Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 9:15 am Post subject: LibreOffice 4.
Are there any plans to incorporate 4.0 code into NeoOffice? They seem to have added support for Visio and Publisher documents which would be great for Mac users.
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 10:22 am Post subject: Re: LibreOffice 4.
kcwookie wrote:
Are there any plans to incorporate 4.0 code into NeoOffice? They seem to have added support for Visio and Publisher documents which would be great for Mac users.
We have no plans to upgrade to a newer version of OpenOffice or LibreOffice at this time.
Our very limited engineering resources (Ed and I) is already committed to doing the following work in order to keep NeoOffice running well with changes that we see Apple pushing out in the near future. Unfortunately, upgrading the OpenOffice or LibreOffice code that NeoOffice uses is a massive effort and it is just not feasible for Ed and I to do both the following work and upgrade to LibreOffice 4 at the same time:
1. Implement the ability to run within Mac OS X's application sandbox. Although Apple does not yet require applications to use the application sandbox, Apple started requiring application sandboxing for new submissions to their Mac App Store. Digital signing of applications also started as an App Store-only requirement before it became a requirement in Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion so we expect that the application sandbox will become a requirement in some form very soon.
2. Implement any changes required by Apple's upcoming Mac OS X 10.9 release. Last year, Apple promised annual releases of Mac OS X. The Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion releases each took several months of work to adapt the NeoOffice code. We expect that Mac OS X 10.9 will be no different so we have already started working on replacing all deprecated Mac OS X functions from the NeoOffice code and its underlying OpenOffice.org code.
Plus, NeoOffice, unlike LibreOffice, is now De-Javified.
Well, not totally. While NeoOffice 3.3 does not require Java to run, Base still uses Java for many of its functions.
Specifically, if you try to open a table or report in a Base .odb file and you don't have Java installed, NeoOffice will trigger Mac OS X to ask you if you want to install Apple's Java. If you don't install Apple's Java, that function will not be accessible.
Also, many third-party extensions are written in Java so if you try to use an extension that uses Java, you will get the same install Apple's Java dialog that you would see in Base.
As a reminder to myself, I thought I would add the following possible tasks that might be needed to prepare for Mac OS X 10.9:
1. Reimplement all of the native buttons, scrollbars, and other controls. Current, NeoOffice (as well OpenOffice and LibreOffice) use Mac OS X's HITheme functions to draw native buttons, scrollbars, and other controls but Apple has marked the HITheme functions as "deprecated". This means that Apple will remove the HITheme functions in a future version of Mac OS X so we need to prepare by replacing all of our code that uses the HITheme functions with Cocoa functions that perform the same result.
2. Allow loading of Oracle's Java or OpenJDK when using Base and Java-based extensions. Right now we only trust Apple's Java but Apple has indicated that they will stop providing Java at some point in the future so, to prepare, we need to allow loading of a trustworthy and working Java from another Java provider.
1. Reimplement all of the native buttons, scrollbars, and other controls. Current, NeoOffice (as well OpenOffice and LibreOffice) use Mac OS X's HITheme functions to draw native buttons, scrollbars, and other controls but Apple has marked the HITheme functions as "deprecated". This means that Apple will remove the HITheme functions in a future version of Mac OS X so we need to prepare by replacing all of our code that uses the HITheme functions with Cocoa functions that perform the same result.
Oh, lovely... I remember how much work it took to get those right the first time round . _________________ "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
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