Wednesday December 22, 2004 Heros of OpenOffice for Mac
Huge kudos to Patrick Luby and Ed Peterlin for their work getting NeoOffice/J 1.1 beta ready for us all for Christmas. As you'll recall, this is the version of OpenOffice.org front-ended with the Java platform to make Mac integration easier and the guys have done splendid work adding extra stuff to make NeoOffice/J the perfect Mac productivity suite. The fact it's a Java program yet looks perfect on the Mac also heaps kudos on the Java platform!
The new NeoOffice/J is based on OO.o 1.1.3 and adds:
- Aqua menus
- Mouse wheel support (for those of us who disagree with Steve)
- Text drag-and-drop support
- Smaller PDF files
- Support for 40 languages
This amazing work underscores the reason why Sun is working with open source. Sun can't afford to staff a Mac port of OO.o itself right now but a motivated community can. These guys are able to go above and beyond and produce stunning work that significantly challenges the overpriced incumbent. The uncharitable Dan Gillmor may gripe but I have every confidence that the community around OpenOffice.org will grow (especially with the more modular v2.0 design) and that the work Patrick, Ed and others do will ensure that the Mac version is far from "missing in action".
Posted by webmink
( Dec 22 2004, 01:22:51 AM PST )
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