2 cosmetic question

[fabrizio venerandi]

2 cosmetic question:

1- why Oo for windows has a more 'light' grey than neooffice 'dark' grey (in controls, windows, etc)?
2- it is possible in future releases have a more slim window border for palettes? actually the palettes border is the same of the windows border, so it is real large, and often there is not the space for the title of the palette. I see other application like photoshop or graphiconverter have a slim border for palette (I'm not sure, but I think to remember the OO for windows have a slim border too).

f.

[OPENSTEP]

(1) May be due to monitor gamma. In theory the RGB values should be the same on all platforms. In practice, however, intensity levels change from platform to platform :/

(2) This is somewhat more of a limitation with Java right now. All Windows created via the awt have the same Mac OS X window "class". Palettes appear in a different layer and have a different window class on Mac OS X. Unfortunately, this isn't exposed by the Java AWT. Since it's an old Carbon implementation it's additionally difficult as usually special code needs to be added to the event loop to make a carbon app aware of different windowing layers and appropriately processing activate events...I don't know if we can get that detailed in our handlers. It can be kind of done with the SetWindowClass() function to re-purpose windows after they're created, but Apple strongly discourages this as a solution. It's worked up to 10.3 thus far...but who knows...

ed

[fabrizio venerandi]

1- ok, I'll wait for a general cosmetic gui restyling
2- I understand. Thank you for the answer!



f.

[aussie149]

Hi,

I am a newbie at this. Bear with me: this is actually a relevant post, I think. I discovered the world of X last year when I upgraded my Mac. I've learnt a lot, and got to use some interesting open source software. In fact, I am reliant on this knowledge to get my old scanner to work. I am also enjoying using GIMP, which is great, and Firefox [I started with Mozilla on the X11 version, then moved to X11 Firefox, then os x version] , which is also great, and I was using OpenOffice as an alternative to MS Office for two reasons:

1. I don't like using MS products, as an unreconstructed old leftie.
2. I was previously supplied with MS products in my workplace, but have retired, so I won't legally be able to upgrade from my Office X.v, this side of AU$400.

I have just discovered NeoOffice/J and it appears to be an excellent option for os x users, created by a small group of talented people working on fresh air. I am delighted to say it appears to work well so far, and I will use it in preference to OOO.

That brings me to my point [finally, you say ]. In my X11 [actually XDarwin] environment, I have a KDE setup. The theme I use provides me with a nice light grey surround in OpenOffice, which would be a good match for the pull-down os x menus in NeoOffice/J. The NeoOffice screen on the other hand has this mismatch between the light grey metal look pull-down menus, and the old-fashioned "Windows 3.1-like" dark grey of the NeoOffice program surrounds, button and tool menus [I have screen pics of this KDE/os x comparison if you are interested].

Here's my question, in all its naivete: to satisfy those of us who like a consistent look to our screen, and not take too much time away from the main job of coding the actual program, would it be a difficult job to lighten the grey of the offending frames and menus by a number of shades [on my screen, the grey shading of the frame surrounding this post would do nicely, although even a few shades lighter would be better still]? I will happily accept that I know nothing about programming, and I may be simplifying the impossible here.

Keep up the great work

Peter

[sardisson]

Welcome!

One of the first things we non-coders discover is everything that seems simple to us is very much non-trivial in the mess that is the OOo code I don't know for certain, but it is my guess that this color swap is non-trivial--there have been enough comments about the colors of the chrome so far that if it were trivial, Patrick and Ed probably would have done it already to shut everyone up!

On the other hand, I think Ed mentioned last week that Dan has been working on getting the Aqua background drawing instead of the grey, so hope is on the way....

(KDE-OOo actually uses the N*F stuff pioneered by Ed and Dan in the old NeoOffice/C prototype to get that nice grey color from your theme....)

Smokey

[guest]

[aussie149]

OK, thanks for your reply, sardisson. I've had a read of lots of other posts, and can see the that there's action going on which will lead to a good outcome for the look-and-feel users like me. It's a pity that here are not more coders able to work on the mac side. I must just be patient, it seems.

One thing concerns me now, and that is the criticism of the original OOO code, and how bloated it is. Does that mean that we are going to be building on an inefficient base forever?


Peter

[OPENSTEP]