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NeoOffice/J -- kick ARSE

Nicky G

Nicky G

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 24, 2002
1,178
1,335
Baltimore
Well -- so today is the official release of the first "for public consumption" version of NeoOffice/J, the GPL'd OpenOffice implementation for OS X.

I LOVE IT. I mean, so what if it crashes once in a while -- MS Office apps crash for me all the freaking time! And people kvetching about the interface. I think it's fine, and will likely be more aquafied over time.

This is huge. NON EXCEL, EXCEL-COMPATIBLE SPREADSHEET APP for FREE! Nice.

Grab dat:

http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php

Oh, and hey -- isn't having a forward-slash in your file name a faux pas in OS X-land? Wtf?
 
I don't know - if you properly escape the forward slash it might be alright (ie. force the system to treat it as just a forward slash and not a directory indicator).
 
Nicky G said:
Well -- so today is the official release of the first "for public consumption" version of NeoOffice/J, the GPL'd OpenOffice implementation for OS X.

I LOVE IT. I mean, so what if it crashes once in a while -- MS Office apps crash for me all the freaking time! And people kvetching about the interface. I think it's fine, and will likely be more aquafied over time.

This is huge. NON EXCEL, EXCEL-COMPATIBLE SPREADSHEET APP for FREE! Nice.

Grab dat:

http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php

Oh, and hey -- isn't having a forward-slash in your file name a faux pas in OS X-land? Wtf?
Click to expand...

dls now... i used to use openoffice all the time on an old pc i used to have.. looks like this is something to check out... lol my entire high school senior year was done just by using text edit to turn essays in and what not..
 
CubaTBird said:
dls now... i used to use openoffice all the time on an old pc i used to have.. looks like this is something to check out... lol my entire high school senior year was done just by using text edit to turn essays in and what not..
Click to expand...

I think NeoOffice/J is a legit application for many college students, and even small offices. Now that it's totally free, it's several hundred clams in your pocket, not going to microsoft. Yay open source.
 
Nicky G said:
Well -- so today is the official release of the first "for public consumption" version of NeoOffice/J, the GPL'd OpenOffice implementation for OS X.

I LOVE IT. I mean, so what if it crashes once in a while -- MS Office apps crash for me all the freaking time! And people kvetching about the interface. I think it's fine, and will likely be more aquafied over time.

This is huge. NON EXCEL, EXCEL-COMPATIBLE SPREADSHEET APP for FREE! Nice.
Click to expand...
NeoOffice is nice substitute to the expensive MS Office suite, although I haven't used anything other than the spreadsheet (I've used OpenOffice before, but never liked its bloat and poor performance). The only thing people miss in it seems to be a good substitute for MS Access. But for me a good word processor, spreadsheet and presentation app would do. The spreadsheet is the most useful though. :)


Nicky G said:
Grab dat:
http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php

Oh, and hey -- isn't having a forward-slash in your file name a faux pas in OS X-land? Wtf?
Click to expand...
Nope. OS X allows any letter, digit and punctuation in a file name except for the ':' (colon). Everything else can be referred to directly in the GUI. In terminal, use the backslash '\' character to escape the special character.
 
Nermal said:
It's pretty good for a free app, and it should be even better once it has a Mac interface :)
Click to expand...
NeoOffice does have a Mac interface (I remember seeing a preference setting somewhere to choose the appearance).

The only "issue" I've seen is that it takes about 90MB on my Power Mac even while nothing's open - this may be because it uses Java. But that's not a big deal.
 
Cool, I've been casually following this since I heard of it sometime two years ago. Downloading it now. But I admit that once Apple comes out with a spreadsheet app, this is off my HD in a flash. Still, great to have for the meanwhile :D
 
wiseguy27 said:
NeoOffice does have a Mac interface
Click to expand...

This is not a Mac interface :eek:
 

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We've been using Open Office exclusively at work for a few years now (on PC), so I was excited to finally be able to use it on my PB. It takes FOREVER to open, and takes up lots of space, but it's sure nice to have it ;)
 
wiseguy27 said:
:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well if it bugs you that much, you could always help with the conversion. I'm sure Patrick and Ed would appreciate the help for their development plan

Alternatively, could you point me to the Free (beer or speech, I'm not picky) office suite for Mac that does a better job?

I'm especially interested in the spreadsheet and revision marking. I know text edit already does a decent job or conversion from word.
 
stcanard said:
Well if it bugs you that much, you could always help with the conversion. I'm sure Patrick and Ed would appreciate the help for their development plan
Click to expand...
No, my post was not intended as a degrading remark on NeoOffice, if that's what you understood it as. It was just a question about the menu option for changing the appearance since in my case it didn't seem to make any difference. I should also mention that I'm new to NeoOffice, and from what I've seen and read about it, it's a GREAT product (with only two main developers on it). I'm highly impressed by what they've done so far. :) My donation for them will soon be on the way.

I've just started reading the NeoOffice.org forums, and it looks like an Aqua like look is on the anvil for later this year (or next year). It seems like there are some licensing issues in adopting the Aqua theme directly (don't have in depth information about this since I've just started reading some threads on the forums there).


stcanard said:
Alternatively, could you point me to the Free (beer or speech, I'm not picky) office suite for Mac that does a better job?
Click to expand...
None that I know of that has an integrated suite like this one.

stcanard said:
I'm especially interested in the spreadsheet and revision marking. I know text edit already does a decent job or conversion from word.
Click to expand...
The spreadsheet seems pretty good in NeoOffice. As for revision marking, I'm not sure if I've understood your requirement correctly. If it's the "Track Changes" feature in MS Word you're referring to, then it's available as "Edit->Changes" in NeoOffice. If you're looking at document versions, then it's available as "File->Versions" (it'd be grayed out before the first save).
 
CubaTBird said:
well... isn't this running under a java shell? so that would explain the interface... i think......
Click to expand...
From the little that I've read on their forums, the main reason for the current interface is because the main base is from OpenOffice, which has a higher focus on Windows. The Aqua look is something NeoOffice would have to implement separately.
 
Is it just me, or is every single app looking Aqua kind of starting to get -- boring? I kind of like the clean look of the NeoOffice/J GUI, and don't mind that it's not Aqua, so long as it's easy to use and fully functional, which it is, including pop-up help and such.
 
wiseguy27 said:
No, my post was not intended as a degrading remark on NeoOffice, if that's what you understood it as. It was just a question about the menu option for changing the appearance since in my case it didn't seem to make any difference. I should also mention that I'm new to NeoOffice, and from what I've seen and read about it, it's a GREAT product (with only two main developers on it). I'm highly impressed by what they've done so far. :) My donation for them will soon be on the way.
Click to expand...

Okay, sorry! There have been a lot of people around this forum complaining about the ugly look, and completely ignoring that its a) the only product filling this void and b) An amazing piece of work by two very dedicated volunteers.

I'm getting a bit trigger happy defending it these days. Its save me several hundred dollars that would be wasted on MS Office for that little bit that I do need actual office suite capabilities :)
 
Nicky G said:
I kind of like the clean look of the NeoOffice/J GUI, and don't mind that it's not Aqua
Click to expand...

The point I was trying to make was not the colour scheme, but the layout. For example, the filename box should be above the list of files. Where's the sidebar? Where's the option to go into column view? In fact, where's the option to hide the file list completely? Why are those buttons stacked one on top of each other, instead of horizontally?

Most (all?) of those answers are simple - it's still a Windows/Linux app at heart.
 
Nermal said:
Most (all?) of those answers are simple - it's still a Windows/Linux app at heart.
Click to expand...

Yup, and its going to take a lot of work to fix that, especially now that they have to figure out where to get an intel dev machine from.

But I keep getting back to this point, and I'm serious ... if anybody can point me to an alternative free office suite that is more Mac like, I would love to hear it. There is no way I am spending $500 for Microsoft Office for those times when I go need an office suite, and NeoOffice/J is the only alternative I have found. Most specifically the issues, and I've brought up before, are a Spreadsheet and revision markup.

OpenOffice is even worse, and has no intention of making a Mac friendly interface.

KOffice, although it does seem to have a Mac native version is too complicated even for me to get installed (yes, I can use Fink for the x11 version, but then I'm back in OOo quality territory).

Seriously, if you can come up with something that has even 70% of the features of Neo/J and is either Mac-like, or heading in the direction of Mac-like as quickly as Neo/J I'd love to hear. I have searched and haven't found anything.
 
i like this app. I use OpenOffice as my primary word proc., but on the whole i think i would like it more of apple were too adopt the format and give us a real Office replacement. but alas, that is at least a ways off.

neo office is nice, but on my old computer it runs rather slow. in fact, open office actually runs better. but i like the fonts in neo better

man, life is tough sometimes huh? lol
 
Claudia said:
I read in MacInTouch that NeoOffice/J is compatible with Windows...is that true? My friend cant get it to work for him and he is on said OS.
Click to expand...

NeoOffice cannot be run in a Windows environment.

OpenOffice (the "official" branch) which is basically what NeoOffice is will run in a Windows environment.

Files saved in NeoOffice as Microsoft formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt etc.) will work with MS Office on Mac or Windows.

Files saved in NeoOffice as OpenOffice formats (.sxw, .sxi etc.) will work with OpenOffice on Mac or Windows or Linux.
 
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