NeoOffice
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| NeoOffice | |
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| Developer: | Planamesa Software |
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| Latest release: | 2.1 (based on OpenOffice.org 2.1) March 26, 2007 |
| OS: | Mac OS X |
| Use: | Office suite |
| License: | GPL |
| Website: | http://www.neooffice.org |
NeoOffice is a port of the free/open source OpenOffice.org office suite for Mac OS X. It implements nearly all of the features of the corresponding OpenOffice version, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, and graphics program. It is developed by Planamesa Software, and uses Java technology to integrate OpenOffice — originally developed for Solaris and Linux — with the Aqua interface of Mac OS X.
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[edit] Characteristics & Development
NeoOffice is one of two functional OpenOffice-based packages for Mac OS X; the other is "OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X (X11)", a version developed and distributed by the OpenOffice.org team, which runs in an X11 environment and requires either X11.app or XDarwin to be installed.
NeoOffice is the more "Mac-like" of the two, with easier installation, better integration into the OS X interface (with pull down menus at the top of the screen, and familiar keyboard shortcuts, for example), use of Mac OS X's fonts and printing services without additional configuration, and integration with the Mac OS X clipboard and drag-and-drop functions.
However, it requires more memory than the X11 version to perform well, some functions are marginally slower, and the additional code it adds to the main OpenOffice.org code base is not as fully tested. Because NeoOffice is based on releases of OpenOffice.org, there is a delay between those releases and corresponding versions of NeoOffice. Furthermore, because NeoOffice's small development team have been concurrently developing the technology for its user interface, these delays have often been several months in length.
As of February 2007, the "release" version of NeoOffice is 1.2.2. This is based on version 1.1.5 of OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X (X11) (the most recent of the 1.x branch), and also has the ability to import OpenDocument-format documents created by OpenOffice.org 2.x. The developers also claim speed and stability advantages over previous versions. However, it will not run on Macintosh computers with Intel processors, due to the limitations of the Rosetta emulation software these systems use to run PowerPC-compatible applications.
NeoOffice 2.0 is in beta development. It is based on OpenOffice.org 2.0, and runs natively on either Intel- or PowerPC-based Macintoshes. In addition to incorporating the source application's new features, it is based directly on the source code for the Linux and Solaris versions rather than the "Mac OS X (X11)" releases, with a redesigned interface using Apple's Aqua design elements, giving the application an appearance more similar to other Mac OS X software. The latest beta release, dubbed "Aqua Beta 3", was made freely available on 29 August 2006.
The first official release of this branch will be NeoOffice 2.1, which is based on OpenOffice.org 2.1. It is scheduled for general release on 27 March 2007; a preliminary release was made available to paying NeoOffice Early Access Program members on 27 February 2007. In addition to the user interface developments (including icons that more closely resemble typical Mac OS X designs), this release adds support for importing documents created with the latest version of Microsoft Word and for macros created with Microsoft Excel.
[edit] Licensing
Unlike the "OpenOffice.org"-branded packages, which were originally released under SISSL, a license that facilitated the creation of proprietary versions of the software (notably StarOffice), NeoOffice is released only under the GPL, to ensure that any software based on it would remain free. Versions of OpenOffice.org starting with 2.0 are licensed only under the LGPL, but the authors of NeoOffice have stated their intention to continue releasing all versions under the standard GPL. This prevents the bug fixes and new features' code in NeoOffice from being used in OpenOffice.
[edit] History
NeoOffice began as a project to investigate methods of creating a native port of OpenOffice.org to Mac OS X. The project now called NeoOffice was originally dubbed "NeoOffice/J", reflecting its use of OS X's Java integration to enable a native application. A related project was NeoOffice/C, which was a simultaneous effort to develop a version using Apple's Cocoa APIs. But NeoOffice/C proved very difficult to implement and the application was highly unstable, so the project was set aside in favor of the more promising NeoOffice/J. The "/J" suffix was dropped with version 1.2, since there was no longer another variety of NeoOffice from which to distinguish it.
- Version history
- 22 June 2003: Incendiary Goblin build, aka NeoOffice/C 0.0.1 (based on OO.o 1.1)
- September 2004: NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha 2 (based on OO.o 1.1.2)
- December 2004: NeoOffice/J 1.1 Beta (based on OO.o 1.1.3)
- March 2005: NeoOffice/J 1.1 RC (based on OO.o 1.1.4)
- 22 June 2005: NeoOffice/J 1.1 (based on OO.o 1.1.4)
- November 2005 NeoOffice 1.2 Alpha (based on OO.o 1.1.5)
- 2 January 2006: NeoOffice 1.2 Beta
- 1 February 2006: NeoOffice 1.2
- 30 March 2006: NeoOffice 1.2.2
- 25 April 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha PowerPC (based on OO.o 2.0.2)
- 9 May 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 2 PowerPC
- 23 May 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 3 PowerPC
- 5 June 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha Intel
- 19 June 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 2 Intel
- 1 July 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4
- 1 August 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta (based on OO.o 2.0.3)
- 15 August 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 2
- 29 August 2006: NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 3
- 27 February 2007: NeoOffice 2.1 Early Access (based on OO.o 2.1)
- 26 March 2007: NeoOffice 2.1 (based on OO.o 2.1)
