Comments

• Very nice
  I wasn't sure what to expect from NeoOffice/J and probably wouldn't have installed it had it not been anonymously distributed as freebie CD's on the last day of the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference. But I've been really impressed with it, and have used NeoOffice/J instead of the X-based OOo, even though I *always* have X running.

  You're right - the new 0.71 is decidedly faster, especially when scrolling. Too bad it doesn't support the scroll-wheel (using java 1.3.1?)

  The one big downside is that I still don't entirely trust the file-format handling of OpenOffice or its derivatives (particularly the version 1.0.3 that the Mac is stuck on). I often receive documents with sections of supposedly "deleted" text (at least that's what the tooltip calls it), in red with a strike-through. When I edit these files and send them on, the recipients claim the deleted sections are, in fact, gone. And I don't see a way in OOo to "un-delete" such text, so I usually have to re-type it by hand. Yuck.

  But that's not NeoOffice/J's fault; it's OOo's battle to fight, and maybe it's already better in 1.1. And it's not like TextEdit or ThinkFree do a particularly better job handling real-world .docs.

  --Chris

  Posted by: invalidname on January 05, 2004 at 05:56 AM

• Yes, 1.3.1
  Patrick is in the process of switching to 1.4.1 though.

  Posted by: webmink on January 05, 2004 at 09:41 AM

• Yes, 1.3.1
  That might slow things down, with 1.4 not having hardware graphics acceleration on Mac.

  The Mac java-dev list (http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/java-dev/ ) just had a torrid discussion about this -- put on your peril-sensitive sunglasses and look for the thread "Java 1.4.1's lack of hardware acceleration MUST be defined as a bug" (it starts at http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/java-dev/msg36618.html )

  Oh well, guess we'll see how the switch works out.

  --Chris
  

  Posted by: invalidname on January 05, 2004 at 10:24 AM

• Yes, 1.3.1
  Although the previous comment said that I was moving NeoOffice/J to Java 1.4.1, I keep putting it off whenever I swap in Java 1.4.1 support into my NeoJ builds.

  Like you mentioned, there is the hardware acceleration issue. But more importantly, there are two problems in Apple's 1.4.1 that I have found (well, at least when using the Java Invocation API like NeoJ does):

  1. Drawing to a Graphics2D object outside of a Component.paint() or Component.update() method seems to be flaky. Sometimes what you draw actually draws and sometimes not. My guess is that Java 1.4.1's use of Cocoa has something to do with this.

  2. Font.drawGlyphVector() just can't seem to handle Asian fonts even when using an Asian font like Hiragino. I suspect that this is somehow related to problem #1 above.

  After I encounter the above problems, I usually decide to put the 1.4.1 upgrade aside and go back to fixing bugs and implementing copy and paste.

  Patrick

  Posted by: pluby on January 05, 2004 at 10:46 AM

• Kudos
  Very much appreciate all your hard work, Patrick. To be honest, I would much rather have clipboard & drag & drop support than 1.4.1....

  S.

  Posted by: webmink on January 05, 2004 at 10:51 AM

• Yes, 1.3.1
  By the way, my original message sounds less enthusiastic than it should. I *do* like NeoOffice/J a lot. When I need to work with .doc's, I use NO/J instead of OOo, ThinkFree, AppleWorks, or TextEdit, because it has the best compatibility and is pleasant to work with.

  --Chris
  

  Posted by: invalidname on January 05, 2004 at 10:58 AM

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