Fortunately, VMWare Fusion seems to work seamlessly with Leopard, so if
I mistrust the OS X11 version of OO I can simply do my work on OO in an
Ubuntu virtual machine. Frankly, I get the sense that the Linux version
of OO is about the most robust and best appointed implementation of OOo
2.3 so far. Indeed some of the things I didn't like about OO 2.2 under
Ubuntu have been resolved with 2.3.
I will vent my frustration to Apple as you suggest. But as it stands
now, I am really looking forward to the freestanding Aqua version of OO.
I understand we may see a final release, or at least a robust beta, but
next year?
Les
David Lowe wrote:
On Nov 4, 2007, at 6:30 PM, Leslie Wright wrote:
I have downloaded 1.2a5 but must admit I am a little queasy about the
command line installation, which I assume is done in an X11 xterm
window.
I have tried simply unzipping and copying the Xquartz file to the
/usr/X11/bin directory, but that doesn't seem to confer executable
permission on the file, which is necessary for it to do its job.
I have found that starting X11 from its representation in
/Applications/Utilities seems to work fine. From there, I have added
command lines to the Applications menu to start each of swriter,
scalc, and simpress, each of which are of the form
/Applications/OpenOffice.org 2.3.app/Contents/MacOS/swriter (or
/scalc or /simpress). By starting up X11 thus and opening the desired
OO app from the Applications menu, things get rolling pretty quickly.
I have found that trying to open X11 by directly executing the app
file in the /usr/X11 directory seems to make a mess of things. On
must start X11 indirectly (presumably) by executing the stub or
whatever it is in /Applications/Utilities.
As I have said before, once one gets OO going under X11 it seems to
work, but I swear the visuals are slower--e.g., things seem slow to
repaint when you resize the window, open a menu, or get presented
with a dialog box.
For the most part I have been impressed with Leopard and am glad I
spent the money, but these glitches with X11 and OO are
disappointing. Maybe I should get courageous and install 1.2a5
following the instructions at the link you give and see if I witness
an improvement. In the meantime, I seem to have things working.
Actually, 1.2a6 is out now. It looks like it'll be an incremental
process, since Apple only has a single programmer working on X11, and
he already has full time tasking on other projects for them. It's
very frustrating since X11R7.3 [known to us as "1.3"] is out for other
platforms, but he hasn't had the time for the many rewrites it would
require... I would recommend that all Leopard owners who are
dissatisfied with the performance of the proffered X11 to write, call,
or log on to http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235
and make their unhappiness known. If Apple takes X11 seriously, it
will be offered as a regular Software Update.
As to the install, it should be done in Terminal.app for the
simple reason that you'll have to have X11 shut down to do this. You
are almost there, but you need the "chmod ..." line to get the
permissions right. However, since it's already in place, you'll now
need to do it like "sudo chmod ...". When in doubt, just cut and
paste the whole block of commands from the browser window to the
Terminal window - the commands will execute one by one and that'll cut
down on the possibilities of a typo. Actually, you may have to enter
the return key once to get the last line to go in.
As you've discovered, programs in /usr/whatever don't know from
mouse clicks: they expect to be given an environment from Terminal.
When you want to click on things, use the nice icons given us in
/Applications/Utilities. In fact, you'd probably benefit from parking
the X11.app icon in the Dock.
Using a rusty Amiga 4000T, a shiny PowerMac G5, & a homebuilt Ubuntu box
What do manufacturers of "Polystyrene" use to pack their product?
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