Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 12:31 am Post subject: NeoOffice(/J) Community Relations
So, with Beta and the Aqua menus and new artwork and shift away from "prototype" status, and all the wiki work, etc., we're raising our profile and also trying to make sure places that list/link to/etc. Neo/J and the NeoOffice® project have accurate and up-to-date info.
I've started the process of claiming ownership of Neo/J at major listing sites. Things are a bit messed up now (the VT account is linked to my VT/MacFixIt account and my .Mac account, for instance), but the idea is that we get some stuff set up so that we have some standardized info to submit and a valid email account to use and whatnot so that this can be shared. (It happened to be me because I mentioned the VT and MU listings to Patrick, he said "make new text based on the new planamesa text and submit it." And I did p.s. Oscar, I hope you don't mind my appropriation of your latest great phrase--it's fair use, right?).
Ed suggested we choose an email account name; he'll set it up at NeoOffice.org to forward to a free account (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.) so that all of us who want to help can have access. (Webmail and mail storage at NeoOffice.org are apparently poor.) So two things:
1. marketing@neooffice.org ? Sounds official enough?
2. The free account. Does anyone know whether any of the free webmail services allow us some sort of way to "pretend" to send mail from, and ask for replies to go to, our NeoOffice.org account?
As I've been submitting updates, I've been (mostly) keeping a list of what text/info I submitted where. After a day of it, there's a couple of things that need tweaking.
Description (based on planamesa/index and planamesa/faq language):
Quote:
NeoOffice/J is a reasonably stable version of the OpenOffice.org office suite that has been engineered to run natively on Mac OS X. It is open source software released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is available for free. NeoOffice/J eliminates OpenOffice.org's dependency on X11 by using Java technologies and has recently begun the long process of Aquafication of OpenOffice.org.
If you are a Mac OS X user and running software that may have bugs or may even crash does not bother you, feel free to download and install it. However, if you expect software to be absolutely perfect before you install it, we recommend that you purchase a commercially supported office suite like Microsoftâ„¢ Office.
The one thing that seems missing is some indication that Neo/J can also read/write MS docs, for the vast majority of folks who are not geeky enough to know OOo. I've tested some wording on the wiki home, though I'm not completely happy with that.
We also need to come up with a good, clear statement (for these sites and also for planamesa) about the RAM requirement. Patrick and Ed bumped it from 256 to 512 and there's been a number of questions already as to why, what it means, etc. There are lots of folks (me included sometimes) who still think the old OS 6/7/8/9 world of "RAM req by this app to run" and I think, if I understand Patrick and Ed's statements right, that 512 is "the amount of RAM needed by your Mac to run Neo/J without slowing your system down, based on user comments. My most recent version of the statement is MrGruff's:
Quote:
512MB RAM recommended for best performance
Tweaks?
List of sites to update with new release/info (and status of those updates):
NeoWiki (partic. relnotes page) -- Complete; Smokey and others
Others? Let's start a list. I've done a couple of incidental places as one-offs, but I'm thinking of places we need to do for 1.1 GM and/or listings of 0.8.x/Alpha 2 that we need to update.
(list updated 20041228 14:06 EST (GMT-5))
This list, or a general bit about how and where to update, should either be wikied or stored in our email account; I'll add my document, too.
Anyway, this is probably it for me for a few days. I'll post a link to my latest document so if anyone else wants to hit some sites in the next few days we can be mostly in sync NeoJUpdates.sxw
Happy holidays to all, and to all a good rest!
Smokey
(who somehow went over 400 posts today without noticing; frankly, I missed 300, too )
Edit: VT updated while I was writing this, so everything is correct *except* they switched from pointing at the download page to pointing at the file on Patrick's site...grr. In the latest update, I wrote them a little note about the mirrors and langpacks and asked politely for them not to link to a file...
Edit (2005-02-20): Update topic title to reflect current name and focus. _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Last edited by sardisson on Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:58 am; edited 7 times in total
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 5:55 am Post subject: Re: "Marketing" NeoOffice/J
Hey-- My biggest problem is with the project description:
Quote:
NeoOffice/J is a reasonably stable version of the OpenOffice.org office suite that has been engineered to run natively on Mac OS X. It is open source software released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is available for free. NeoOffice/J eliminates OpenOffice.org's dependency on X11 by using Java technologies and has recently begun the long process of Aquafication of OpenOffice.org.
If you are a Mac OS X user and running software that may have bugs or may even crash does not bother you, feel free to download and install it. However, if you expect software to be absolutely perfect before you install it, we recommend that you purchase a commercially supported office suite like Microsoftâ„¢ Office.
That last paragraph is a real downer and full of unnecessary caveats and apologies. I would never try it in a million years with that kind of a warning. The fact that this is in the beta phase should be a hint that it's not guaranteed to work 100%, although from what I hear Neo/J is about as stable as Office. I also don't think it's a good idea to be plugging the competition.
Plus there are some grammar issues and it sounds pretty techie..
maybe something more upbeat like this (and it's late, so I may need to revise it later):
Quote:
NeoOffice/J is a *free* and complete Mac OS X office suite combining a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing software, and much more.
Based on the international OpenOffice.org project, NeoOffice/J has integrated dozens of native Mac features including a Mac installer, a double-clickable application, native Mac menus, the Mac print dialog box, native printing, Mac-like key shortcuts, mouse scrollwheel support, automatic update notification, and instant access to all your Mac fonts.
Plus, you can easily import, edit, and exchange files with users of other popular office programs such as Microsoftâ„¢ Officeâ„¢ and WordPerfectâ„¢.
Currently in beta testing, NeoOffice/J is already fully functional and stable enough for every day use. As time progresses, more and more Mac-like features will be added with an ultimate goal of making NeoOffice/J look and feel 100% like a Mac application.
NeoOffice/J is open source software released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and, as stated above, is available for FREE!
Joined: Sep 09, 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Paris, France
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 7:05 am Post subject:
Hi,
I don't like the term "marketing" in the email address. You'll get references as a company, and one large enough to have a marketing dept, so try explaining that there are only 2 volunteer developpers afterward
By the way, MacBidouille (or http://www.hardmac.com/ for english speakers) noted the appearance of the new Beta, but shows the old screenshots of the Cocoa version. I posted in the comments of the french site, but you might want to contact them in official guise.
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 8:31 am Post subject: Marketing
1) I would like to second Waldo's description of NeoOfficeJ. I also think it is much better for not falling into too much technical details while being complete enough for a new user to know what to expect, and not promoting competitors (hey, I don't think Microsoft Office is "absolutely perfect" either since I have had many crashes with it, some of which I know how to reproduce)
2) Although I have no problem with the term "marketing", I understand the reasoning of lga that it seems like it is coming from a big organization. It is however my opinion that the NeoOffice "team" (including developers, testers, advocates, contributors, etc.) is pretty efficient right now, and that it constitutes a much bigger informal organization than just the 2 developers.
3) I would like to add www.macintouch.com as a website to inform of the new versions when they are available. I read it regularly and have first heard there of many applications that I use. This is a mac news website, so it just posts whatever you submit to them, and doesn't keep a formal list. And yes, it seems like www.macbidouille.com is quite a big French site for Mac enthousiasts.
4) I know that with Gmail, one can specify a name to be displayed and a reply-to address that is different than the original Gmail address. I don't think any online mail service will actually let you "spoof" the originating email address though. You can also have email forwarding with gmail. I have many unused invites, so if they are required (or just want to receive one anyway!), just let me know.
Joined: Sep 09, 2004 Posts: 25 Location: Paris, France
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 9:03 am Post subject:
I agree with Boukman in adding macintouch. macbidouille is does not, strictly speaking, track new releases, but we need to correct when there is a misconception.
As to appearing as a big organization, the problem is that people may expect more development speed that Patrick or Ed can provide --- though the speed has been amazing imho, should one of them have other priorities developping, the pace may considerably decrease. Unless we attract more developpers, which I hope we'll do once the "marketing" effort is fully organized.
By the way, MacBidouille (or http://www.hardmac.com/ for english speakers) noted the appearance of the new Beta, but shows the old screenshots of the Cocoa version. I posted in the comments of the french site, but you might want to contact them in official guise.
Merci beucoup! (I'd never even seen those screenshots before!)
The idea behind this shared profile/email/etc. is that we can spread this work out as appropriate to time and talents--for instance, so that my barely passable, and pretty much useless in terms of computer vocabulary, French doesn't ever have to be used for contacting French sites You or Max could use the address to register a "NeoOffice.org" profile at MacBidouille for posting comments/corrections/announcements from the "NeoOffice Community"
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 1:45 pm Post subject: Marketing
lga wrote:
... the problem is that people may expect more development speed that Patrick or Ed can provide --- though the speed has been amazing imho, should one of them have other priorities developping, the pace may considerably decrease.
Although I have not deemed useful to ask how the fundraising is doing, hopefully the 2 developers are starting to receive enough contributions to be able to not only pay for the direct expenses incurred for keeping the NeoOffice web presence, but also to give themselves a paycheck to keep them focused on and to gratify them for their hard work on NeoOffice. I think that when they are focusing on NeoOffice like they do now, their speed is sufficient. It looks like the fundraising thread in the forum is pretty much dead, so that might be a good sign!
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 1:48 pm Post subject: Re: Marketing
Boukman wrote:
2) Although I have no problem with the term "marketing", I understand the reasoning of lga that it seems like it is coming from a big organization. It is however my opinion that the NeoOffice "team" (including developers, testers, advocates, contributors, etc.) is pretty efficient right now, and that it constitutes a much bigger informal organization than just the 2 developers.
My concern with using marketing as an email address is similar to lga's (actually, the use of the term in general, thus the quotes). It's official-sounding, but it also makes the NeoOffice team/community seem a lot more "standard-company-model" than we are, as large and efficient as we are I had started using contact @ neo because I found it listed on the old Neo site, but in talking with Ed we decided to look for a more appropriate address.
How about community@neo?
Boukman wrote:
4) I know that with Gmail, one can specify a name to be displayed and a reply-to address that is different than the original Gmail address. I don't think any online mail service will actually let you "spoof" the originating email address though.
I don't think any webmail or ISP really lets you "spoof" anymore, although I can finagle things to work in Eudora sometimes. The display name and reply-to should be good enough.
Boukman wrote:
I have many unused invites, so if they are required (or just want to receive one anyway!), just let me know.
Unless there are objections to using gmail, once we decide on a @neo address, I think we should take Boukman up on his offer for an address where the @neo mail will end up so that we may all access it.
A couple of quick notes about Waldo's description suggestion:
1) It's too long, alas. At the sites I've seen so far, we're limited to about the amount of text that's in what I've been using. The old text (still available at MacUpdate, I think ) had a "paragraph" of "description" and a paragraph about who should use it, so I tried to replicate that within the limits.
2) Patrick directed me to base the text on the new text at planamesa/index and planamesa/faq. So based on the space limits and previous "type" of info in the listings, that's what I did. We have Patrick's modesty to work around here--I don't see MSOffice as perfect, either, and took that part as tounge-in-cheek, but there's still a disconnect.
3) We don't have complete ability to exchange documents with WordPerfect users. Primarily, there's no WP export (...yet, but yet is roughly the same distance away for libwpd as a complete AHIG native NeoOffice(/J) is for us ), but Oscar will tell you there are still issues even with the advanced state of the WP-PC 6-12 doc import
Those things aside, it's a good basis. I'm not sure what we can do about 2), though
OK, this is probably really it for me for a couple of days, so happy holidays to all!
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
NeoOffice/J is a complete Mac OS X office suite combining a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and illustration software, and much more. Based on the international OpenOffice.org project, NeoOffice/J has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with users of other popular office programs such as Microsoftâ„¢ Officeâ„¢.
Released as free, open source software under the GNU General Public License (GPL), NeoOffice/J is fully functional and stable enough for everyday use.
Seems quite similar to the thought that hit me earlier tonight--it must mean we're getting close to a good text if ours are starting to sync
Christmas Eve brainstorm wrote:
NeoOffice/J is a free, full-featured set of office applications based on the open-source OpenOffice.org office suite. Neo/J features nearly complete compatibility with Microsoftâ„¢ Office, advanced Mac OS X integration (improved over OOo?) and a semi-Aqua appearance. It does not require the X11 windowing system used by OpenOffice.org.
(native?)
Neo/J is open source and licensed under the GNU GPL. Mac users who are looking for an alternative to Microsoftâ„¢ Office and who are not afraid to use software that is continually being improved are the target audience for this software. Neo/J is, however, fully functional and stable enough for everyday use as one's primary (sole?) office suite.
Replace "Neo/J" with the full thing, of course. Still a bit rough and still perhaps too techincal in some places, but we're progressing and converging!
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
I still like mine a little more but I made a go of revising yours a little...
Your version, revised. --> wrote:
NeoOffice/J is a fully-featured set of office applications (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, etc.) based on the OpenOffice.org suite. Featuring advanced Mac OS X integration and near-perfect file compatibility with Microsoftâ„¢ Office, NeoOffice/J is free, open source software released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
NeoOffice/J is now stable enough for everyday use. It is currently in active development, so improvements to its user interface are regularly being added.
my version. --> wrote:
NeoOffice/J is a complete Mac OS X office suite combining a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and illustration software, and much more. Based on the international OpenOffice.org project, NeoOffice/J has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with users of other popular office programs such as Microsoftâ„¢ Office.
Released as free, open source software under the GNU General Public License (GPL), NeoOffice/J is fully functional and stable enough for everyday use.
Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:14 pm Post subject: minor editorial suggestions
(posting here because the wiki thread seems to be focused more on licensing issues than content...)
i really like the layout of the pages at the NeoOffice website, but it seems to me that the (dead) "NeoOffice/c" (sic) link in the navigation panel on the left might as well be removed, or at least modified to point to the explanation of NeoOffice/C on the wiki page. also (incredibly minor nitpick), i don't see any reason to have a slash after the "NeoOffice" link at the top of the About NeoOffice page.
Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 9:47 pm Post subject: Re: wiki issues
Poor Jake...we keep coming up with more things for him to fix in the wiki template (the links still point to the "en" pages on planamesa, too)
That extra slash (and some other issues, for instance see the Neo History article) come from errors in our use of wikiWords at some time; I don't know if they can be removed manually....
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
FYI. I changed the minimum memory requirement back to 256 MB on the download page. 512 MB is clearly not the "minimum" and putting 512 just caused confusion.
I have not posted a "recommended" amount of memory as such a figure can vary wildly depending on what you use Neo/J for and, more importantly, what other applications are running at the same time.
OK, I'll go through today and re-update the places I've submitted, send the new screenshot where apporpriate, and hopefully the add the new, improved, more optimistic description that Waldo and I are hammering out.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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p.s. Oscar, I hope you don't mind my appropriation of your latest great phrase--it's fair use, right?).
)
)
) had a "paragraph" of "description" and a paragraph about who should use it, so I tried to replicate that within the limits.
but I made a go of revising yours a little...
