use at your own risk, with little support. But the 5 sec review is these are stable releases, safe to use for daily work.

While a number of different volunteers work(ed) on the Mac OS X version of OpenOffice.org, I believe it was Ed's excellent work in releasing a version of OpenOffice.org v1.0.3 that made that particular release something that you could call an official GM release.

I have no reason to believe that Ed won't come through again soon with an official release of OpenOffice.org v1.1.2(rc).

At that time, I expect we will be able to make appropriate announcements and provide the kind of release notes etc you are asking for.

I think the short answer is that the official OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X web page has information about what is considered to be an official release, and anything else you read/download elsewhere has to be treated appropriately (this is no different from any "beta" product). If you need to have an "insiders" view, there are mailing lists that you can sign up for. Getting directly involved also helps.

Specifically, Ed's v1.0.3GM release came with MD5 checksums, which can help allay fears about viruses and trojan horses. I expect an official v1.1.2 release to do the same.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Terry
[getting back to working on stuff for the release]
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OPENSTEP
The One
The One


Joined: May 25, 2003
Posts: 4752
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

PostPosted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 9:12 pm    Post subject:

Terry -- thanks for taking the time to write such a verbose answer. Really, the lack of info on the tech previews here or on the webpage is, well, the tech previews are Kevin's thing. Kevin's been doing all of the installers and writing his own launchers and what have you...and all the power to him. He's the porting lead Smile Funny though...this post is actually the first I've even heard that he did actually go ahead and release his "tech preview 2". Last I knew I thought he was going to wait a week or two for an updated IA installer. Since he moved to 1.1.2 I've had to scrap my 1.1.1 build and patches...I never got an answer from anyone indicating that we had a build done in a controlled environment. I hope it isn't my mail server being hacked by the same assclowns that hack trinity Sad

ed
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Kevin Hendricks
Guest





PostPosted: Sun May 02, 2004 7:30 am    Post subject: Regarding Tech Preview builds

Hi,

Regarding the Tech Preview builds I make and release. As Terry said, they are not final official releases. Ed, Dan and Terry will create any final or official releases.

These releases are meant to do a couple of things

1. get OOo 1.1.X into the hands of some early users to get back bug reports that will help (so far it has turned out to be very very stable with few MacOSX specific bugs)

2. a learning vehicle for me to understand desktop integration
on MacOSX and the Apple Installer so that I can start to make
releases for the 680 series of builds.

3. something I use myself everyday and support for friends and relatives
who use MacOSX on their home machines and are trying OOo for the first time under my urging

4. a vehicle to force patches and changes into the main tree so that separate CVS trees for MacOSX are a thing of the past (hopefully).

5. Provide a working example so that others can create their own MacOSX Apple installer versions (not everyone seemed to be able to use IA installer) and using IA created a release bottleneck since really only 1 or 2 persons could use it.

6. Keep interest in the port alive and atract new developers / porters and builders (which is my mandate as Co-Lead of the Porting Project).

Hopefully, these releases have accomplished all of these things. They were not meant to step on Ed's or Dan's or Terry's toes but instead to help open up the process, get people excited, and moving forward.

Kevin


ps. Tech Preview 3 is now posted and available! It enables drag and drop install of MacOSX fonts via fondu (ala Start_OpenOffice.org), a nice CocoaDilaog progress bar during first time startup, and use of Apple-Key to Control mapping for those addicted to MacOSX key shortcuts.

http://macosxrc.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/ooomisc/MacOSXrc/
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Kevin Hendricks
Guest





PostPosted: Sun May 02, 2004 8:27 am    Post subject: some answers

Hi,

> I found a few interesting problems that I'd like tips or corrections for:

> 1. In OO 1.0.3 and Neo/J after the first launch, if you zoom the window,
> OO remembers the window size on the next launch.

I tried this and it seemed to work for me. I set Zoom to Variable and set it for 125% and then exited and started up again and my zoom stayed at 125%. There are also Tools->Options settings to determine the default zoom if you want a particular setting.


> 2. OO 1.1PR2 open to blank window (not a text document) forcing the
> user to choose File: New before starting to work. Can you (or is there
> an option) make a blank text document the default.

This is a "feature" of OOo 1.1.X since many users complained they wanted a spreadsheet or a draw app or an impress app and did not want a blank writer document hanging around. So you can't please everyone.

Some workarounds:
- double clicking on a .sxw file will start things up in Writer mode

- create a Writer document template and start OOo by double-clicking on that to start up swriter

- drag and drop a doucment of the type you want on the Begin_OOorg app to launch

- actually edit Begin_OOorg.app Applescript to change the default to be swriter and not soffice.

- create your own Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, HTML apps (I am thinking of doing that anyway to let you launch what you want any time you want)

- you may want to upgrade to the latest Start_OpenOffice.org.app and ask Terry for a preference setting that will allow the user to control that.
Begin_OOorg is very simple and virtually stateless (i.e. it is not set up to handle preferences). Start_OpenOffice.org is much more full fledged, and has preference settings and keeps its state which is needed for this type of issue.

> 3. Command keys seem to be gone again. I though OO 1.0.3 fixed this.
> Neo/J obviously does.

I think I have fixed this in Preview 3 BUT please note, the Apple X11.app has a preferences setting that determines if the Meta-Key sequence goes to X11.app itself (Apple-C so that X11.app copies something) or to the Application running inside of X11 (i.e. OpenOffice.org). So unless you have your preferences set correctly in Tech Preview 3 X11.app will steal the Meta key sequences and it will appear not to work in OOo

Kevin
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jimlaurent
Captain


Joined: Jun 23, 2003
Posts: 55

PostPosted: Sun May 02, 2004 6:47 pm    Post subject: Re: some answers

Kevin Hendricks wrote:
Hi,

> I found a few interesting problems that I'd like tips or corrections for:

> 1. In OO 1.0.3 and Neo/J after the first launch, if you zoom the window,
> OO remembers the window size on the next launch.

I tried this and it seemed to work for me. I set Zoom to Variable and set it for 125% and then exited and started up again and my zoom stayed at 125%. There are also Tools->Options settings to determine the default zoom if you want a particular setting.


Kevin


By "zoom" I meant clicking the little green jelly bean on the title bar to zoom the window to full screen. I prefer OO to start every time with a fully zoomed windows.

Thanks for the other tips. I am downloading PR 3 now.
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Terry Teague
Guest





PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2004 2:46 am    Post subject: Re: some answers

Kevin Hendricks wrote:
Jim Laurent wrote:
> 2. OO 1.1PR2 open to blank window (not a text document) forcing the
> user to choose File: New before starting to work. Can you (or is there
> an option) make a blank text document the default.

This is a "feature" of OOo 1.1.X since many users complained they wanted a spreadsheet or a draw app or an impress app and did not want a blank writer document hanging around. So you can't please everyone.

- you may want to upgrade to the latest Start_OpenOffice.org.app and ask Terry for a preference setting that will allow the user to control that.
Begin_OOorg is very simple and virtually stateless (i.e. it is not set up to handle preferences). Start_OpenOffice.org is much more full fledged, and has preference settings and keeps its state which is needed for this type of issue.

The current "Start OpenOffice.org" does allow this option, but it requires modification of AppleScript source (included), which is not ideal for most people. It wouldn't be too hard to add a preference setting to control this, but that feature probably won't make it into the next version of "Start OpenOffice.org", as the user interface is frozen for localization. Maybe the version after that.

Regards, Terry
[author of "Start OpenOffice.org"]
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jakeOSX
Ninja
Ninja


Joined: Aug 12, 2003
Posts: 1373

PostPosted: Mon May 03, 2004 9:03 am    Post subject:

I have already put together a set of blank templates as a sorta 'launcher'. i made it for Neo/J, however, you should be able to use them with StartOO.o as well, opening the program into the desired program. I bascially put the folder onto my dock and use that to launch Neo/J instead of the app icon.

here is the links (so far):

http://neo-downloads.sixthcrusade.com/neoofficeshortcuts_en.zip

http://neo-downloads.sixthcrusade.com/neoofficeshortcuts_de.zip

(i'll add this stuff to the wiki shortly)

-jacob
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Alan Charlesworth
Guest





PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2004 1:01 pm    Post subject: Concerns about OO 1.1.2 preview release

Happy with OOo 1.1.2 preview release

Thank you _very_ much for posting these previews. We at Sun who use Macs are very happy to finally be able to run a current release of OOo.

I don't know how much effort you saved by supporting only Panther and Apple's X11, but as far as I am personally concerned, that is an OK restriction.

When there is a tradeoff between staying current with OOo and supportng old Mac OS X releases, I would choose staying current without hesitation.
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Kevin Horton
Guest





PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 4:16 pm    Post subject: OOo 1.1.2 preview installer issue

I downloaded OOo_Tech_Preview3.pkg.tar.gz from http://macosxrc.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/ooomisc/MacOSXrc/. However, the Installer would't install it. It produced the message "OOo_Tech_Preview3 cannot be installed on this computer. 17".

Digging into the installer package, and looking at the InstallationCheck script and the InstallationCheck.strings file, it seems that the installer was looking for /Applications/Utilities/X11.app, which I had foolish moved somewhere else.

I've got two recommendations to improve the installer:

1. Fix it so it actually presents the message that is in the InstallationCheck.strings file, rather than just reporting an error number (17 in this case).

2. Change the error message relating to X11 to recognize that some users may have X11 (or Darwin) installed, but may have moved them. I suggest "This build of OpenOffice.org cannot be installed, requires Apple X11 1.0 or XDarwin or later. X11 or XDarwin must be in the default locations of /Applications/Utilities/X11 or /Applications/XDarwin".

It would also be useful if the Readme provided a clue as to how to run OO 1.1.2 after ssh'ing in from another machine. My ancient Tangerine iBook is desparately short of disk space, but I often use it as to run X apps that are installed on my G4. Can anyone provide a hint about how to run OO after ssh'ing in?

Thanks for all the great work,

Kevin Horton
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Kevin Horton
Guest





PostPosted: Thu May 13, 2004 7:14 pm    Post subject: Starting OO after ssh'ing in from another machine

Kevin Horton wrote:
It would also be useful if the Readme provided a clue as to how to run OO 1.1.2 after ssh'ing in from another machine. My ancient Tangerine iBook is desperately short of disk space, but I often use it as to run X apps that are installed on my G4. Can anyone provide a hint about how to run OO after ssh'ing in?


Bad form to reply to my own post, but I sorted out how to run OO after ssh'ing in. The really embarrassing part is that all I had to do was to actually look at the alias I had set up to start OO 1.1.1 - I just made a small tweak of the path.

For the record, just in case someone else is interested, I created an alias in my shell startup scripts:

Code:
alias oo='/Applications/Unix/OpenOffice.org1.1.2/program/soffice'


Of course the path in that alias will vary depending on where you installed OpenOffice.
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Kevin Hendricks
Guest





PostPosted: Sat May 15, 2004 7:33 am    Post subject: Re: OOo 1.1.2 preview installer issue

Hi,

> 1. Fix it so it actually presents the message
> that is in the InstallationCheck.strings file

Thanks, done now, The first line of English.lproj/InstallationCheck.strings was missing a ";" at the end so the 17 error message was never found

> X11 or XDarwin must be in the default locations of /Applications/
> Utilities/X11 or /Applications/XDarwin".

Not needed. The newest version will use "locate" to find X11.app if you have moved it (ditto for XDarwin.app) so will will Begin_OOorg.app
so if you have it, InstallationCheck will find it.

> It would also be useful if the Readme provided a clue as to how to
> run OO 1.1.2 after ssh'ing in from another machine.

Yes, I can add a note specifically targeted for Unix users telling people basically the following:

- set your DISPLAY variable properly
- in an xterm run /Applications/OpenOffice.org1.1.2/program/soffice

The problem is that not all ssh users need or use -X to tunnel the X session itself and so some manually have to set DISPLAY while others do not.

That group of users is really not the target market for this Test release.

Kevin
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