I thank everyone for all the work they've done for the upcoming release, graphics, community, et. al. I honestly believe that this release is going to be the mark of the bend in the knee of adoption of NeoOffice (and, by extension, OpenOffice.org) on the Mac platform. After over three years of unrelenting and draining work, Patrick's created a foundation that is not only rock-solid but is also emenintly sustainable, as proven by the migrations to multiple revisions of OOo code. We've now got some great graphics and some widgets (alebit buggy) to help better visually integrate with the OS X environment. Patrick's amazing work has not only optimized Neo's memory usage and improved startup time, but also has brought us native file dialogs which were the last major non-native feature that is both used all of the time in Neo and also confusued just about every Mac user.
I think Ed is the one who really deserves thanks. He has been slaving away for 5 years on OOo and NeoOffice without pay or, in many cases, recognition of his work. Yet he still persevered. Even the twists and turns of us switching for the Neo/C path to the Neo/J path did not deter him from his vision: an Aquafied port of OpenOffice.org.
Despite what others think about open source software, working with extremely talented people like Ed is, I believe, what makes open source work. Lofty goals and big budget backing from corporations is nice, but what Ed has shown is that a small band of people focussed on a shared vision is what really makes a different.
Patrick's amazing work has not only optimized Neo's memory usage and improved startup time, but also has brought us native file dialogs which were the last major non-native feature that is both used all of the time in Neo and also confusued just about every Mac user.
I am much in agreement with all of the enthousiasm and praise hand ed out in this thread recently, but the quote above spiked my curiousity. Does that mean that Pat finally had the time to root out those nasty OOo file dialogs? I suppose this is another reason why everyone will be drooling over Aqua Beta...
- Oscar (just back from five days vacation in (very) sunny Craców)
Joined: Apr 25, 2006 Posts: 2315 Location: Montpellier, France
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:20 am Post subject:
Apparently yes. I've just come back from a shrot trip to France, so I haven't had the time to test my latest build, but according to the other thread (genesis of the new weapons) Neo now has native file dialogs (there's a screen capture) ...
Does that mean that Pat finally had the time to root out those nasty OOo file dialogs? I suppose this is another reason why everyone will be drooling over Aqua Beta...
Indeed, and it means that shortly Oscar will cede the title of "reporter of the oldest open Neo bug" to Ed
ovvldc wrote:
- Oscar (just back from five days vacation in (very) sunny Craców)
Nice
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:31 am Post subject:
sardisson wrote:
OPENSTEP wrote:
The few "summary" panes in there w/o the Aqua icons now just look really out of place compared with the ones that have the nice icons
BTW, those 3 icons, plus the large and small yellow folders in the Templates, are on a small "Neo Internal Icons 1.1" list I'd like to see if we can agree on replacements for and persuade Patrick to include in Neo 2 final....
I'm willing to have a go at designing replacements. I could also have a go at a master document icon. Smokey's improvised icon is quite acceptable IMO but I'll think on it - it would be nice to have something more... iconic
The plain blue flag doesn't quite go far enough on the road to "Language" for me. If we go the flag route, we may as well go all the way and "copy" the System Prefs's International pane's pseudo-UN flag, which will better cement the meaning.
Along those same lines, the ugly "Internet" icon in OOo is in sync with the ugly "Hyperlink" toolbar button, and it would be nice to keep those two in sync in Neo (beautified), IMO. (That's a really cool ethernet jack icon, but I'm not sure everyone will get it, especially as wired internet in the Mac world goes the way of the dodo...)
My 2¢ on an empty stomach
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 7:08 pm Post subject:
sardisson wrote:
The plain blue flag doesn't quite go far enough on the road to "Language" for me.
I'm not sure if the U.N. flag is GPL!
sardisson wrote:
That's a really cool ethernet jack icon, but I'm not sure everyone will get it, especially as wired internet in the Mac world goes the way of the dodo...
I think the word "Internet" in headline type will give users a clue
I wanted to avoid an Earth icon because IMO this is a bit confusing when the Mac network icon is a transparent blue ball and the Safari icon is a compass. I thought an Earth icon could be misinterpreted as referring to locale.
I wanted to avoid an Earth icon because IMO this is a bit confusing when the Mac network icon is a transparent blue ball and the Safari icon is a compass. I thought an Earth icon could be misinterpreted as referring to locale.
I can see your reasoning, but the jack makes me think 'network' rather than 'internet' (yeah, I know it's right next to the word...)
Interesting how there isn't an obvious universal symbol for the web, isn't it?. Part of the problem is that the Internet section in Options covers connecting, browsing, & email - it's too broad for a clear umbrella icon; I suppose the linking factor is communication, but no-one out there has managed to come up with anything sufficiently iconic since the internet's inception.
I'd have been more likely to interpret the globe as 'Languages' than 'locale', myself, which leads me to suspect that you can't second-guess all of the users' associations with images, and should just go with something that looks spiffy (and there I have to say I don't like the jack image, it's very industrial compared to your other icons; just a personal taste response).
Yeah, I know, I've got no constructive ideas - I think it's because the jack reminds me of some evil robot from my childhood - so if there's no obvious alternative, I'll just get over it, eh? It's not as if I've ever looked at the Internet Options panel more than once for each version of Neo, in any case... but it's one of the fascinating things about the net, isn't it, that there are so many ways of connecting to it that none of them are really iconic. I guess that means it's really sunk deep into our culture now, FBOW.
The flag and the Master Doc icons look good.
- padmavyuha
Afterthought - oh, but how about if the jack was dark blue/gold instead of black? That would make it more part of the icon family, and makes all the difference to the 'sinister' factor [=dell, now that I come to think of it...] :
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