NeoOffice 2.2.5 New Features

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Revision as of 04:06, 10 September 2008

Around 15 September 2008 we plan to release NeoOffice 2.2.5 with the following new features:

• Slideshow presentations run significantly faster
• Web layout view no longer loses cursor position when saving
• Custom folders can be added in the Media Browser
• Slideshow presentations can be run using a remote control

Special thanks go to all who have donated to the NeoOffice.org project since we released NeoOffice 2.2.4. Without everyone's donations, not only would we have been unable to implement the these new features, we would not have been able to provide rapid investigation and fixing of significant bugs found by users.

Slideshow presentations run significantly faster

While slideshow speed has been reasonable on new machines with lots of memory, slideshow speed was very slow for older machines or machines with limited memory. After much analysis and testing, we found NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code does a lot of unnecessary work while running slideshows and starting with NeoOffice 2.2.4 Patch 4, NeoOffice is able to detect and skip such unnecessary work.

With these changes, we have seen the following signficant speed improvements when running slideshow presentations and when opening presentation files. The performance improvements are most noticeable on older machines or on machines with 512 MB or less of memory:

• Slideshow presentations run up to 33% faster
• PowerPoint and Impress files open up to 10% faster

With these performance improvements, NeoOffice slideshow presentations run significantly faster than OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta 2.

Web layout view no longer loses cursor position when saving

Since we started supporting the Quick Look Cover Flow view that Apple added in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, users that saved their documents while in Writer's web layout view have suffered from a very annoying bug in NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code: the cursor would be scrolled of the screen if the cursor was not at the top of the document.

Starting with NeoOffice 2.2.5, we have fixed the bug in NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code so that now the cursor will not scroll the cursor off of the screen when saving a document while in Writer's web layout view.

Folders in the Media Browser can be customized

Since we added Karelia Software's iMedia Browser in NeoOffice 2.2.4, Karelia Software has added the ability to customize the folders that are displayed in the Media Browser.

Starting with NeoOffice 2.2.5, you can add any folder to the Media Browser by dragging a folder from the Finder or your Desktop into the Media Browser window or by Control-clicking in the Media Browser's list of folders.

Slideshow presentations can be run using a remote control

If your Mac has support for Front Row or you have the Keyspan Front Row Remote, starting with NeoOffice 2.2.4 Patch 3 you can use the Apple or the Keyspan Front Row remote controller to start, stop, and move through a slideshow in NeoOffice Impress. Support for the Front Row remote control was made possible by the work of Martin Kahr who developed the Remote Control Wrapper open source framework.

When an Impress window is the active window in NeoOffice, pressing the Start/Pause (â–¶||) button on your Front Row remote controller will start a slideshow.

When a slideshow is already running, the following actions are available:

• Pressing the Track Forward (▶▶|) button will move forward a slide
• Pressing the Track Backward (|◀◀) button will move back a slide
• Pressing the Start/Pause (â–¶||) button will end the slideshow