MacOS support; agenda item ESC

Sun May 3 11:47:07 UTC 2020

Hello,
here’s some input from me after having tested quite a few macOS bugs through the years:

The download page needs to show some of the different known issues. E.g., today it should show a warning on Catalina that you may need to grant LO "Full Disk Access” if running on a standard account or installing a language pack - otherwise save as and open is broken. People should not have to google this issue, as most will give up before then.

The most major issue is to get code signing to work on the regular app bundle, and then at some point the SDK 10.15 causing blurry text need to be resolved.
It would probably help to update to modern macOS frameworks, not sure if Skia would help here

I read through the list of open macOS bugs (there’s only 220!) and here are some notable major ones and CJK issues

Text is blurred if having a Retina screen and low-dpi external screen (NeoOffice has actually fixed this recently)
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85499
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108801

Inertial scrolling switches to zoom if you start pressing a new shortcut key (cmd) -> Simple fix to change it to ctrl?
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46429

Modal dialogs aren’t properly modal. Likely cause issues such as being able to quit in the save dialog (e.g., if you press cmd+q twice too fast by accident) and other problems
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31915
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98842

3D slide transitions are broken
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57128
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=115497

A few CJK or similar issues
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108042 (not able to show e.g., cmd in toolbar shortcuts) - major
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=123555 (not able to show chinese text in index, probably related to above) - major
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114272 (some font fallback not working, see my latest comment) - not sure of severity
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129620 (CRASH in editing header in Calc) - not sure if major
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128537 (CRASH when pressing cmd+^2) - minor
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82115 (CRASH when changing font in comment of partly written text) - probably minor

Also, what is the relation to NeoOffice?
They publish their sources and have e.g., fixed the bug with mixed Retina and low-dpi screens:
https://github.com/neooffice/NeoOffice
https://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=8 (bug fix announcements)

They have also implemented many native macOS functionalities, e.g., Dark mode, and seem to have a better quicklook and mdimporter plugin?

They have this on their FAQ page: 
Why is NeoOffice separate from OpenOffice and LibreOffice?

The primary reason that we stay separate is that we believe that we have produced a product that is more stable and more secure on Mac than either OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Developing and maintaining the NeoOffice code requires a massive amount of our time. Since neither OpenOffice nor LibreOffice have ever offered to fund our work, working within the OpenOffice or LibreOffice projects is not a feasible option for us.

AFAICT from the sources, they’re on LO 4.4 which in other ways is quite suboptimal

> On 24 Apr 2020, at 11:02, Michael Meeks <michael.meeks at collabora.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
> On 23/04/2020 20:41, Telesto wrote:
>> The LibreOffice MacOS support is pretty dramatic.
> 
> 	Sooo ... Collabora has been focused elsewhere for a while, but some
> app-store budget to invest in Mac fixing has accumulated. I'd like to
> address some of these issues and get it updated on the store; but
> helping to build a list of specific things to address would be
> worthwhile I guess.
> 
>> The Mac code is legacy as far I know. There are enough
>> depreciation warning within the code. It still surprises
>> me it's still working; more or less. It really needs some love.
> 
> 	Glad it's working (more or less =)
> 
> 	Is your concern deprecation warnings during compile time ? or use of
> deprecated API ? Normally we've focused on end-user feature/function
> problems rather than compile-time deprecation warnings.
> 
> 	Ultimately - there is plenty of bit-rot to go around, last time I did a
> UWP  API analysis eg. our multimedia support on Windows needed
> re-writing for the Media Foundation APIs - instead of using DirectShow
> and so on. Then again, Microsoft seem to have stepped far away from
> demanding that UWP is required - and stopped their aggressive API
> deprecation approach there.
> 
> 	Of course, getting rid of GDI has been important for me at least, as
> well as the font work to use DirectWrite and then the use of Skia has
> moved us towards something rather current for rendering. I'd like to
> move towards using Skia to share more of the underlying rendering code
> on the Mac too.
> 
> 	So - do you have a list of concerns ? (or more ideally user visible
> bugs here).
> 
> 	Ultimately re-writing working code to handle deprecation issues before
> we're forced to is not terribly glorious - it creates ~unavoidable
> regressions for a future benefit =)
> 
> 	ATB,
> 
> 		Michael.
> 
> -- 
> michael.meeks at collabora.com <><, GM Collabora Productivity
> Hangout: mejmeeks at gmail.com, Skype: mmeeks
> (M) +44 7795 666 147 - timezone usually UK / Europe
> _______________________________________________
> LibreOffice mailing list
> LibreOffice at lists.freedesktop.org
> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice