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Monday, 16 Feb 2009
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Monday, 16 Feb 2009
Armin Le Grand
After a long preparation and implementation phase, Anti-Aliasing
is
available and will be activated for OOo 3.1 in all Applications and on
all Systems. This was one of the most voted issues (see #i28526#, 225 votes) on OOo. Since pictures say more than words, first an example
what looks different in OOo 3.1:
You may also take a look at an article on OpenOffice.org
Ninja for showing this feature. I want to point out some more,
maybe not so obvious points relying on it. One of the most profiting
parts of OOo are the Charts:
Also sometimes overseen, Anti-Aliasing is used for all 3D Geometry
in OOo 3.1, too. Same here, Charts profit well (see #i16771#):
As You may have noticed, the task took 5 years to complete. Why did it
take such a long time? The preconditions for Anti-Aliasing had to be
created first. The internal geometric representations used before were
simply not precise enough. Also, rendering and data were not orthogonal
(not divided as in Model/View/Controller paradigm). A new tooling to
work with enhanced precision was needed, too. Fast enough methods for
Anti-Aliasing on all systems had to be evaluated. All this had to be
done in a compatible manner, migrating the 'living' office over that
time. All in all, about 500.000 lines of code were changed/rewritten
(CWSes aw024, aw033, aw059). Doesn't sound like a dead project, does
it? If You are interested in more details, You may follow the task's
description and its discussions and links.
I mention this to write about another not so obvious change for OOo 3.1 which is a direct result of those deep changes:
Better geometric processing. I want to show another example here,
subtracting two shapes in Draw:
As You can see, on OOo 3.1, bezier segments stay bezier segments where
possible. OOo 3.0 had to convert those to polygons. This will make OOo 3.1 a little bit more useful for enhanced
graphics processing.
The extended DrawingLayer starting from OOo 3.1 will allow more
graphical enhancements in the future. As an example, Full Object Drag
as a feature for OOo 3.1 is realized using the new functionalities. You
may also have noticed the enhanced selection visualizations in the
Applications, also a result of those internal changes.
I would like to take the chance here to ask You to vote on OOo for
tasks. We urgently need Your feedback here! This will influence how we
balance resources on the tasks, and also motivate us. So, please take
the time (a matter of minutes), register at OOo, and look for tasks to
vote for. Write a new one if Your most requested issue is not there.
Please continue to report errors as You stumble upon them. Thanks in
advance!
tags: 2d 3d chart draw drawinglayer graphics impress openoffice.org
Digg this
Comments
"500.000 lines of code were changed/rewritten"
Now I need to sit. Amazing 500.000 lines? I read it over and over again.
Kudos to all the developers!
Posted by JimCG on February 16, 2009 at 07:24 PM CET #
@JimCG: Easy test: Just check the diffs of the mentioned ChildWorkSpaces (CWSes) on OOo. There are also some smaller ones for BugFixing not mentioned here. THB checked aw033 once, it alone has roundabout 300.000 lines of change. This also includes deleted, no longer used code and some resyncs (to make it sound a little bit less dramatic :-))
Posted by Armin Le Grand on February 16, 2009 at 07:54 PM CET #
Hi Armin,
thank you for the fantastic work!
I hope to see some new features in Draw, now you have the time;-)
My biggest wish for Draw is the possibility to edit vector graphics without absolute size like cliparts or logos. For now, it's often better to embed graphics as GDI-Metafiles instead of native Draw-Objects.
Number two is an import filter for EPS files.
Best Regards,
Jörg
Posted by Jörg Wartenberg on February 16, 2009 at 11:12 PM CET #
Is this feature available now?
Posted by W. Wayne Liauh on February 17, 2009 at 01:15 AM CET #
Hurray! A very subtle, yet important change to enhance the user experience. Great work!
Posted by mprove on February 17, 2009 at 10:31 AM CET #
@Jörg Wartenberg: Not sure if i completely understood what You exactly need/want here. Could You please write an issue (feature task) for this at OOo with a more detailed explanation? I would like to hear more about Your vector graphics needs.
Posted by Armin Le Grand on February 17, 2009 at 03:43 PM CET #
@W. Wayne Liauh: It's a OOo 3.1 feature. For a preview Version (You know, not for working yet :-)) look at http://download.openoffice.org/680/index.html.
Posted by Armin Le Grand on February 17, 2009 at 03:46 PM CET #
If I remember correctly M. Meeks was working on cairo rendering in OOo. Am I wrong here? What happened with that attempt (hopefully I don't mix up different issues)?
Regards
JimCG (who still sits in front of his monitor and wonders if not 500.000 is the answer to everything.)
Posted by JimCG on February 17, 2009 at 08:16 PM CET #
Hi Armin
The problem is, that all draw graphics have a paper borders, absolute pagesize, absolute Text sizes,...
The User Interface of Draw is paper centric, but I guess that today the most graphics are not created for printing on paper but for electronic reuse in other programs.
But for such embedding you need a scaleable object without the border of any paper size. Everything of the graphic must scale including the text.
This is currently only possible with an export to WMF or Paste as GDI-Metafile, but than I can't edit the embedded graphic anymore and maybe lose some metadata during the export.
Best Regards,
Jörg
Posted by Jörg Wartenberg on February 17, 2009 at 10:23 PM CET #
@Armin: what a mercy after decade(s) of "pixel-me-my-line-step-by-step"!!
I'd say, the best feature (rather bug fix) in Draw since years!!!
Thank you! :)
Posted by Éric on February 17, 2009 at 11:05 PM CET #
This is what OO and open source is about..
listen for feedback,create great enhancements all for the good of the community.
A very big congratulations to all the developers.
Posted by mahela007 on February 18, 2009 at 05:26 PM CET #
Great work!!! This is a great feature.
Posted by Andrew Ziem on February 18, 2009 at 08:08 PM CET #
Beautiful! Downloading OOO310_m1 right now...
Posted by Pat Patterson on February 19, 2009 at 08:59 AM CET #
Just want to give some praise here.
This is wonderful and very sizable work.
It is the kind of contribution that will get Open Office to be accepted more and more as a serious tool.
Congratulations, and best regards...
Posted by NarrOpen on February 19, 2009 at 08:26 PM CET #
It looks very nice on graphs, pies and etc, but it's not all good. Bars, grids and other vertical and horizontal lines looks dodgy on small charts with (extensive?) antialiasing. I hope there's would be chance to disable the antialising for some objects or tweak the antialiasing level/steps.
Posted by Mikko on February 24, 2009 at 11:50 PM CET #
This has been heavy lifting. Congrats, great stuff!
Posted by Daniel Boelzle [:dbo] on February 25, 2009 at 09:42 AM CET #
.....ooo.....ooo.....
..o......o..o......o...
..o........o.......o....
.....o............o.....
........o.......o.......
............o...........
gr8 work!
Posted by miki on February 25, 2009 at 10:59 PM CET #
This is pretty great news. Congratulations.
BTW: using the right image compression is critical when offering two images for comparison. JPEG is not appropriate for screen graphics like these. That said, it's not hard to distinguish between the aliased lines and the JPEG compression artifacts.
Posted by Brian on February 25, 2009 at 11:21 PM CET #
Does this support SVG now? I've had bad results inserting SVG graphics made in Inkscape into the writer program. Although, EPS graphics exported from Inscape work very well. They do show that rough edge quality.
Anyway, good news and thanks to all for the hard work. Hope all this refactoring makes future hacks much easier.
Posted by James on February 26, 2009 at 01:00 AM CET #
Congratulations guys, 1997 welcomes you with open arms! I can't wait to see what features you'll tackle next that have been in MS Office for the last decade. Kudos!
Posted by Steve on February 26, 2009 at 01:07 AM CET #
Wow dude that is quite impressive
RT
www.privacy-center.net
Posted by JOhn Davis on February 26, 2009 at 02:58 AM CET #
Thanks!!!
OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE,OUTLINE MODE.
Posted by Mike on February 26, 2009 at 03:45 AM CET #
Examples on the website would look much better if PNG images were used instead of JPG.
Posted by Dave on February 26, 2009 at 04:13 AM CET #
Congrats and welcome to 1995! 500k lines just to add anti aliasing, sweet zombie jesus that's an amazing effort and a jungle of death of a code base.
Posted by inboulder on February 26, 2009 at 06:25 AM CET #
it looks great!
Posted by 203.110.175.46 on February 26, 2009 at 10:56 AM CET #
God man... that code base sounds huge...
Anyway, I use openoffice daily, any improvement is well appreciated.
But seriously - that code base... isnt there any way to refactor that, so that it gets shorter in the long run?
Posted by markus on February 26, 2009 at 11:13 AM CET #
Cooool bananas!! :)
Posted by Dave on March 02, 2009 at 06:58 AM CET #
This is a great thing to have been incorporated in OpenOffice.org. I have moved pretty much all of my personal documentation to OOo, but the presentations HAD to be done on powerpoint due to the crude rendering of circles and other curved shapes.
Another thing I'm extremely happy about is the addition of translucent selections for writer and calc. That's just an aesthetic point though; not that important.
I even added a suggestion to this effect on the Wiki page where they were asking for suggestions. I'm glad that for whatever reasons (can't flatter myself saying that it was done because "I" voted on it :-) ), it has been finally done.
Now, I have all that I need to tell people that OOo can match everything that MS Office has to offer :-)
Posted by Kushal Sharma on March 10, 2009 at 07:41 AM CET #
Great, Impress really needed this. Thanks.
Posted by Peter on March 16, 2009 at 04:09 AM CET #
Hi Armin,
u steal my name :P
But now after adding AA to OOo3.1 u can keep it.
Great work guys, i hope all of u read this (^.^)
-- Armin Fasold
p.S.: What about SVGs now?
Posted by Armin Fasold on March 16, 2009 at 08:24 AM CET #
This is a extrem important feature for "reputation". Erverytime i use "Staroffice or Openoffice, it look not so fine.
Thanks to everybody who spend his time and brain for implementation of this feature.
Posted by Wolfgang Krause on March 16, 2009 at 08:25 AM CET #
Looks great, but please focus also on speed improvements or native GTK and QT UI..
Posted by 6205 on March 16, 2009 at 10:55 AM CET #
OMG! 5 years?
Posted by Anyone on March 16, 2009 at 11:23 AM CET #
God, but OpenOffice is not for designer http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=99676 see apple keynote.
Posted by mac on March 16, 2009 at 11:36 AM CET #
Thank you for your work, we really appreciate it.
Posted by pete on March 16, 2009 at 01:42 PM CET #
Good.
Posted by 91.17.97.120 on March 16, 2009 at 06:31 PM CET #
WOW waiting for the download :-)
Thanks!
Joachim
Posted by Joachim on March 16, 2009 at 07:33 PM CET #