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NeoOffice and Aqua
From NeoWiki
Revision as of 05:19, 2 January 2005
NeoOffice/J FAQ
Why doesn't NeoOffice/J have the typical Mac OS X "blue button" Aqua user interface?
Currently, NeoOffice/J does not yet include much "Aquafication". However, the developers are working on it!
The goal is to slowly add Aqua features to NeoOffice/J so that it becomes more and more Mac-like until there is no evidence left that it ever was anything but a Mac OS X application.
Over the past few months, NeoOffice/J has seen bit-by-bit improvements.
What are some recent Aquafication breakthroughs?
As of December, 2004:
- Localized interfaces for 40 languages (12/2004)
- New Aqua application icon and splash screen (12/2004)
- Optimized/smaller PDFs (12/2004)
- Text drag & drop (12/2004)
- Scroll-wheel support (11/2004)
- Native menus now appear in the white bar at the top of the screen, just like any other Mac program. (Previously, they appeared at the top of the same window as the document.) (11/2004)
- Automatic notification of new patches and versions (11/2004)
- Patches available as standard Mac OS X installer packages (09/2004)
- Support for Macintosh file aliases in open and save dialogues (09/2004)
Stay tuned as new features continue to be added!
What technologies are used in the Aquafication of NeoOffice/J?
Aqua is the "look and feel" developed by Apple for OS X. Apple provides three frameworks for developing applications with an Aqua user interface:
- Carbon (sort-of OS 9 compatibility mode, also used by Mozilla/Firefox)
- Cocoa (new framework that was adapted from NeXT for Mac OS X)
- Java (cross-platform language, includes JFC/Swing for native-looking UI elements)
NeoOffice/C (the original project) was an attempt to use Cocoa and Carbon. The more successful project, NeoOffice/J, currently uses a mix of Java 1.3 and Carbon.
So...is NeoOffice/J written in Java?
No.
NeoOffice/J is based on OpenOffice.org, which is written primarily in C++. However, NeoOffice/J takes advantage of Mac OS X's advanced Java integration to tap into the OS X look-and-feel. In other words, the "J" in NeoOffice/J primarily has 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/J 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/J will only run on Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.2.x or 10.3.x—not on Mac OS 9, Windows, Linux, Darwin, or any other form of UNIX.
Has NeoOffice/J replaced NeoOffice/C?
Yeah, .
Where Can I Learn More About NeoOffice/J
For tips on using NeoOffice/J, see the Tips and Hints section of this Wiki.
