You run Windows? You use Impress? Go get this little extension that makes your slideshow graphics smoother & the effects slicker:

QA-approved version (kudos to all the volunteers!): f913b9d328ceafbb4299fdbe0d350495 dxcanvas.oxt

(please refer to my former posts for some background info, and why you will unconditionally want this extension if you have an ATI graphics adapter)

tags: directx openoffice.org slideshow

As promised, I've packaged the too-late-for-2.3 feature DirectX-accelerated slideshow into an extension. If you're of the adventurous kind, and don't mind trying beta software, please help testing this and tell me if it doesn't work as expected (i.e. flawlessly):

069304e76ef87f9f59a5d5164474638b dxcanvas.oxt

Note: this is a Windows-only extension. 

Note 2: what to expect after installing this extension? Immediately after installation - nothing. After restarting OOo (make sure the quickstarter is also closed), Impress slideshows should be both faster and have smoother graphics. 

tags: directx openoffice.org

As decided here, the dxliberate01 CWS has not made it for the OOo 2.3 release, as we've (closely) missed the code freeze deadline. Which is no big deal, really, since I can ship this as an OOo extension. In fact, this makes life all nice and sweet again, as extensions are completely decoupled from OOo trunk - at least regarding the release schedule. So, bookmark this page, and check for updates once 2.3 is out!

tags: directx openoffice.org

As announced a while ago, we're opensourcing a DirectX-based implementation for the Impress slideshow - I've just committed all relevant files to CWS dxliberate01. Hopefully, this will make it in time for the 2.3 release.

Update: there's a preview Windows build of the CWS available for download, to those of you wanting to try it out. The usual precautions for untested developer snapshots apply.

Update2: new install sets, as the original ones missed the point - directxcanvas.uno.dll was missing

md5sum: 07540beac3857e0eb7b0efc3a51b3378  OOo_2.3.222_Win32Intel_install.exe

tags: directx openoffice.org

If you're among the people running Windows with an ATI graphics adapter, you might have suffered from issue 48454 - ridiculously slow Impress presentations, sometimes followed by a bluescreen of death.

When we first encountered this problem on one of our machines, the blame was put on flaky hardware or a botched Windows installation. Unfortunately, after shipping OOo 2.0, more and more reports crept in, reporting BSODs or closely related issues while doing slideshows on ATI graphics.

On last year's CeBIT, Jacqueline (German native lang lead) was able to grab a guy from ATI, who acknowledged the problem, guessed a buggy video bios and provided some (ultimately unsuccessful) fixes. In the end, the only thing that appears to cure the crash is reducing the hardware acceleration slider in the Windows display settings (but see here for a bag of other workarounds).

Pretty ugly to tell our users. But now comes the funny part: StarOffice 8, our commercial product, has shipped with a DirectX-accelerated slideshow implementation - which, you won't believe it, does not suffer from the driver crashes. Lesson learned: driver quality is cared for (only) where the high-end customer needs it (i.e. for gaming).

Best of all, that DirectX-enabled backend will become open source RSN, thus indirectly fixing issue 48454. Sheesh - since I've poured around one week into utterly unsuccessful darkness poking, rearranging code, trying alternate functionality etc. to avoid the deadly call sequence...

Needless to say, that the DirectX backend seriously rocks, with built-in antialiasing, and lightning-fast effects! ;-)

tags: directx graphics