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NeoOffice/J Press Kit
From NeoWiki
This is the page where we will collect additional resources for the use of the press/media.
Welcome to the NeoOffice® Press Kit. This page aims to provide those interested in writing a story about NeoOffice®/J with some background materials. The initial press release is available at the NeoOffice/J 1.1 Announcement page.
Contents |
Features
The advantages of NeoOffice/J over other office suites, particularly Microsoft's, are legion. Most importantly, NeoOffice/J is free and open source software relieving you of costly licensing fees.
There is a strong community support forum that is also frequented by the developers at http://www.trinity.org/
NeoOffice/J vs. Microsoft Office
Apart from these benefits, NeoOffice/J 1.1 has features that outshine Microsoft Office:
| Feature | NeoOffice/J | MS Office 2004 for Mac |
|---|---|---|
| General: | ||
| Price (standard edition) | $0.00 | $349.95 |
| Type ahead functionality (optional) like many mobile phones have | YES | No |
| A logical, safe and suite-wide system for templates, so these are never accidentally updated | YES | No |
| Clean HTML code export (compliant with international web standards) | YES | No |
| Unified User Interface, reducing learning time and costs | YES | No |
| Localized user interface (number of languages) | 40* | 7* |
| International spelling checkers and localized help | 61** | 12** |
| Support for text entry in non-Roman scripts including South Asian, East Asian, right-to-left and complex text layout scripts. | YES | Some [1] |
| Supported scripts or languages: | ||
| Arabic | YES | No |
| Armenian | YES | No |
| Cyrillic | YES | YES |
| Cherokee*** | YES | YES |
| Chinese (Simplified) | YES | YES |
| Chinese (Traditional) | YES | YES |
| Devanagari & Gujarati (Indic languages) | YES | No |
| Greek | YES | YES |
| Hebrew | YES | No |
| Inuktitut*** | YES | YES |
| Japanese | YES | YES |
| Korean | YES | YES |
| Roman (Western and Eastern European languages) | YES | YES |
| Roman (Hawaiian, Northern Sami) | YES | YES |
| Roman (Vietnamese) | YES | No |
| Thai | YES | No |
| Other | Likely**** | Unknown |
| Writer (word processor): | ||
| A logical style system that does not invent styles based on your layout choices. | YES | No |
| Functional bullet/list numbering | YES | No |
| The ability to import WordPerfect documents (thanks to the libwpd project) | YES | No |
| Calc (spreadsheet): | ||
| More conditional layout options for cells | YES | No |
| Style-enabled layout system for text and cells | YES | No |
| Impress (presentation): | ||
| The ability to export to Flash animation | YES | No |
| Superior (3D) font art possibilities. | YES | No |
| * NeoOffice/J ships with UIs for languages 12 languages; the other 28 are freely available in language packs. Office 2004 is available in English (all versions of Office 2004), and in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Swedish (for some versions of Office 2004; must be ordered separately) [2]. | ||
| ** NeoOffice/J includes help files and a growing number of writing (proofing) tools for many languages from the OpenOffice.org project [3], [4], [5], [6]. Microsoft Office 2004 ships with proofing tools for English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, German, Danish, Swedish, Portuguese, Finnish, and Dutch [7]. | ||
| *** You must use the Caps Lock key to enable syllabics. | ||
| **** Because OpenOffice.org includes support for languages and scripts which do not have keyboard layouts in Mac OS X, and because Mac OS X includes system-level Unicode support for many of these languages even though Apple does not ship fonts or keyboards, it is very likely that NeoOffice/J will support text entry (and perhaps sorting) in the language/script if one installs third-party Unicode fonts and keyboard layouts. See Tom Gewecke's Your Multilingual Mac for more resources. | ||
NeoOffice/J vs. OpenOffice.org for Macintosh (X11)
NeoOffice/J is far more integrated with OS X than the X11 version on which it is based. Rather than relying on X11, NeoOffice/J uses Java to bridge the gap between the OpenOffice.org interface code and Apple's OS X.
| Feature | NeoOffice/J | OpenOffice.org for Mac (X11) |
|---|---|---|
| Uses your normal Mac fonts (no conversion required) | YES | No |
| Smooth font display (Quartz anti-aliasing) | YES | No |
| Allows international keyboards and switches keyboards along with your Mac | YES | Partial |
| Optimized PDF generation | YES | No |
| Native Aqua menus | YES | No |
| Native OS X printing | YES | No |
| Native (styled) copy and paste support | YES | No |
| Drag-and-drop between other applications | YES | No |
| Normal Mac keyboard shortcuts (command key) | YES | Yes* |
| Mouse wheel scrolling | YES | ??? |
| Integrated with Finder and major mail clients | YES | Partial** |
| * Available only with certain settings in Apple X11 | ||
| ** Finder integration provided by separate Start OpenOffice.org application; integration with Apple Mail only | ||
Still To Do
In all fairness, NeoOffice/J is not perfect. No software is. Along with relatively large RAM requirements (minimum 256MB, 512MB recommended), there is always room for improvement. NeoOffice/J can (and will) get better. Take a look at the following comparison:
| Feature | NeoOffice/J | MS Office 2004 for Mac | OpenOffice.org for Mac (X11) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitmap printing at >300 dpi | No | Yes | Yes |
| Can print Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Standard Mac OS X open & save dialogues | No | Yes | No |
| Media (plugin) support | No | Yes | No |
| Non-Mac keyboard shortcuts | Some | Some | Some |
| Table drawing options | Good | Very good | Good |
| Aqua look-and-feel | Partial | Full | None |
Graphics
Medium- and High-Res Logos, Headers, Application Icons
- sardisson has some of these (the wiki and websites have smaller, lo-res versions to keep pageloads quick for dialup), but we may need to contact foxcorner for others.
Transparent PNG (Logo/Application Icon)
256x256, 72 dpi, 83 KB: http://homepage.mac.com/sardisson/neoj/neoofficej_icon_256.png
JPEG (Logo/Application Icon)
128x128, 72 dpi, 9 KB: http://homepage.mac.com/sardisson/neoj/neoofficej_icon_128_80.jpg
JPEG (Header)
415x95, 72 dpi, 30 KB: http://homepage.mac.com/sardisson/neoj/neoofficej_header.jpg
Screenshots
Several screenshots of NeoOffice/J are available:
- The Official Screenshot at Planamesa Software.
- Four screenshots at this Wiki.
- A screenshot of NeoOffice/J with an alternative icon set.
Background Info
"Executive Summary" of other info
- NeoHistory/relationship with OOo summary, link to the full version
- Links to other relevant articles [what? sardisson has a number of things bookmarked for future additions to the NeoHistory article]
- Links to and/or some key FAQs reposted (not Java, but C++ (99%) and Carbon and Java (1%), etc.)
Real-world stories
- Can we get to write up a brief bit about his migration of the World Scout Bureau from Microsoft Office to Neo/J?
- Others?
--Ovvldc 17:10, 21 Apr 2005 (CDT) Links to migration stories:
http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1041
http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1223
http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1035
http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=6153#6153
Also try the Versiontracker feedback pages for upbeat stories.
--sardisson 10:40, 22 Apr 2005 (CDT) For MU we need PHP or Perl--, can you do this on NeoOffice.org? VT is just HTML+CSS+JS and we can do overall ratings plus pull latest 4+ star reviews, but we can't do that within the wiki.
--sardisson 07:06, 23 Apr 2005 (CDT) I've put up a page pulling our VT rating (it can only pull the overall one) and the last 4+-star reviews at http://homepage.mac.com/sardisson/neoj/vt_ratings.html
Profiles
Short bio on the people who dedicate themselves to Neo/J - Patrick and Ed (and probably several others with sustained contribution to the project. I'm new here, and really don't know who... but let all have the credit, they deserve it!)
--knutkja 16:19, 22 Apr 2005 (CDT)
There's a decent bit of "bio" on Patrick and Ed in the NeoHistory article (i.e., their roles in the OOo and Neo projects); Patrick's CV is on planamesa.com and there's a short bio of Ed that went along with the O'Reilly presentation for more "standard" background. Ed's recent post in the wiki thread reminded me of some of the other unsung heros of multiple hats, so I'll outline some things here (bold = Neo/J-specific), but I really don't want to (re)write the profiles myself :).... --sardisson 04:51, 26 Apr 2005 (CDT)
Patrick Luby
Patrick Luby (AKA pluby) is the creator and primary developer of NeoOffice/J. He resides in Sunnyvale, California with wife and kids. He is a former lead engineer for Sun's Mac OS X port of StarOffice as well as a former lead engineer team for the Java 2 Enterprise platform.
Patrick now owns and runs his own software consultancy firm called Planamesa Software, specializing in short-term software development and debugging services in the San Francisco Bay area.
Edward Peterlin
Edward Peterlin (AKA OpenStep) is a co-founder of NeoOffice.org and main developer of NeoOffice/J. He also provides much of the development and community infrastructure: the CVS server, the trinity forums, and the [http://www.neooffice.org/ neooffice.org website. Ed was a lead developer on the OOo 1.0.x Mac port.
Ed currently spends his working days at Ed, where do you work? and has many other interests, as demonstrated on his [www.dashboardbuddha.com/ personal website].
Dan Williams
Dan William (AKA fa) is a co-founder of NeoOffice.org and developer of NeoOffice/J. He also provides and maintains the [http://bugzilla.neooffice.org/ NeoOffice Bugzilla website. Dan was main developer on the OOo 1.0.x Mac port.
Dan works on OpenOffice.org with RedHat Dan, is this true?.
- administers and hosts the wiki
- Neo/J launch shortcuts
Fridrich Strba
- ported/integrated libwpd code to Neo/J (responsible for WordPerfect import)
Max_Barel
- wrote the help installer
Dan (foxcorner)
- designed new logo/splashscreen/ship graphics in 1.1 Beta
NeoOffice.org community
- lots of other folks worldwide writing wiki articles, answering questions/user support on trinity, testing and filing bugs, translating planamesa.com/neojava website, working on new GUI (toolbar) icons, promoting Neo/J, providing mirrors and BitTorrent seeds and trackers (Azureus project?), etc.
What Else?
- Other things we should have here?
Discussion
This trinity thread is for further discussion of the development of the Press Kit, as needed.
As we add items to the kit, we wipe out the "comments" or "place-holders" for them.
