About the Ability Linux project

Native Linux downloads available now!

Instructions and downloads for Ability Office applications (Spreadsheet, Database, Write & Photopaint) - see:

Ability Office for Linux (Alpha versions)

The key points 

• The Ability source code is relatively new
• A single library, shared by all the Ability applications, provides the interface to the operating system (Windows or Linux)
• Because of the above two points, progress on porting Ability to native Linux applications is extremely rapid 

The importance of a little history

Ability Office 98 was completely re-written for the 32-bit Windows platform in 1997. All legacy code - that is 16-bit C and C++ and assembler - was replaced entirely. At the same time, all the Ability applications were designed together and constructed on a platform (MFC) that abstracted any calls to the Windows API. In other words, the Ability applications all use a single shared library that deals with operating system. 

This contrasts with the situation at, for example, Microsoft and Corel where huge applications have been constructed quite separately over many years and where each application will have it's own methods and techniques for dealing with the operating system - which is only natural considering the origins of these applications can be traced back to at least four separate software houses. 

Porting to Linux 

The task of porting the Ability applications fell into two parts: 

1. Converting Ability's common library of Windows calls to Linux. This is actually the bulk of the work (most of which is complete) and relies heavily on a technology called Wine - see below. 

2. Recompiling the actual applications. Thanks to the 1997 re-write, this turns out to be very straightforward. 

The Ability applications will be native Linux code - there will be no "Windows code" that needs interpreting and Ability will not be restricted to Intel boxes. This contrasts to the Corel's Office Suite under Linux where an interpreter is used to run what is effectively, standard Windows code on Intel platforms only. 

Rapid progress 

Work was started on a Linux port in March 2000, with a modest sized team. Already, the main Ability applications (Photopaint, Spreadsheet, Write and Database) are in alpha testing.

A comparison can be made with Corel, probably unfairly, who have been working on their Linux office suite since 1998, with a team many times the size of Ability's and are still not able to run their applications natively. Actually, we have much to be grateful to Corel for - without their contribution to the Wine project, Ability under Linux would have been much more difficult.

About Wine 

Wine provides libraries to convert Windows API calls into their Linux equivalent for native Linux applications. It is also an environment to allow Windows applications to run unmodified on Linux - Ability, unlike Corel, does not use this feature of Wine. See http://www.winehq.com/ for more details.

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