That sucks.

Here’s a trick to run multiple OpenOffice.org instances concurrently, all from one single installation, on Windows. Assuming the latest OpenOffice.org 3.x is installed. It’s actually pretty simple — just change the USERPROFILE environment variable! Or HOME on Linux/Solaris.

For example, in Java

ProcessBuilder pb = new ProcessBuilder("c:\\Program Files\\OpenOffice.org 3\\program\\soffice.exe",
    "-accept=socket,host=localhost,port=7999;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager",
    "-invisible", "-headless", "-nologo", "-nofirststartwizard");
Map<String, String> env = pb.environment();
if (windoze) {
    env.put("USERPROFILE", "c:\\temp\\12345");
} else {
    env.put("HOME", "/tmp/12345");
}
Process ooo = pb.start();

Yeah I am putting this here because the search result on Google is pretty junky. And I just realised that I have not blogged for yonks. Busy buys busy.

NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta is our first full Aqua release and uses native Aqua menus, file open and save dialogs, print dialogs, buttons, scrollbars, and many other native Aqua user interface elements.

What is different with this release is, the download will only be available to those who have purchased Early Access membership, until 29^th August where it will become available to general public. You can purchase the Early Access membership for USD$25 (or $10 after the 15^th). Or you can pay USD$60 to have unlimited subscription to their future early access programs.

I think it is a great idea for open source software to fund their development this way. Those who support it will get something extra, i.e. earlier access to the latest development, but they are not locking everyone else out as the new version will still be available when the time comes. This is especially true with NeoOffice where they don’t get direct support from the OpenOffice.org guys, nor are they employed by Sun Microsystem to hack OOo.

NeoOffice 2 will require at least Mac OS X 10.3, or Mac OS X 10.4 if you are on a Mactel. I am in no hurry upgrading though — I am still running an old version of NeoOffice 1.1.

But then I accidentally clicked on the menu item “About OpenOffice.org”, and Horror!

What a big hack :)

Just a comparison between Microsoft Word and the new OpenOffice.org Writer.

Aren’t they look alike?!

Updated 21 Dec 2004: The Inquirer ran the same story on previewing OpenOffice.org 2, with quite a few screenshots. The one they looked at is m65.

Meanwhile, OpenOffice.org1.1.1 fix 3 (whatever that is) has been released on Mac OS X from NeoOffice.org. Too bad that it still requires X11 to run. At the same time, NeoOffice/J 0.8.1 also got released this week with Finder icon support, improved 3D graphics, sound support and many bug fixes. NeoOffice/J is based on the older OpenOffice.org 1.0 back-end, but it is much better integrated with Mac OS X. And, look Ma, No X11!! I am now torn between the two – Open or Neo?

It starts up a bit faster than OOo103 on my iBook G3/900, and overall it feels more responsive. While it does not have an Aqua interface, it renders everything else beautifully – anti-alias everywhere just like other Mac OS X applications. It utilises Java 1.3 as the bridge between its OpenOffice.org internal and Mac’s front-end, so it uses all the native fonts. The new release also supports native input method, but I have not yet got it work due to font issues. After all, NeoOffice/J is based on OpenOffice.org1.0 architecture, which does not support Unicode properly. I might need to wait for OOo1.1 to be ported to move all my Chinese work onto my Mac.

Thumbs up for pluby. It is truly a great application, and there is even less reason to donate to Bill.

…

This blog entry is written on ecto 1.0, and it has become a shareware which costs USD$17.95 after 2 weeks of trail. ecto is a nice piece of blog tool which I have blogged here. Should I pay AUD$25 for it, or go back to mt.cgi?

Vivian and I have been using the 1.0.3 RC2 for a while, and it is very usable. It looks much better than the 1.0.1 beta, as you get the anti-alias fonts in the documents. However, comparing with a native Cocoa app, there is still no match. Another problem I am having now is with the international input under X, especially Chinese, as I need it a lot for preparing Bible studies. Too bad that I cannot use Mac OS X’s native input methods to type Chinese inside OOo for X11.

But still, congratulation to the OOo developers! I know they are heading down to WWDC for the week, and hopefully we will see a native Aqua version soon.