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NeoOffice :: View topic - Enable more services
Enable more services
 
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borgo1971
Blue Pill


Joined: Nov 01, 2008
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 10:46 am    Post subject: Enable more services

There are some useful Services that don't work in NeoOffice. One of this is pearCalc Service, that works fine in Text edit or Bean, but not in NeoOffice. I sow that there are a lot of services that seems disabled in NeoOffice, so I ask to look way and enable it.
If someone don't know what pearCalc is, go here:
http://www.pearworks.com/pages/pearcalc.html
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:28 am    Post subject:

If you mean the services listed under "AppName>Services" where AppName is the name of the current application in question (e.g. NeoOffice, Text Edit, etc.), none of those services are available in NeoOffice. They generally are not available in cross-platform applications, thus I presume that the reason services aren't available in NeoOffice is related to the underlying OpenOffice.org code.

Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:33 am    Post subject: Re: Enable more services

borgo1971 wrote:
There are some useful Services that don't work in NeoOffice. One of this is pearCalc Service, that works fine in Text edit or Bean, but not in NeoOffice. I sow that there are a lot of services that seems disabled in NeoOffice, so I ask to look way and enable it.
If someone don't know what pearCalc is, go here:
http://www.pearworks.com/pages/pearcalc.html


How do you install pearCalc? Their website only has a StuffIt file and StuffIt is not bundled with Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Patrick
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Lorinda
Captain Mifune


Joined: Jun 20, 2006
Posts: 2051
Location: Midwest, USA

PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:55 am    Post subject:

I was able to unstuff it with the free Stuffit Expander. I haven't tried using PearCalc, though.

Lorinda
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 2:12 am    Post subject:

So this weekend I looked at the Mac OS X Services programmer's documentation and it looked like implementing the Services menu is not that difficult for those services that accept text.

So, using some our existing clipboard copying code, I implemented support for pushing any selected text to any services that can handle text. Unfortunately, I was not able to implementing replacing the selected text in NeoOffice with text from a service nor was I able to handle images or rich text. The only thing that I implemented is sending any selected text in NeoOffice to a service.

You can try out my code by installing the following test patch. Do many Mac OS X services get enabled when you select some text in NeoOffice?:

Intel:
http://jane.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.5-Patch-2-Test-7-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://jane.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.5-Patch-2-Test-7-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
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ovvldc
Captain Naiobi


Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH

PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 3:06 am    Post subject:

And if this works, could someone who uses these services write up a little article for the Wiki to explain what these services can do with NeoOffice and what their use is?

I have had a Mac for almost five years now, and I have never once used services. Not because of fear of messing up, but simply because I have no clue what benefits these provide. The same may be true for other users.

Any info that can help people get the most out of their Mac and NeoOffice in particular is a Good Thing Smile.

Thanks in advance and best wishes,
Oscar

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"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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sardisson
Town Crier
Town Crier


Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588

PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:17 am    Post subject:

ovvldc wrote:
I have had a Mac for almost five years now, and I have never once used services. Not because of fear of messing up, but simply because I have no clue what benefits these provide. The same may be true for other users.

Think of them like a cross between macros or other "shortcut" types and plug-in types; services are quick ways to perform certain inter-application tasks. The idea is that one application offers a service that can be performed inside another application or which automates data transfer from one application to another. For instance, there are services that would perform formatting actions on this paragraph while I'm typing it in the reply box, and there are services that will take the text a move it to another application (various text editors, Mail, etc.); instead of "copy, launch or switch applications, paste, and potential perform action and repeat," you just have one step, "invoke service."

Their usefulness to you depends on the services provided by the applications you have/use and your particular needs; I often use the "New document with selection" services when the target app isn't running (TextEdit, TextWrangler, Script Editor) and the various services provided by Unicode Checker.

I'm happy to report that the patch works mostly as expected on 10.3.9.

One thing I noticed is that the services that Unicode Checker provides that perform replacement actions aren't greyed out (whereas those services are disabled when selecting non-editable text in other applications); I'm not sure whether this is a quirk of the NeoOffice limitations (it's editable text, but it's not replaceable via services) with services or a real bug.

I also noticed that the little Windows shortcut key underlines on buttons, etc., have re-appeared even though I don't have Full Keyboard Access enabled. I haven't tried any recent test patches on this Mac, so this could have been introduced any time since Patch-2, I suppose.

Smokey

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"[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:02 am    Post subject:

sardisson wrote:
One thing I noticed is that the services that Unicode Checker provides that perform replacement actions aren't greyed out (whereas those services are disabled when selecting non-editable text in other applications); I'm not sure whether this is a quirk of the NeoOffice limitations (it's editable text, but it's not replaceable via services) with services or a real bug.


Good catch. I reread Apple's documentation and find out how I am supposed to handle this and I will post a test patch later today.

sardisson wrote:
I also noticed that the little Windows shortcut key underlines on buttons, etc., have re-appeared even though I don't have Full Keyboard Access enabled. I haven't tried any recent test patches on this Mac, so this could have been introduced any time since Patch-2, I suppose.


Are you sure that you don't have Full Keyboard Access enabled? I noticed that the only way you turn it on and off is by pressing the Control-F1 keys. Unchecking the "Turn full keyboard access on or off" in the System Preferences application only turns off changing the full keyboard access setting.

Patrick
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:48 am    Post subject:

I fixed the issue that Smokey was talking about so that now the menus for the services that want to overwrite NeoOffice's selected text are disabled.

I also found what was causing NeoOffice to behave like Full Key Access is enabled when it really is not.

Do my fixes in the following test patch work for all of you?:

Intel:
http://jane.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.5-Patch-2-Test-8-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://jane.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.5-Patch-2-Test-8-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
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sardisson
Town Crier
Town Crier


Joined: Feb 01, 2004
Posts: 4588

PostPosted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:53 pm    Post subject:

The new test patch seems to work OK for me, both on the services front and with the Windows underscores.

(As an aside, Apple has had a bit of a naming problem over the years, as it labeled various different things "Full Keyboard Access" over the various releases. It seems like on 10.3.9, Neo keys off of either the Ctrl-F7 (aka the checkbox [10.3.9]/pair of radio buttons [10.5] below the table) or Ctrl-F1 setting to determine when to show the underlines, and on 10.5.5 keys only off of the Ctrl-F1 setting...either that or Ctrl-F7 is doing something slightly different on 10.3.9. At any rate, Neo now doesn't show the underlines for me when I don't have either activated, so I'm happy.)

Smokey

_________________
"[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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Ub
Red Pill


Joined: Sep 20, 2005
Posts: 7
Location: Milano, Italy

PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:30 am    Post subject: Wikitext

Is there a possibility to have text documents saved in Wikitext? I understand this is a standard feature - although with problems - in OOo.
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:36 am    Post subject: Re: Wikitext

Ub wrote:
Is there a possibility to have text documents saved in Wikitext? I understand this is a standard feature - although with problems - in OOo.


Actually, it is not a standard feature in OpenOffice.org 3.0. Instead, it is this an extension that you download and install.

Unfortunately, Sun's engineers say that this extension requires OpenOffice.org 2.4 or higher so it will not run in NeoOffice 2.2.5. However, we will included the extension with NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access.

Patrick
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 10:03 pm    Post subject:

FYI. I added support for pushing Rich Text Format (RTF) data to the Mac OS X services that can use them and plain text is used as the fallback format if the service (or the selected item in NeoOffice) cannot handle RTF data.

Does support for RTF data work in the following test patch work for all of you? If it does, the font name, style, and size will be preserved when the NeoOffice selected text is copied to the destination application:

Intel:
http://jane.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.5-Patch-2-Test-13-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://jane.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-2.2.5-Patch-2-Test-13-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
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pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 2:03 pm    Post subject:

FYI. This new Mac OS X Services menu support is now available in NeoOffice 2.2.5 Patch 3. You can download the patch from the following URL:

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/patch.php

Patrick
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dru
Blue Pill


Joined: Oct 18, 2006
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:49 am    Post subject:

Great! I use Speech --> Start Speaking Text all the time. Cool
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