Friday Mac Release Roundup 75
An anonymous reader writes "The new RealPlayer 10 beta was released for Mac OS X. It's got a built-in web browser built off Apple's WebKit. This, along with all the Mac-specific UI tweaks, makes for a pretty solid release overall, imho."
lucadex writes "Open Office 1.1.2 has been officially released on Mac OS X. This is the first official O.O. upgrade since version 1.0.3."
Tom Davies writes "Oracle has released an early adopter's release of 10g for Mac OS X."
adamhauner writes "Mozilla.org released final version of Camino 0.8, a Gecko-based browser optimized for Mac OS X with a Cocoa user interface. This version, besides having other new features, also upgrades the Gecko HTML rendering engine from Mozilla 1.0 to Mozilla 1.7."
OO.o still requires X11 (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people who install OSX for themselves never get around to installing X11.
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:5, Informative)
It will be released in late 2005 or early 2006.
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to point out that there is a semi-native hack for OpenOffice called NeoOffice [planamesa.com]. It wraps OpenOffice in Java, which means you don't need to run X11 first, you can use native key bindings for everything, the system clipboard works properly, and (best of all) the native OS X print system is used.
Sure, the UI is still an ugly Windows-esque menu-in-the-window scheme, but it's better than nothing. :) I've been using it for my work and school papers, and found it to be as stable as an official OpenOffice build for OS X. It also seems to be a lot faster... initial startup time (because of Java) is as crappy as ever, but once it's running, it's a lot smoother.
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:4, Informative)
The parts of it that are Java are actually on par, if not faster then their X11 equivalents. Feel free to break out Shark and take a look for yourself
ed
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:2, Interesting)
It launches faster than X11 OpenOffice or MS Office
So, your point must be right. Also if I understand it right (not a developer here) only "fast" launch time will happen when they move to 2.0 , e.g. native so it will be prebinded.
OO.o people, if you want to imp
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:2)
I just checked and you're quite right. I was mistaken about that. It has a UI which resembles X11 more than Aqua which is why I thought so.
> I'm not sure that OO.o's slowness has anything to do
> with Java or X11, it's just slow. It's slow under Linux
> and under Windows and was slow when it was StarOffice
> and had nothing to do with Java. I suspect over time
> the code is going to be reviewed and this particular
> issue resolved.
There's probably m
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:2, Informative)
There is no Java in OOo (Score:5, Informative)
There is no Java in OpenOffice.org. It is just horribly inefficient C++. The only time Java is used in OOo Mac OS X is during the build process to validate some XML configuration documents; at runtime it doesn't need Java at all. That's why it's possible to run on DarwinPPC even though you can't compile it on DarwinPPC.
Remember, it wasn't written by Sun, but by Star Division. It was started back in the mid to early 1990s and was definitely back in the day before the AWT was anywhere near stable or cross platform. It may have even been started before Java, but I'm unsure of the timelines.
ed
Re: (Score:2)
Re:OO.o still requires X11 (Score:2)
Good to see... (Score:3, Informative)
Btw, does anyone on
OOo just isn't quite there, as I really can't force X11 apps down our Mac users' throats - they just feel way too different, and I haven't been able to find anything else, either. We could use different software for Macs, like we are actually doing now, and wait for OOo's upcoming Aqua-based 2.0 -version, but if anyone here does have better suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.
Re:Good to see... (Score:3, Informative)
Here's two options; I haven't tried either (but at one time the Apple Stores were selling ThinkFree office, if that means anything):
FWIW, a place to look for this sort of stuff is the Apple Products Guide [apple.com] as they'll list pretty much anything that works on the Mac. That means a lot of crap in the h
Re:Good to see... (Score:2)
Re:Good to see... (Score:1)
It integrates system well and launches real fast. You don't need to buy it to try, can use it for 15 days or so, as trialware.
Hansoft acquired them lately, biggest sw house in South Korea I heard... As I remember early versions of Thinkfree was working inside browser even and knowing how freaky fast lines Koreans have...
Re:Good to see... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good to see... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good to see... (Score:2)
RealPlayer is actually quite nice (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I want to stand up, stick my neck out, and say "Sorry! You guys seem to have made up for it!"
As a Cocoa programmer who just doesn't understand why big companies don't dive in and *properly* port their software, I'm impressed that Real has written what seems to be a real, honest-to-god cocoa app. The preferences window is a *real* Mac OS X prefs window. The app behaves like a proper document-based app, where the program won't shut down if you close all the files. And so on, and so on; I'm really impressed.
And, while I have no idea what it's like on windows ( I haven't touched a windows box in at least a year ), real player is being quite nice about not stealing your file associations, unlike what I remember a few years ago on Win2K. It doesn't hide anything as far as I can tell, and the default associations are not only few, but reasonable.
Good show, real. I think I'm *finally* going to pay for your product.
Re:RealPlayer is actually quite nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, when I ported it from Qt/KDE on linux, I decided to go native, and wrote a full cocoa gui.
http://home.earthlink.net/~zakariya/files/TooCo
[the filename refers to my current project to refactor the gui]
Not only was it not hard at all, but the overall design of cocoa makes separation of core logic from presentation relatively easy. My simulation, my core APIs and so on were completely unchanged. All I really did was write some new interface code. In fact, Cocoa made it so damn easy my Gui became richer and and order of magnitude more complete.
My smooth and comfortable experiences doing this make me frustrated when I see shoddily written ports to Mac OS X. Cocoa is like mana from heaven. You get to keep your core C/C++ and just make a binding to the UI. Who can complain about that? Plus you get to use one of the most beautiful procedural languages available ( IMNSHO ) Objective-C.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.
Re:RealPlayer is actually quite nice (Score:2)
Looks good. Are you planning on making it available to the public? I would be ineterested to check it out on my computer.
Re:RealPlayer is actually quite nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Best of all, I hear taking code from it to OS X is just a quick recompile for a native experience, which is always nice. You can see screenshots of a app that does just that here [collaboration-world.com].
Re:RealPlayer is actually quite nice (Score:2)
I used Realone for Windows back in my XP days, 7 months ago, before my P4 box literally burned and I moved to Mac G5.
As I was "radiopass" member for listening to Knac.com radio , it became "plus". I really liked it but after all, I thought of privacy people
The "stealing" of file associations exist since, every mmedia app in windows including Quicktime has to mess with evil lit
Attention Radiopass subscribers! (Score:2)
Currently I can't listen to any of those premium radios (acid jazz etc) via RealOne browser itself. It plainly crashes. Also, THANK YOU people calling Real spyware, I can't send crash report to Realone networks like windows version. Or, Omniweb I use here...
I use Real since 1.0 release, first time I see application crash when I try to access premium content. Only change I remember is, Opensource code...
Sorry, bit frustrated since can't access to content I pai
Camino is fantastic (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Camino is fantastic (Score:2)
Does is support firefox extensions?
I'm guessing not, even Firefox doesn't support Firefox extensions properly on the Mac side. I wish it did, I so really want to use Firefox instead of Safari, but there's a couple features (that can be added via extensions that don't work on the Mac side) missing that keep me away.
Re:Camino is fantastic (Score:2)
Re:Camino is fantastic (Score:2)
Now, when they'd just yet fix the certificate thingy, then I'll switch.
But what is really cool in Camino compared to Safari is, that it's not metal!
Seconded (Score:1)
Re:Camino is fantastic - at Javascript! (Score:1)
Camino 0.8 is hugely good, and better than earlier versions. But one area that it really shines is in processing of Javascript pages.
I used the BenchJS [24fun.com] benchmark from the 24fun.com [24fun.com] web site to test Safari , Firefox, and Camino on my 12" Powerbook (837Mhz) Here's what I got:
That's five to six times quicker!
By comparison:
Re:Camino is fantastic - at Javascript! (Score:2)
Camino 0.8 - 41 sec
Safari 1.3 preview - 42 sec
Re:Camino is fantastic - at Javascript! (Score:1)
overall though, i still prefer firefox--in part because i am addicted to the 'smoke' theme. i like the simple elegance of it...kinda like the rest of my mac.
Re:Camino is fantastic - at Javascript! (Score:2)
Firefox 0.8 OS X 10.3.4 (1.33GHz) 36.08 (but the first test seemed to jump by 100s.)
Safari 1.2 (same Mac) 44.98 seconds (but there is NO STATUS BAR to update!)
Camino 0.8 (same Mac) 11.31 seconds (but no red windows, no status bar update)
Camino is teh Winnar!
The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Until that's fixed, it's useless.
Pity, it looked good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Or my right hand, depending on which one I'm mousing with.
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
(my middle button does exactly what I want it to do - open a link in a new tab. You just have to map the middle button to send a command-click.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
My mouse is a Logitech, and the Logitech Control Center has the option to assign a command-click to the middle button. I also know the option also exists in most other mouse driver software.
A command-click is the standard command for opening in a new tab in Firefox. You shouldn't need to hack Mo
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:1)
this doesnt fix your gripe with the mozilla bug, but it wont mess up middle clicking for any other apps
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:1)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Try mapping your extra buttons to Expose functions. That'll make you REALLY wonder if Apple System Engineers use Apple mice.
If only third-party BlueTooth mice didn't suck so much. Microsoft's mouse, normally good, will periodically fail to connect and then I'm mouseless for a day or so.
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:2)
was that so hard?
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:1)
Re:The problem with Camino (Score:1)
With Safari, I just tell Safari to Camino's userContent.css file as its style sheet and ads are gone on Safari as well.
Web browser? (Score:2)
Re:Web browser? (Score:1)
Re:Web browser? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Web browser? (Score:2)
I couldn't put radio to favorites even since OSX (thank god) cleared the temp folder... So, radio was cleared too
I had to feedback to Omnigroup for instance to fix the radio links, at v5 beta build, it was displaying a text file since Real sent some strange data to browser...
So, thanks Realnetworks AND Helix Opensource volunteers... I
Open Office timeline? (Score:2)
Does anyone know the projected timeline for OO.o on OS X, specifically whent eh Carbon version is targeted for release?
Also, how well does OO.o work with the latest version of MS Office.mac?
Re:Open Office timeline? (Score:2)
Does anyone know the projected timeline for OO.o on OS X, specifically whent eh Carbon version is targeted for release?
Here [openoffice.org] is a timeline.
Bottomline: Projected OS X native availability of OpenOffice.org 2.0 is currently Q1 2006.
Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. OSS guys that are projecting 2 years out? Unlike a commercial dev, they are inclined to let RL get in the way. + this article was last updated 8/03, so it's an even further out projection that it is today. So basically, no telling. Unle
Re:Open Office timeline? (Score:2)
AFAIK most of the voluneer Carbon guys have quit -- that is probably the biggest need in OOo right now -- carbon developers.
Hope Oracle actually ships it (Score:5, Interesting)
They said they'd wait till it actually shipped, but it never did. There's a ton of stuff Apple provides with the XServe that we could use (XSan definately springs to mind), but whereas we don't do cool rendering or whatnot, we want the boxes for more mundane, database-driven stuff.
On this I sort of blame Apple too, they seem to push the XServes as great for scientific or graphics crunching, but seem to neglect the possibility that their hardware could be used for decidely less sexy roles like serving up text-based data to thousands of users. I am *this* close to convincing the powers-that-be that not every Mac has to run Photoshop, but without the database (specifically Oracle), it won't even be considered.
Pudge, I really like this (Score:2)
Kudos, beer and swedish bikini team models are being sent your way.
Camino? Use Firefox instead. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've given both Camino and Safari their due attention and a very fair chance to become my default browser. Safari gets an extra point because I like the brushed metal. Camino gets an extra point because of type-ahead find. But so far nothing beats the AdBlock [mozdev.org] extention for Firefox.
If could get AdBlock type blocking on Safari I'd finally make the full leap.
Re:Camino? Use Firefox instead. (Score:2)
Re:Camino? Use Firefox instead. (Score:2)
I have found it, and will give it to you, since you asked so nicely.
PithHelmet [culater.net]
It's like adblock for Safari, but nicer.
Re:Camino? Use Firefox instead. (Score:2)
Re:Camino? Use Firefox instead. (Score:1)
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=113155&
Re:Camino? Use Firefox instead. (Score:1)
Oo.o 1.1.2 installation (Score:2)
Anyone else had this problem? What should I do?
I'm now investigating the latest NeoOffice/J - I've got an older version, and it's pretty good, apart from it being very, very slow. If this one br
Read the Installer FAQ (Score:3, Informative)
Also don't be afraid to post and browse through the online support forums [neooffice.org] where users exchange hints, tips, bug reports, and the like.
All of us volunteers have put up extensive OOo support resources for Mac OS X users, and there are links to all of them on the "Suppo
Re:Oo.o 1.1.2 installation (Score:2)
I have got the Bitstream Vera fonts installed (the monospaced ones are great for programming) - a common theme?
Soullessbastard: Thanks for all the links, too!
Mac geeks, leave Firefox to win32/linux users (Score:2)
At least services aren't grayed out, UI is quartz accelerated and the developer is friendly. Of course, its a native thing.