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OS X Businesses Operating Systems Apple

OpenOffice for Mac OS X Developer Build Available 32

Posted by pudge from the mmmm-chocolate-babies dept.
colaboy writes "As of today, the folks at OpenOffice.org have successfully built OpenOffice.org 638c for Mac OS X using the X11 windowing system from XFree86.org. It works. They need, more than ever, help to finish it, so that it uses OpenOffice.org 1.0 and Aqua, and is bug-free. Download it now, and join the project and mailing list. Hunt for bugs; test features; make suggestions. They have proven the concept: OpenOffice.org can run--and it looks beautiful--on Mac OS X."
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OpenOffice for Mac OS X Developer Build Available More

OpenOffice for Mac OS X Developer Build Available

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  • It would be a lot nicer if they could use the Aqua UI. Of course, they'd probably have to rewrite all of their UI code. Just check the screenshot that compares MS Word and Open Office, and tell me which one looks better.

    • Re:No Aqua UI? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rakarnik ( 180132 )
      It would be a lot nicer if they could use the Aqua UI.

      Sure it would. And they are asking for help with this. OpenOffice.Org is tremendously limited on resources, especially considering the scope of the project.

      Of course, they'd probably have to rewrite all of their UI code.

      This would be on the scale of porting the app to Windows. Luckily, Sun/Staroffice had done a great deal of work for the Windows port even before OpenOffice.Org got started. No such established codebase exists for an Aqua version. I am not sure what levels of the architecture [openoffice.org] can be reused.

    • The Quickening... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Big Sean O ( 317186 )
      I've noticed that when fun projects reach a certain level of completeness on *nix, the Cocoa developers come out of the woodwork. Take a look at Chimera [mozdev.org], a cocoa port of Mozilla.

      I know that getting XDarwin is a hassle for lots of "vanilla" Mac users, but this is going to be a must download for bleeding-edge Unix weenies.

      I predict a Cocoa version will be under weigh by the time this message is posted and we will see an alpha by Xmas (ten-mas!).

      .
      • Why wait for the Cocoa programmers to port their stuff over. Why not make Aqua backwards compatable with X. Then you can run traditional Unix applications without a huge porting effort. Of course, to use some of the best features, you need to develop for Aqua.
  • How does this stack up to M$ Office? If it is a viable altertnative, I would gladly convert. Any input appreciated.

    • Re:OpenOffice... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      'nuff said [openoffice.org].

      I know this is probably going to get marked as a troll, but come on, look a that. That's just terrible.
      • Yes, I know that the interface is not up to par with MS Office. What I was asking input for was whether or not the feature set of the OpenOffice (or StarOffice) is comparable to that of MS Office. What if it was "Auqa-fied"? Would it still stand up?

    • Re:OpenOffice... (Score:2, Informative)

      by kwerle ( 39371 )
      Depending on your needs, OpenOffice is a great alternative to M$ Office. We used it on Windows instead of M$, and it has been sorely missed on OSX. I'm glad they have the X11 port done, as I do not fear X11 (see also fink.sf.net for an "easy" X11 install).

      If you're looking for something that works, give it a shot - it is free, after all :-)

      (I can't speak to the quality on OSX, but on Windows it was very stable)
    • As I understand it, text formatting is fine, but I heard there might be bugs in the tables and images on the page. That was several builds ago though.

  • the two small icons in his menu strip, what are they from? the one looks like a netstat icon, the b\w one i dont know.

    any info on these people. ive been OSXing for a year now and ive never seen them before.

    TIA

    • One is for Massinova [massinova.com], a spiffy online electronica radio station. You can access it via Radio Stations > Electronica in iTunes, or by downloading [massinova.com] their menubar plugin or Dock extra.

      The other is ProcessWizard [theinteractivething.com], basically a GUI to re-nice processes.
  • Oh I wish I could program like this, I would spend every waking moment on Open Office, not because it is free but because we desperately need an alternative to Office. While I think Office for X is amazing, we need competition and we need to be prepared for when the Apple-M$ deal goes south (it's closer than many think). Unix geeks and Mac Lovers should unite for a common goal in Open Office, the biggest problem is many users have no idea what fink is and are scared of the command line so we need a true OS X port of it, but I will be downloading it today!
    • not because it is free but because we desperately need an alternative to Office.

      Yuppers.

      we need to be prepared for when the Apple-M$ deal goes south (it's closer than many think).

      What a load of crap. There is no indication the deal will go south, and when it does, 2 things will happen:
      1. M$ will be ruled a monopoly and broken up, because M$/Intel will be the only game in town because:
      2. Apple will die because it is not M$ compatable

      So tell me, why would M$ dump a money making venture like OfficeX when they have already done the port? No, never mind, don't tell me.
  • People, this is a barely stable developers build. It's not ready for the public yet. Eventually it will have an Aqua front end, but not yet because they've only just managed to hack this build together!

    It's put out there for the Apple WWDC for people to take a look at and come along and give a hand. Please do not think that this is anywhere near the quality of OpenOffice.org 1.0 on Linux, Windows or Solaris. Yet.

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