# Open Office looks ugly



## jmags (Apr 20, 2004)

I just installed open office and it looks terrible.  Mostly the problem is that all the text seems to have ghosts of themselves in red.  This is particularly bad for options in the menu that cannot currently be selected.  I tried changing the anti-aliasing settings in the view options for open office, and tried setting x11 to display fewer colors, but none of it seems to work.

if it matters: 10.3.3, 12" silver g4 powerbook, displaying millions, anti-aliasing in both oo.org and system prefs cuts off below 10 pts, res.: 1024x768.


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## pds (Apr 20, 2004)

Yes, it does...

There is a java based (rather than X11) implementation available. It looks much better and uses the Panther printing interface too. Not too shabby, though the whole thing still looks like an escapee from a 1990's box. 

The "aqua" interface is being worked on, but slated to arrive in mid 2006.

The link for the java version is http://www.neooffice.org/


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## Cat (Apr 20, 2004)

If you just need OO for text processing, try Abiword for OS X. It's faster, native Cocoa and sure looks better ...


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## scruffy (Apr 20, 2004)

Oh, that's cool.  I tried abiword quite a while ago under Linux, and liked it a lot.  In fact, if I remember rightly, I waited for the first prerelease with interest.  This was of course before staroffice 5 got released as openoffice...

Now, let's just see hooooow loooooong it takes my poor old computer to compile all that lot, then I can try it out.


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## RacerX (Apr 20, 2004)

Cat said:
			
		

> If you just need OO for text processing, try Abiword for OS X. It's faster, native Cocoa and sure looks better ...



It is very cool that they finally made a Mac OS X version.

But on a sad note, it seems to be Carbon not Cocoa. It doesn't use Services (so no using OmniDictionary and Nisus Thesaurus or any other app that shares features) or the built in spell checking or Cocoa advanced text services that Apple just added. These are things that are there in TextEdit or Nisus Writer Express and are things that I have gotten very used too.

But, like I said, it is very cool that we at least have a native version for Mac OS X now.


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## Cat (Apr 21, 2004)

Oops, true RacerX. I thought it would be Cocoa if it could run without X11 and that only OS 9 apps went through the Carbon stage, but evidently I was mistaken. I work almost exclusively in TeXShop, I rarely use any WYSIWYG text programs at all, so I didn't even notice the lack of Cocoa features.


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## RacerX (Apr 21, 2004)

Cat said:
			
		

> I work almost exclusively in TeXShop, I rarely use any WYSIWYG text programs at all, so I didn't even notice the lack of Cocoa features.



Well, as I recall, TeXShop uses the system spell checker and the features provided by OmniDictionary and Nisus Thesaurus would still be useful (and both are free). Both are handy while posting which isn't that different from using TeXShop or iTeXMac (other than the tags that is).


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## Cat (Apr 21, 2004)

I didn't notice the lack of Cocoa features in Abiword during the brief glance I gave it, as I didn't really use it thoroughly. Had I used it as intensively as TeXShop I would have noticed immediately the missing of spelling services of course.


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## scruffy (Apr 21, 2004)

Hurrr.  Can't get it to compile.  Ah well, the binary works, and looks sweet!  I'll have to try it on some convoluted word docs.  I'm sure I've got a few around here...

Are you sure it's Carbon?  Because the file AbiWord.app/Contents/MacOS/AbiWord is an native Mach-O executable, not a CFM binary.  

Interesting, though, lsof shows it has a couple of resource files from Carbon.Framework open, even though it is running as its own executable, not LaunchCFMApp.


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## Lycander (Apr 21, 2004)

scruffy said:
			
		

> Hurrr.  Can't get it to compile.  Ah well, the binary works, and looks sweet!  I'll have to try it on some convoluted word docs.  I'm sure I've got a few around here...
> 
> Are you sure it's Carbon?  Because the file AbiWord.app/Contents/MacOS/AbiWord is an native Mach-O executable, not a CFM binary.
> 
> Interesting, though, lsof shows it has a couple of resource files from Carbon.Framework open, even though it is running as its own executable, not LaunchCFMApp.


You can make Mach-O binaries from a Carbon program. I think what most people don't realize is that there's 2 versions (for lack of a better word) of Carbon. The older one that uses CFM is being phased out, and when you're in OSX the only way you can run CFM Carbon apps is through Classic mode. There's a newer, updated CarbonLib made for OSX to make it easier to port older programs into native OSX programs.


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