[Thraxes]

Just spreading the word, it is the first public beta for NeoOffice 2.0 (to my knowledge at least) and is available in PPC and Intel flavours.

One thing is certain though: On an Intel mac it is waaaaaaaaay faster than MS-Office running in Rossetta. Just threw out MS-Office... don't need it anymore, Neo Office will do me fine.

[TETENAL]

It's still ugly and horribly confusing.

[rickey939]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It's still ugly and horribly confusing.

[VValdo]

It's much MUCH better looking. And works great so far (no problems for me)

There's a beta 3 patch 1 already too btw.

W

[JKT]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It's still ugly and horribly confusing.

What an utterly ignorant comment. How is it horribly confusing when it is practically identical to MS Office? OK, so MS Office hardly wins any prizes in the usability stakes either, but what a ****ing jackass comment to make when two people have been voluntarily working their arses off for three years to bring a native version of OpenOffice.org to the Mac and doing a damn fine job of it too.

FWIW, anyone not put off by the dumb comments from TETENAL, you can change the toolbar icon set to something a little less off-putting under the Preferences>View settings. You can also find third party sets to download via www.openoffice.org and from what I have read at the www.trinity.org forum, they are working on a complete MacOS X specfic set as well.

[wataru]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It's still ugly and horribly confusing.

You need to lay off the crack. It's hardly ugly, and it works very similarly to Office.

The startup time is much faster in this release. I'm liking it a lot.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by JKT

How is it horribly confusing when it is practically identical to MS Office?

It has a bazillion of tiny buttons and overly complex laid out dialog boxes etc. pp. Basically the problem is that it suffers, like most open source projects, from featuritis. Nobody dares to determine what features to leave out to make the app easy to learn and use.

what a ****ing jackass comment to make when two people have been voluntarily working their arses off for three years to bring a native version of OpenOffice.org to the Mac and doing a damn fine job of it too.

I respect the hard work. But just because something was hard work doesn't mean I like the result. And I don't like OpenOffice. This new aquafied version is almost on par with the user interface of Qt apps like Google Earth, but that means it's still horrible.

Originally Posted by wataru

It's hardly ugly

We know you have low standards. You like Firefox too.

[pliny]

I haven't looked at NeoOffice or OpenOffice on the Mac until now. I thought the application was slow to launch. Redraws were slow too. I was surprised that the entire thing is one application like Applwworks, and not modular like the Microsoft suite. It was quite a bit slower than Office. It is also much cheaper than Office ($0).

[wataru]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

We know you have low standards. You like Firefox too.

That's right, I like functional software and I don't get hung up on every little bit of pointless eyecandy.

Maybe you prefer style over substance, but not everyone has the same shallow priorities.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It has a bazillion of tiny buttons and overly complex laid out dialog boxes etc. pp. Basically the problem is that it suffers, like most open source projects, from featuritis.

WTF? Most open source projects are designed to do one thing, and to do it well. Do you mean open source GUI applications? Even then, I bet you'd have a hard time qualifying the "most". How do Firefox or Thunderbird suffer from featuritis?

We know you have low standards. You like Firefox too.

Firefox is the gold standard for modern web compliance. What's not to like about that?

[wataru]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Firefox is the gold standard for modern web compliance. What's not to like about that?

He doesn't care about compliance or features as long as it looks pretty.

[JLL]

Things can have features and compliance and look pretty.

Where does it say that useful apps have to be a UI nightmare?

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by besson3c

How do Firefox or Thunderbird suffer from featuritis?

You have to look no further than Mozilla. Tried to include everything but the kitchen sink. And it's the same with OpenOffice.

What's not to like about [Firefox]?

Standards compliance might be high, but system integration is severely lacking. Most of this applies to NeoOffice as well, so it's not too off topic to mention it again.

• No support for Services
• No support for the system-wide dictionary
• No support for the system-wide spell-checker (will be fixed in Firefox by a proprietary (aka inconsistent) implementation)
• No support for the system-wide keychain
• No support for the system-wide fonts palette
• No support for the system-wide character palette
• No support for modern drawing APIs lead to horribly aliased graphics.

Originally Posted by wataru

That's right, I like functional software and I don't get hung up on every little bit of pointless eyecandy.

None of the above are eyecandy. It is important functionality that is lacking from those applications. At least NeoOffice 2 gained native open and save dialogs, so we now have our standard favourites bar and Spotlight integration.
The following points you may call eyecandy, but I prefer a consistent user interface.

• No throbbing default buttons in Firefox, none at all in NeoOffice
• Non-standard context menus in both apps
• Non-standard tooltips in both
• Old style tabs in Firefox
• Opaque grow boxes
• Useless toolbar widgets in Firefox, none in NeoOffice
• The wrong application font in NeoOffice
• The wrong scrollbar placement in NeoOffice
• "Exit" command in NeoOffice' File menu, "Options" in the Tools menu
• Non-standard handling of the menubar in NeoOffice.
• And who knows what else when you look at it more than 5 minutes.

Sorry, but that's still not good enough. I'll stick with applications that make use of Mac OS. After all that's the reason I chose the platform.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

You have to look no further than Mozilla. Tried to include everything but the kitchen sink. And it's the same with OpenOffice.Standards compliance might be high, but system integration is severely lacking. Most of this applies to NeoOffice as well, so it's not too off topic to mention it again.

• No support for Services
• No support for the system-wide dictionary
• No support for the system-wide spell-checker (will be fixed in Firefox by a proprietary (aka inconsistent) implementation)
• No support for the system-wide keychain
• No support for the system-wide fonts palette
• No support for the system-wide character palette
• No support for modern drawing APIs lead to horribly aliased graphics.

That's all Mac specific stuff. We're a tiny concern in the overall world of computing, and there is a tiny amount of resources available to work on Mac specific problems. Mozilla is a platform agnostic app that was decided at a time when all-in-one apps (ala Netscape) were the thing. Today, more people are using Firefox than Mozilla because most of us have stopped using these sorts of apps at about the same time that portal pages went out of style

Sorry, but that's still not good enough. I'll stick with applications that make use of Mac OS. After all that's the reason I chose the platform.

That's cool, but its a losing battle to expect the whole computing world to develop pretty Mac GUIs for you. There is a lot of stuff happening out there that doesn't have a developer making everything into a Cocoa app, and a lot of stuff that by its very nature wasn't designed to be a Cocoa app (particularly sys admin tools).

[Neo.cmg]

Java sucks.

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

Java sucks.

That's nice. NeoOffice isn't written in Java. How do you feel about C++?

W

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It has a bazillion of tiny buttons and overly complex laid out dialog boxes etc. pp.

You can customize the layout, add buttons or menus or whatever.

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Basically the problem is that it suffers, like most open source projects, from featuritis. Nobody dares to determine what features to leave out to make the app easy to learn and use.

No offense here, but these are features that many people use. If you don't want a complete office suite, use Abiword, Pages, or TextEdit.

I also know that beginners have no problem using NeoOffice because it's what my mom uses. She's by no means a computer expert, but was able to figure out NeoOffice (just those basic features she needs) quickly and without any help from me (aside from very fundamental heres-how-to-use-a-computer type instructions).

As for Firefox, that's the only browser I use.

W

[besson3c]

Besides, it isn't like MS Office doesn't suffer from featuritis... I"m sure there were hordes of people demanding that damn paperclip and HTML export

[Neo.cmg]

Um...sorry, but it's written out plain as day on the NeoOffice website that lists it's features:

NeoOffice uses the Java technology that is built into Mac OS X. By using Java, there is no need to download and install the X11 software that OpenOffice.org requires.

Neo Office Features and Bugs

Again, the Java API sucks.

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

Um...sorry, but it's listed plain as day on the NeoOffice website listing it's features:

NeoOffice uses the Java technology that is built into Mac OS X. By using Java, there is no need to download and install the X11 software that OpenOffice.org requires.

Neo Office Features and Bugs

Again, Java API sucks.

Ummm, sorry back atcha. Read the FAQ:

(Disclaimer: I've written some stuff on the wiki myself.)

So...is NeoOffice written in Java?

No.

NeoOffice is a Mac OS X native version of OpenOffice.org that uses small amounts of Java code for graphics drawing and configuration.

OpenOffice.org is written primarily in platform-agnostic C++. However, NeoOffice takes advantage of Mac OS X's advanced Java integration to tap into the Mac OS X look-and-feel. In other words, the little bits of Java in NeoOffice primarily have to do with operations that affect how the application appears to the user. The "guts" of the office suite are written in C++. (The code that makes up NeoOffice is 99% OpenOffice.org code shared among all OpenOffice.org platforms and 1% Mac OS X-specific code in Java, C++, C, and Objective-C.)

Thus NeoOffice will only run on Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.3.x or 10.4.x—not on Mac OS 9, Mac OS X 10.2 or lower, Windows, Linux, Darwin, or any other form of UNIX.

How is Java used in NeoOffice?

As mentioned above, Java is mainly used to tap into the Mac OS X look-and-feel. What makes NeoOffice work isn't the Java language itself but rather the libraries that come with the virtual machine like Java 2D for drawing and AWT for menus. Those are actually already "native" in the Apple VM in the sense that Java 2D is really CoreGraphics/Quartz and AWT is really Carbon.[1]

The amount of Java used has also decreased over time. When NeoOffice was upgraded to the OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 codebase (NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha), text rendering switched from Java to the Mac OS X native ATSUI APIs since they are much more suited for complex text layout than Java is.[2] Other features were never implemented in Java at all (for instance the Dock menu, which used Carbon in NeoOffice/J 1.1 and Cocoa in newer versions).


In other words-- there are only tiny tiny bits of java used as a method for accessing Mac-specific, native Quartz/Carbon. NeoOffice is not running IN Java, it's using Java to get at other Apple stuff.

NeoOffice is written in C++.

Now start yer backpedaling..

W

[Neo.cmg]

Look, the interface is what the user interacts with--everything that is drawn on the screen in NeoOffice is being done by Java. The developers couldn't have picked a worse API for this task on MacOS X. That's why general interface performance for this suite sucks so bad as already noted by someone in this thread providing their first impressions of the app.

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

Look, the interface is what the user interacts with--everything that is drawn on the screen in NeoOffice is being done by Java. The developers couldn't have picked a worse API for this task on MacOS X. That's why general interface performance for this suite sucks so bad as already noted by someone in this thread providing their first impressions of the app.

It's not being "done" by Java. It's being done THROUGH Java. Java is just the means by which the *native* Mac UI interface is accessed. It is accomplished this way for technical reasons (a direct cocoa means was attempted in 2002 and failed). Now, since you've condemned the developers for picking the worst API possible, I'm sure you've looked through the code and have a deep understanding of the issues involved. I also wish you were around in 2002 when the Cocoa development effort (NeoOffice/C) stalled to give Pat and Ed the developers your technical advice.

In fact, it's not too late. Ed and Pat will be at OOoCon 2006, so drop by and maybe give them some pointers on which API you'd have liked them to use.

But enough reflecting on the past-- I have great news for ya. There's also an separate ongoing effort to port OOo to Aqua. Read the digests of [email protected] for more. It's been going on for a few years and hasn't yet produced a usable build, so I'm sure they could use your engineering prowess right about now to get it done.

There's a quote you see a lot on the NeoOffice site: "whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." Cocoa or Java-- the same native NATIVE Apple functionality is invoked.

W

[VValdo]

Damn double-post... Blah.

W

[dru]

I've been wondering why it's painfully slow. I can watch the 'Preferences' dialog draw each element. I can watch the window redraw toolbars and rules when a document opens.

It's the snail's pace that keeps NeoOffice in the 'unusable' category for me. OpenOffice.org, full screen, is somewhat snappier.

[Neo.cmg]

It's "painfully slow" because of it's calls to Java APIs which handle rendering (done by Java/through Java...english semantics). I have no use for an office application suite as I can get by with TeX, thus I would have no interest in supporting a development effort geared towards such. So, of course I haven't looked through the source to see the progress that has been made. There are technical challenges involved in any software development--that doesn't mean you just opt for the path of least resistance unless money and time are factors. In open source software development done in developers' spare time, money and scheduling are never obstacles.

I've seen the announcement by OOo made today via MacNN's website. Seeing as they have a working build seems as proof to me that the same hurdles NeoOffice developers faced were not so difficult to overcome afterall.

Oviously there is a difference between hot chocolate and coffee--maybe not in functionality--but in performance under OS X hot chocolate will always prevail.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by dru

I've been wondering why it's painfully slow. I can watch the 'Preferences' dialog draw each element. I can watch the window redraw toolbars and rules when a document opens.

It's the snail's pace that keeps NeoOffice in the 'unusable' category for me. OpenOffice.org, full screen, is somewhat snappier.

That actually has absolutely nothing to do with Java and is an issue with OpenOffice.org itself. In other words it is beyond the developer's of NeoOffice ability to fix (or the fix is worse than the original problem - NeoOffice/J "fixed" this issue by first painting windows off screen before finally displaying them but the result was a slow interface). FWIW, NeoOffice performance on my Mac is on a par with that of MS Office except for a few cases such as e.g. scrolling and the presentation mode where performance is pretty bad. The repainting of the interface is annoying at times, but it is not abysmally slow.

Originally Posted by TETENAL

It has a bazillion of tiny buttons and overly complex laid out dialog boxes etc. pp. Basically the problem is that it suffers, like most open source projects, from featuritis. Nobody dares to determine what features to leave out to make the app easy to learn and use.

Indeed, it's an Office clone and therefore suffers the same UI flaws as Office. However, this is a criticism of OpenOffice.org/MS Office, and not of NeoOffice - you can't expect them to rewrite the book completely from scratch with the resources they have at their disposal. I'm sure they would like to do a Pages on it, but that is just impractical.

FWIW, NeoOffice does support the system-wide character palette. Given that MS Office doesn't support 6 of the 7 items in that list of yours and also fails in similar aspects of the second list, I would say that was an even match in non-compliance. At least NeoOffice supports Unicode fonts in the same way as other OS X apps though.

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

It's "painfully slow" because of it's calls to Java APIs which handle rendering (done by Java/through Java...english semantics). I have no use for an office application suite as I can get by with TeX, thus I would have no interest in supporting a development effort geared towards such. So, of course I haven't looked through the source to see the progress that has been made. There are technical challenges involved in any software development--that doesn't mean you just opt for the path of least resistance unless money and time are factors. In open source software development done in developers' spare time, money and scheduling are never obstacles.

MacOS X four or so years ago was a very different beast to what it is now - Java was a compromise, but at the time it was the only one that WORKED.

To say money is never an obstacle is completely laughable - the two developers bear the brunt of the cost of hosting their sites and shifting GBs of downloads a week out of their own pockets and rely on donations to make up the shortfall. Patrick, the primary developer, spends all his time developing NeoOffice until he has to do some consulting to fund the effort. Money and scheduling no obstacle... what a joke.

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

I've seen the announcement by OOo made today via MacNN's website. Seeing as they have a working build seems as proof to me that the same hurdles NeoOffice developers faced were not so difficult to overcome afterall.

Two working builds of a native carbon version of OpenOffice.org (NeoOffice/C) existed years ago... but a working build and a stable and fully functional, completely native to the Mac application they were not. IOW, having a working build and having a finished and usable product are two very different things.

[Neo.cmg]

No one is paying the NeoOffice developers to do this work under any sort of contract. They are doing it of their own initiative and within their own resources. No one asked them or required them to host a website for the project. It is their hobby--as such they can decide how much money and time they wish to devote to the project or whether the project exists at all. Therefore, it is in no way a laughing matter to say that they are not burdened by time and money constraints in any way, shape, or form. They can choose to put in as little or as much time and resouces into their hobby/project as they can afford while still enjoying their work. Why take the easier/shortcut solution with a less attractive end result in such cases if no one is forcing you to? You're just wasting your time if you intend your effort to find widespread acceptance among end-users.

I believe their decision to make use of the Java framework was a poor one. That's my opinion, and I am entitled to it regardless if others disagree. In any case, I don't use it so it doesn't really affect me. Your performance experiences and opinions thereof with the app are certainly rare. I usually hear from others, and have experienced myself, something quite contrary--more along the lines of those two posters in this same thread who have just experienced the app for the first time and their first comments revolve around the lack of UI responsiveness. If you're going to develop software with the intent of sharing your work with others, then don't expect everyone to think your resulting product is the next great thing.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

Why take the easier/shortcut solution with a less attractive end result in such cases if no one is forcing you to? You're just wasting your time if you intend your effort to find widespread acceptance among end-users.

I believe their decision to make use of the Java framework was a poor one. That's my opinion, and I am entitled to it regardless if others disagree.

The decision to use the Java framework was the only one that could be made because, AT THE TIME, NOTHING ELSE WOULD WORK. Trying to port it to Carbon or Cocoa was a complete dead-end. Both were tried, both failed. So the decision was either to use Java or DO NOTHING. Whether or not the effort has been worth it is up to the people who rely on and use the product everyday, but things like NeoOffice becoming the default Office suite for voluntary organisations like the Scouts and therefore saving them a bundle of money while being able to retain their Macs is what make the effort worthwhile.

I would be the last person to say that the performance of NeoOffice is good or great. It isn't, but in comparison to the direct competition - MS Office on the Mac, which also suffers from poor performance - it isn't that bad. From my experience, with the exception of the presentation module it is quite usable. There are likely other areas where the speed isn't up to par but I haven't personally experienced them.

Originally Posted by Neo.cmg

If you're going to develop software with the intent of sharing your work with others, then don't expect everyone to think your resulting product is the next great thing.

Who said you should, but is it necessary to be so damned dismissive of it, especially as you obviously have not even bothered to use it?

[besson3c]

I understand the basis of the kneejerk reactions about Java apps, but if NeoOffice is OpenOffice which is a C app in a Java skin, maybe those with negative opinions about it should give the new beta a try and report back what they think?

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by besson3c

I understand the basis of the kneejerk reactions about Java apps, but if NeoOffice is OpenOffice which is a C app in a Java skin, maybe those with negative opinions about it should give the new beta a try and report back what they think?

Why do that when you can whine and talk out of your ass about technical issues you know nothing about, then admit you don't have any need for the (free) product you don't use anyway?

W

[discotronic]

I love NeoOffice just for the simple fact that it is free. I can use it for the all of features that I really need and above all it is free.

For someone like me that has no use to purchase MS Office this program is great. I could install a not so legal free version of Office but why bother. NeoOffice does everything I need it to do.

I just upgraded to the Beta 3 version and I can tell a big difference in speed. We have an iMac G4 800 and there is definitly an issue with being slow. But on my PowerMac 1.8GHz SP it works just fine.

I am very happy these guys are putting the work that they are into this project. MS Office doesn't offer me anything this program can't.

[Cadaver]

I actually find NeoOffice to be a fine edition of OpenOffice, and the aquafied version is for now about the best you'll find in a Mac-ified open source application of this size and complexity. No speed issues on either my MacBook Pro or my dual 2.5GHz G5. And while some of the on-screen images in Writer (a company letterhead logo, for example) can look anti-aliased, they at least seem to print just fine.

There is a completely native version (no X11, no Java) of OpenOffice for MacOS X on the horizon, though. It will be shown at the Paris Mac Expo in September.
Linky

[JLL]

Originally Posted by besson3c

That's all Mac specific stuff.

And that was the point I guess

[besson3c]

I was just messing around with a file somebody sent me from the Mac version of Excel, and lo and behold, it was generating OS 9 style line breaks!

A quick trip into the Unix "flip" text processor cleaned this up, but WTF? OS 9 line feeds? You guys can bitch about OpenOffice if you want, but MS Office ain't no panacea either.

OpenOffice has a much better HTML export, supports the open document format, has some interesting features such as the support for data sources. It certainly has more features than I'll ever need too, just like MS Office.

Why the disdain against it? It doens't have a pretty GUI? Boo hoo, the world ain't perfect. This GUI is functional enough to justify my never buying a copy of MS Office, that's for certain.

[Amorya]

Originally Posted by VValdo

You can customize the layout, add buttons or menus or whatever.

That's a bad thing in itself. If an interface is so terribly designed that each user has to modify it themselves, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the app!

Originally Posted by besson3c

Why the disdain against it? It doens't have a pretty GUI? Boo hoo, the world ain't perfect. This GUI is functional enough to justify my never buying a copy of MS Office, that's for certain.

OK, I am glad NeoOffice exists. I use it once in a while to get me out of a hole, if Pages is not good enough for what I want. But I don't like it either, because of the OpenOffice interface.

The most important point I want to make is it's not about prettiness!!! It is about functionality. An interface that is consistent is one of the key points for a functional app. No services support? Not just a Mac nicety, there goes my chosen Word Count function. (The app has its own? Good, but that does mean I have to learn a new way of doing that.) No support for Mac open dialogs? Well, sucks to be me if I want to drag a file into an open dialog. Guess I have to take 3 minutes to navigate to it manually, thus losing me time. Lack of a Font panel? Guess my sorting my huge amount of fonts into collections for easy finding was just time wasted, then.

There's an attitude going round MacNN that if you care about interface you are just looking for "pretty" apps. I have two things to say to that:

• Prettiness and interface consistency sells. Apple knows this -- that's why a lot of WWDC was about "wow factor". Some developers share the "they should be lucky to get a Mac version at all" attitude and then are surprised when people don't buy it, favouring one with a native interface.
• Interface consistency makes me more productive, saves me having to learn new conventions, and speeds up my work. That's what I'm after. Not necessarily prettiness (although given otherwise even choices, I would go with the prettier); it's about usability.

To disobey a platform's interface guidelines is a brave step. It is an announcement that, as a developer, you think you know better how to implement this interface feature. Sometimes developers do... but it's rare. In OpenOffice, the fonts menu displays about ten choices at once, with a scrollbar. A native Mac menu would stretch to fill the screen. So why did OO choose to bite their thumb at Apple and go their own way?

I know the answer is because it was easier for them. So the image their app puts across is "we don't care about our users enough to put more effort in". Fair enough if developers don't mind this image. But it won't stop me complaining about it, and they should not be surprised when they get fewer sales!

(Don't tell me to be more lax because OO is free. It's still competing with Office and iWork. Its freeness (as in beer) is an advantage to OO, but that still requires balancing against the advantages of the others.)


Amorya

[TheoCryst]

I understand a lot of the complaints in this thread about NeoOffice, and agree with many of the negative comments about the app. Yes, it's slow. Yes, it's completely un-integrated into OS X. Yes, it's still ugly as sin, even with native widgets. But you can't blame Patrick and the other devs for the limitations of OOo. The codebase is enormous, poorly laid out, and intensely confusing. Plus, this is only the first release of Aqua-y NeoOffice. Until now, all the work has been in getting OOo to work at all without X11. Only in the past few months have they been even attempting to work on the look and feel of the program, and they've made enormous steps in a remarkably short amount of time. Their work is nowhere near complete, but they've already turned OOo into a stable, semi-Aqua, X11-free app, which is amazing in and of itself.

And honestly, it's hardly more of a visual atrocity than Office 2004, which is integrated just as poorly as Neo. Personally, I'll stick with Pages/Keynote for most things, with NeoOffice as a backup just in case.

[selowitch]

I am definitely supportive of the NeoOffice/OpenOffice projects as a whole, and I really *want* them to be replace MS Office on my machine entirely. But I'm not ready to do that because NeoOffice still isn't quite ready for primetime.

Criticizing NeoOffice helps make it better. It doesn't make me anti-open-source and it doesn't make me a jerk. Other things accomplish that just fine .

My main need (along with lots of other Mac users) is to be able to open/edit/save .doc and .xls files quickly, predictably, and easily. The trouble is, every time I try to save such a file, I am bombarded with dire warnings about how my documents might lose certain attributes. I am assaulted by a dizzying array of filetypes I've never heard of. And unless I save my files as native OpenOffice, I get warnings out the wazoo and try as I might, I can't figure out how to disable all the darned warnings.

Also, opening docs attached to e-mail messages is problematic, too (at least it is using Thunderbird).

This is why I keep MS Office installed.

[bobablob]

Still rough, but a big step forward. A viable alternative to traditional word processors. Maybe once feature parity is achieved, the developers of OpenOffice will look at trouncing M$ in the usability department, but for now, this works well enough for me.

Three cheers to the developers for pouring so much sweat into this project.

Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!

[dimmer]

You can customize the layout, add buttons or menus or whatever.

That's a bad thing in itself. If an interface is so terribly designed that each user has to modify it themselves, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the app!

A good point but a pointless criticism of NeoOffice: the interface customization is a legacy of Office which became so bloated a single interface just wouldn't do. Take a look at the beta of Office 2007 for fun: apps are supposed to be modeless? Office makes every single main menu item it's own mode. It's horrid and close to unusable.

The opposite side of the coin is that each user will need to use a subset of features most of the time: make the interface modifiable and they can have the app that works best for them. There's a logic to this. It amkes training and tech support and getting used to the app more complex, but when done right, it works well for non-trivial applications (you'll have to talk to me later about whether writing simple text is a "complex" application).

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Amorya

That's a bad thing in itself. If an interface is so terribly designed that each user has to modify it themselves, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the app!
<snip>
The most important point I want to make is it's not about prettiness!!! It is about functionality. An interface that is consistent is one of the key points for a functional app.

It is consistent, but the consistency of OpenOffice.org is not aimed at being consistent with Mac OS - it is aimed at being consistent with MS Office because it is an Office clone. Nothing more, nothing less. The flaws in the UI are the same ones you will find in MS Office. Whether or not that is a wise choice, it is an understandable one.

No services support? Not just a Mac nicety, there goes my chosen Word Count function. (The app has its own? Good, but that does mean I have to learn a new way of doing that.)

Just like MS Office on the Mac

No support for Mac open dialogs? Well, sucks to be me if I want to drag a file into an open dialog. Guess I have to take 3 minutes to navigate to it manually, thus losing me time.

This version of NeoOffice uses native Open/Save dialogues.

Lack of a Font panel? Guess my sorting my huge amount of fonts into collections for easy finding was just time wasted, then.

Just like MS Office on the Mac.

There's an attitude going round MacNN that if you care about interface you are just looking for "pretty" apps. I have two things to say to that:

• Prettiness and interface consistency sells. Apple knows this -- that's why a lot of WWDC was about "wow factor". Some developers share the "they should be lucky to get a Mac version at all" attitude and then are surprised when people don't buy it, favouring one with a native interface.
• Interface consistency makes me more productive, saves me having to learn new conventions, and speeds up my work. That's what I'm after. Not necessarily prettiness (although given otherwise even choices, I would go with the prettier); it's about usability.

OpenOffice.org is not aimed at converting Mac users, it is aimed at converting MS Office users. The interface is designed to make it as easy as possible for the people who have used MS Office all their computing lives to switch to an alternative. Again, there are rights and wrongs to this decision, but it is understandable why they picked the option they did.

To disobey a platform's interface guidelines is a brave step. It is an announcement that, as a developer, you think you know better how to implement this interface feature. Sometimes developers do... but it's rare. In OpenOffice, the fonts menu displays about ten choices at once, with a scrollbar. A native Mac menu would stretch to fill the screen. So why did OO choose to bite their thumb at Apple and go their own way?

OpenOffice.org don't design anything for Mac users - they don't even think about MacOS users. The MacOS is a second tier platform for OpenOffice.org... which is why the NeoOffice project was started in the first place - to bring OpenOffice.org to OS X without a dependency on X11 so that Mac users would have a native version of OpenOffice.org.

I know the answer is because it was easier for them. So the image their app puts across is "we don't care about our users enough to put more effort in". Fair enough if developers don't mind this image. But it won't stop me complaining about it, and they should not be surprised when they get fewer sales!

They don't care about Mac users at all, but the NeoOffice project is separate from OpenOffice.org and does. Hence the huge amount of effort they have gone to get even this far with a native Mac version of OpenOffice.org. It isn't finished, and I bet it isn't half what they would wish it would be, but OpenOffice.org is on the Mac, it runs natively, and it gets more and more Mac-like with each release which is saying a lot given how hard the OpenOffice.org codebase has made it to achieve that aim.

[Amorya]

Originally Posted by JKT

This version of NeoOffice uses native Open/Save dialogues.

Ah, that's good. I did go and test before posting, but I haven't upgraded my version in a couple of weeks.

Just like MS Office on the Mac

Erm... I have similar issues with MS Office actually. I use iWork when I can; that, LaTeX, SPSS and a couple of others tend to cover all my office suite needs. I have NeoOffice for when all else fails. No MS Office installed at all!

However, even MS Office has had more work put into a Mac-like interface than OpenOffice.

OpenOffice.org is not aimed at converting Mac users, it is aimed at converting MS Office users. The interface is designed to make it as easy as possible for the people who have used MS Office all their computing lives to switch to an alternative. Again, there are rights and wrongs to this decision, but it is understandable why they picked the option they did.

Fair enough; doesn't mean I like the product, but I too can understand that.

They don't care about Mac users at all, but the NeoOffice project is separate from OpenOffice.org and does.

True. NeoOffice are kind of between a rock and a hard place here. But I don't use software for sympathy reasons -- I use the best tool for the job. NeoOffice is a better tool than MS Office in my eyes (despite having a less Aqua interface), but not a patch on some of the Mac specific word processors. Spreadsheet wise it is holding its own on my system; I haven't tried many of those yet.

Originally Posted by TheoCryst

Their work is nowhere near complete, but they've already turned OOo into a stable, semi-Aqua, X11-free app, which is amazing in and of itself.

And honestly, it's hardly more of a visual atrocity than Office 2004, which is integrated just as poorly as Neo. Personally, I'll stick with Pages/Keynote for most things, with NeoOffice as a backup just in case.

I do find NeoOffice pretty amazing from a technical point of view. When it comes to actually using software, though, NeoOffice bugs me with regards to speed and MacOS integration. It's the same with Firefox; I can appreciate the wonderful rendering engine in there, but the app itself annoys me to use.

Still rough, but a big step forward. A viable alternative to traditional word processors. Maybe once feature parity is achieved, the developers of OpenOffice will look at trouncing M$ in the usability department, but for now, this works well enough for me.

Personally, when starting the project (OO I mean) I think they should have gone for usability and gradually added some of the features of Office, like iWork is doing.

[dimmer]

Personally, when starting the project (OO I mean) I think they should have gone for usability and gradually added some of the features of Office, like iWork is doing.

Ideally? Yes. But that wasn't the original goal of the project, which was to break needing to use Word and Excel an enforcer to using Windows. Another old axion: to defeat your enemy, sing their song. By removing the barrier to entry of Linux to the desktop that "Can you read and write Word/Excel formats?" provides, and to an extent the "Do I need to retrain my office assistant to sit on my lap differently if we use OpenOffice and not Office Office?" queries engage, OpenOffice is a fine thing.

OpenOffice doesn't pretend to be a great piece of UI software: it's Office, remade (like that remake of the Omen: if the original film is sucky, the remake will too. Once people get off the crack that is office, maybe they'll want to use iWork, or other more open apps. Maybe we'll start to see PDF and XML really kick in. And then you get the new apps, that work smoothly, that remind you of Word 3.0 (which was cool). And run on your PS3 so you never get away from work.

Baby steps.

[pliny]

The guys at NeoOffice obviously are up against quite a few people. They're only a couple of guys against the Office team at at the MacBU. So pretty good work all in all. It seems they're doing good stuff with the code base they got, which according to some posts, means that the code base is v. messy.

I don't know why OpenOffice doesn't offer modular, single applicaitons. Wouldn't this make working with the code easier. To open one of the modules you have to open the entire suite and then access them through this. If we had to do the same with Office it would definitely take a performance hit.

User interface is not a secondary consideraiton for Mac users, it is up near the top for many. The interface after all is one of the great strengths of the OS. Consistency and making use of the functions built into the MacOS are things I look for in an application, definitely. I'll sometimes toss applications for having naughty interfaces and dialogues.

[dimmer]

I don't know why OpenOffice doesn't offer modular, single applicaitons.

I don't either, which is why when I go to Start:Applications:OpenOffice.org and see OpenOffice Write, OpenOffice Calc, OpenOffice Present etc. etc I get all confused!

OpenOffice isn't monolithic by nature.

[VValdo]

Originally Posted by dimmer

I don't either, which is why when I go to Start:Applications:OpenOffice.org and see OpenOffice Write, OpenOffice Calc, OpenOffice Present etc. etc I get all confused!

OpenOffice isn't monolithic by nature.

I believe it is-- someone correct me if I'm wrong here, I don't have Windows. I think that those shortcuts just determine which application is loaded first when OpenOffice.org launches.

Incidentally, you can do this with NeoOffice as well. You can tell it to load up Calc instead of Write when it first loads. The instructions are on the wiki, but I think it's had a bit of a hit the last few days and is down.

Also of interest on the wiki when it goes back up-- a feature comparison w/MS Office that should spark some more discussion. Here it is:

NeoOffice Feature Comparison - NeoWiki

And last but not least, for those of you who want to make NeoOffice a little nicer-looking, check this out:

InsanelyMac Forum

Read more about the effort to get some nicer icons here:

trinity

W

Updated w/better links

[the_glassman]

I LOVE it! I have long ago ditched Office in favor of NeoO and haven't looked back. Sure it's not as pretty, but it works just as well for my uses and in some cases better.