Dock Menu, Please! (for use after closing the last window)

[achmafooma]

Excellent about the close-last-window behavior in the new patch! I love it! I only have one [minor] complaint about the implementation of this:

The menu items to make a new document (which are now in the NeoOffice/J program menu) would probably be more useful as a dock menu. Right now, you have to activate the program before you can access them. As a dock menu, you could just right/ctrl-click the NO/J icon to and create a new document without switching to NO/J first.

I would also love to see an option to have NO/J start without a blank document open. Then I could set it as a startup item and have it ready to go when I need it (somewhat like the OpenOffice.org Quickstarter in Windows).

[kcavaliere]

I recently loaded OpenOffice on a PC laptop and the Quickstart icon is very handy. Short of that is there a command line switch that will load NeoOffice and then close the only open window, leaving the menu bar (hidden)? Maybe an Applescript? Possibly an Automator action for Tiger users?

[sardisson]

While I agree that a Dock menu would be nice, I believe those sorts of menus are even *less discoverable* than the "appName" menu, so it certainly shouldn't replace the quickstart items in the Neo/J menu.

If you want to start a new document without switching to Neo/J, put copies/aliases of your default templates in your Dock (or in a folder)...see Jake's launch shortcuts for more info.

As I stated in another thread, Mac apps don't launch windowless. You can launch Neo/J and hide it using the AppleScript I mentioned in the other thread. Having it close the blank document window is more problematic, since Neo/J is not scriptable. Presumably if you sent it the raw "close window" AppleEvent it would work (but that exceeds my AppleScript skills); similarly, you might be able to use UI Scripting to click the red globe or invoke cmd-w....

Smokey

[OPENSTEP]

As far as I can tell, Dock Menus can only be specified using InterfaceBuilder with the AppleDockMenu property. Since we aren't IB based we have the difficulty of not only figuring out how to insert items but also to handle their actions

ed

[jakeOSX]

this is what i make the start folder.. thing.. for. (mental note, think of snazzy name)

basically it is just a folder with blank templates in it for writer, presentation, math and draw. you put it in your dock, and when you right click it has the menu to pick which to use.

now, what i'd prefer to do is wrap that into an applescript so you could drop icons and such as well... but time and stuff.

-j

[Guest]

[jakeOSX]

the problem i had was calling the programs from applescript. for example, in the X11 verison you can call calc specifically (scal)

neo is different, you can't give it an argument. the crude workaround i found was the template thing (in just a normal folder)

i suppose you could have the applescript open the template (which in turn would open neo) when you called it... but that's not a very elogent solution.

[Guest]

Jake said:

"neo is different, you can't give it an argument...."

Now that you mention it, I think I did play with NOJ before and found the same thing, which makes sense since NOJ itself is not scriptable. I was talking more about the whole "drag and drop" feature in Mac OS X and how that part is done by the Finder but I can see now that that woundn't be enough to do what you are trying to do which is to open a specific type of document once NOJ is launched. I may or may not now play with it some more. Thanks for the clarification.

[Guest]

It looks like there's a simple Java API available to do the Dock Menu thing.
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/joshy/archive/2005/04/sometimes_you_o.html

[pluby]

Good news! I stumbled across the SetApplicationDockTileMenu() Carbon function and with only a couple of extra lines of code, I now also add the Quickstart menu items to the Dock icon's menu.

If you want to check it out, it is in the following test patch:

http://www.planamesa.com/test/NeoOfficeJ-1.1_Release_Candidate-TestPatch-6.5.dmg

Patrick

[rays]

I know some of my colleagues are going to love this little addition as they were not finding the two-step process of click icon in dock then select from NeoOffice/J menu very intuitive. This new dock menu works a charm.

Thanks for another little increment in making the seamlesss integration of OOo.org in Mac OS X a reality!

[sardisson]

[pluby]

[achmafooma]

Many thanks for the quick addition! I wrote my original comment just before leaving on my honeymoon, and was thrilled to see the change make it into the product before I got back!

Amazing work, developers! Simply amazing!