NeoOffice Build Instructions

From NeoWiki

Contents 1 Building and Developing NeoOffice 1.1 Build Instructions 1.2 Getting Help 1.3 Source Code 1.4 Forum Threads 1.5 Development Plans

Building and Developing NeoOffice

Build Instructions

Patrick Luby maintains the NeoOffice build instructions at http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/build.php

Because building NeoOffice requires building OpenOffice.org/X11, you might find the OpenOffice.org 1.1.x for Mac OS X build instructions helpful.

Getting Help

Archives of the dev@porting.openoffice.org mailing list are useful; you can search them for errors you encounter.

You can also post questions in the NeoOffice/J Development forum on trinity (and search it for errors), but be aware that the NeoOffice developers consider the process of compiling OpenOffice.org (even as a subset of NeoOffice) as a "trial by fire" and little hand-holding is available.

Experience has shown that those who are unable to work through the OpenOffice.org build will be unable to do the debugging and other work necessary when adding code or fixing an existing bug in OpenOffice.org or NeoOffice. (Such "hand-holding" also cuts into the limited time the volunteer developers have to fix actual bugs and improve Mac OS X integration.)

Building OpenOffice.org on the Mac (and by extension NeoOffice) is often difficult because there is always some change to the code for Linux or Windows that makes OOo no longer buildable on Mac OS X. Sun's engineers do not build on Mac OS X so changes for Windows or Linux can easily break the build on Mac OS X and undetected. Also, Sun routinely does not merge Mac OS X fixes into the next build. A patch may be integrated in the OOo 1.1.3 code but then not merged into the OOo 1.1.4 code, and fixes from the OOo 1.1.x codeline will not appear in the OOo 2.x codeline.

Source Code

NeoOffice source code is available as a tarball on the latest release or milestone disk image; the latest code is always available in cvs.

You can also browse the NeoOffice source online.

Forum Threads

The following threads or posts from trinity may contain useful tips for beginners wishing to build NeoOffice:

• Setting up your build environment

Along those lines, the NeoOffice developers also build the OpenOffice.org dependencies themselves rather than relying on Fink or DarwinPorts.

• Errors on Build
• Tips for Building Neo/J

N.B. the above threads apply to the NeoOffice/J 1.1 release; the build requirements have changed slightly beginning with NeoOffice 1.2 Alpha.

• Compiling HEAD on 10.4

These changes have all been committed to HEAD and the NeoOffice 1.2 Alpha codebase, but there are some helpful tips about the NeoOffice build system and cvs in the later pages of the thread.

• More explanation of the Neo build system
• gcc4 porting

For those crazy enough to live on the bleeding edge, or those with Developer Transition Kits :-)

• More cvs tips

Development Plans

For reference, the current (late 2005-2006) development plans are roughly outlined in this thread.

You can also check the bugs marked New/Deferred in Bugzilla to see specific items the developers plan on implementing as time and resources permit.

Ed Peterlin also maintains a set of specifications for adding Mac-specific features (or, things he's like to add, if he ever gets time after adding Aqua widgets!).