# The Cocoa Office



## fryke (May 17, 2002)

Okay. What I would want to see is a *Cocoa Office Suite*, containing the following packages (plus the ones you'd add...):

- Okito Composer (word processing)
- OmniGraffle (organizational charts)
- OmniDictionary (dictionary)
- OmniOutliner (outlined lists)
- OmniWeb (webbrowser)
- Mesa (spreadsheet)
- Daylite (PIM)

and maybe:

- TIFFany (pixel graphics application)

All of these are clean Cocoa applications that would make a great Office alternative, I guess. What do you think? What would you pay?


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## uoba (May 17, 2002)

Nver seen Okito Composer before, very impressed!

As for suggestion, I'd rather hold out for OpenOffice 

Dunno, some of the Omni apps have never really been much uese to me (then again neither has Powerpoint or Excel!)

(Just checked out Daylite as well!!! Wow, this knocks the socks off Entourage for me!!)

See, it is worth reading fryke's posts after all!!!


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## fryke (May 17, 2002)

Hold out for OpenOffice? I ain't got three more years.


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## uoba (May 17, 2002)

judging by the way it looks at the mo'!!

Dunno, I have to think about this now, after seeing Daylite!

What would the combined cost be of your option? Also, Okito doesn't appear to support Word docs, which is essential for what I do!


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## fryke (May 17, 2002)

word support doesn't seem to be very far away, and that's what makes me think it'd be an ideal nice, small word processing app. the cost of this all? i don't know. some are free, some cost between 30 and 70$. i think this could be a package that would cost about 90$ for all the apps. i have no idea if the developers of the respective apps would be glad about the idea (they would have to work together), but if they can provide interoperability with MS Office (Mesa, Okito Composer), this should be a very good office suite...


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## uoba (May 17, 2002)

to integrate certain facilities (if they were willing!)

Daylite contacts, projects etc shared with Okito etc would be fantastic. However, Daylite is far more extensive than Entourage, this would in effect become the main app, where everything else springs from (even Okito, as a small Word processor for Daylite).

If it could be done with brand continuity (looking like they belong and also actually want to work together) then I would be happy, even if it were just to get Okito and Daylite.

Let's lobby the manufacturers!!


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## serpicolugnut (May 17, 2002)

Daylight looks nice, but it really needs an conduit to sync with Palm. At least with Entourage, I know a conduit will be released pretty soon now...

I've used Mesa too. For the money, it's a great Excel replacement. 

Personally, I'd really love it if Apple rewrote (and rebuilt) AppleWorks from the ground up in Cocoa. That would really serve as a wake up call for Cocoa development if, in a matter of about a year, Apple could compeltely rewrite an app like AppleWorks and bring increased functionality to it. I doubt Apple would ever do this, as they still tout Carbon as a first class API for Mac OS X.


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## fryke (May 17, 2002)

AppleWorks could sure be *the* cheapo replacement for Office. But I smell a chance here for the 'smaller' developers at Omni and the rest. I think all of the aforementioned applications behave very well (first class Aqua UI compliance).

The *best* thing about this slapped-together-office-suite would be that each player (developer) can make its part the best of breed.

Proteus could be included, too.

I've seen many tries to replace MS Office. Most of the attempts spring from the OpenSource development for Linux, all of them failed so far.

OpenOffice is the best effort as of yet, but it's also too similar to MS Office (and not *there* yet for OS X). I think a competitor should both be compatible but also more *friendly*. OmniWeb, for example, may not be up to par with MSIE for Mac OS X, standards compliance wise. But what its users (and some PAYING users, too!) love is that it seems so much friendlier. Also, the developers are reachable by mail, they implement stuff that users want (if it makes any sense at all and is - in fact - feasible).

I say: We should set up an email to those developers about this.


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## fryke (May 17, 2002)

Of course, the *cheap* way would be to just make a website with direct links to each product, but this would make users license every product independently, which wouldn't exactly be a price winner.

If we can't get the developers to work together, I'll set up a website.


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## scruffy (May 17, 2002)

If Omni made OmniWord or whatever, I'd buy that in a flash, based on how cool Graffle is.  I can't stand OmniWeb though, I find it actually less user-friendly than IE, if that's possible (I don't use either with any frequency).

Nisus Writer is another really nice word processor, currently for OS 9 only.  Interestingly, Nisus isn't Carbonizing it, but rewriting it for Cocoa.


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## RacerX (May 17, 2002)

Sad thing is, Sun bought a ton of cool apps thinking that they were going to be moving to OpenStep for their systems (then Apple bought NeXT ending that move for Sun). All of these apps are now free for NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, but Sun owns the source code for them (and has no plans for porting them to any version of Mac OS X).

OpenWrite (very nice word processor, equal to almost anything out today... without the bloated feature of Word that is)
ParaSheet (professional grade spreadsheet program)
Quantrix (a multi-dimensional spreadsheet program... what ever that is)
Connurrence (a presentation program)
Diagram! (very much like OmniGraffle)
WetPaint (a nice painting program, gave TIFFany a run for their money when it was still shipping)
Equation Builder (from back in the days when computers were the domain of mathematician)
 VarioBuilder and VarioData (database apps)
All of these were part of _Lighthouse Design_'s suite of office applications. When Sun no longer had NeXT to work with, they were put aside and Sun bought StarOffice (does anyone else see a pattern here?).

Then there is the _Anderson Financial Systems_ apps for OPENSTEP/Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server 1.x.

PasteUp (page layout program)
WriteUp (word processor based on the PasteUp app)
Both are very nice, but because Apple took so long in getting _any_ version of Mac OS X to the public (they were ready when Rhapsody was to be released), they stop working on these apps.


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## fryke (May 18, 2002)

Well, I would also buy an OmniWrite or something like that, but Okito Composer is on a very good way, that's why I suggested the whole Cocoa Office thing. If Nisus Writer ever comes out with a Cocoa version, that'd certainly be an alternative...


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## fryke (May 20, 2002)

Okay, I'm preparing a webpage for 'The Cocoa Office Suite', which will provide information on each application that we consider to be a good part for such a suite. I'll also provide links to downloads as well as information on how to achieve our goals... There'll be a link to that site on http://mac.fryke.com (which you should check out anyway). 

If you have wishes and needs that you want to see on this little project, post them here for now...


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## uoba (May 20, 2002)




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## fryke (May 21, 2002)

You can view a preliminary website under this link. The site will be updated with more information about the 'project' of bringing the developers to work together on such a package. Right now you have to download and license the applications separately, although most of them can be used (at least) as demo versions.


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## uoba (May 21, 2002)

did you see my Thinkfree thread. Can this be included, or not, since I think it is Java? (Probably why it's a bit slow)


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## uoba (May 21, 2002)

fryke!

What about the pros and cons for each app versus Office?


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## fryke (May 21, 2002)

A pros & cons list of each application might be a good idea. But I also think that each app is almost too different from its MS Office version. For Mesa, this might be an important thing (the pros/cons list), but I'm not much of a spreadsheet user, so I can't accomplish a good list for it.

To include ThinkFree Office would be strange, as this wants to be an alternative on itself, and I don't count the Java based apps to the 'clean Cocoa' apps, mostly because the interface slowness doesn't make them great alternatives to Carbon based applications. (They have advantages of their own, of course, x-platform mostly.)


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## uoba (May 22, 2002)

I agree, Thinkfree is basically emulating Office X, so would be a good solution off-the-shelf as it were. But the Java thing does limit it.

As for the Word Processor pros and cons, maybe I'll try this weekend, between Word and Okito (work permitting!)

By the way, do the makers of DayLite have anything  to do with Omni? DayLite crashes quite a bit, when it does it calls up Omni's crash report system, or is this an Omni application in itself?


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## fryke (May 22, 2002)

It looks almost too Omni, also, right? I had the same thoughts, but this makes me like it even more. (Not the crashes, that it might be from Omni...)

Gosh, how I'd like to see office wars similar to the now active browser wars on Mac OS X. Give *The Cocoa Office Suite* at http://mac.fryke.com/cocoaoffice a try... It's very friendly.


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## uoba (May 22, 2002)

Another question:

How much of an upgrade will Apple give to Address Book in 10.2?


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## fryke (May 22, 2002)

As far as I can see, Address Book will not replace a proper PIM, although it might grow to be your one stop shop for contacts, both because you'll automatically use them for Mail.app and because iChat will also use it. AND it'll be integrated with cell phones that have Bluetooth/IRdA and vCard support (which many now have here in Europe). But for calendar functionality, a PIM is still needed. Integration for Mail.app would be good, integration of PDAs should be a high priority, although I've stopped using them. My cell phone is my PDA, and my TiBook is my PDA.


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