Re: Specifying Office Component IDL?

[Michael Hoennig "(mi)" <mi sun com>]

Hi Mike,


> > Everybody who is interested in such an API should take 
> > a look at http://api.openoffice.org which is the API of 
> > OpenOffice, which is specified in an IDL similar to CORBA.

> What are your current plans regarding the API?  I'd love to see us get
> some plans in writing about this.

Is this a separate question or just a summary of your following 
questions. If the first one: What do you mean? The API is implemented in 
OpenOffice and of course the plans are to extend both the API and its 
implementation. If the second: see below.

> Is the API going to migrate to an Org::OpenOffice:: namespace?

Probably yes, probably no. If there is a high pressure from the 
community, we could do that. BUT it is "expensive". Not only is it a lot 
of work, it breaks existing external code too. 

> What is your CORBA-fication strategy, if any?  Services probably need to
> be addressed.  

It would be great to have our service concept in CORBA, but I do not see 
much chance for this. Most CORBA users have a completely different 
approach than we (desktop folks) do. But I don't see problems in using 
the service concept as a "structured documentation" additionally to pure 
CORBA IDLs, we could simply change the filename extension.

> Also, things like Enum namespace clashes. (e.g.
> Drawing::FillStyle::NONE clashes with Drawing::LineStyle::NONE according
> to the standards for C-bindings.)

No name clashes anymore, if simply all enums are put into a separate sub 
module. Our IDLs are similar to CORBA but not CORBA itself, anyway. Thus 
this additional module could be added to the IDLs in the transition 
process.

> I'm on the dev api list and have read all the archives and there doesn't
> seem to be much discussion occuring related to CORBA and the API yet.

Than start one! Although I acutually think, this discussion fits better 
in the dev udk openoffice org  The API uses the UDK as a basis and the 
IDL, bridges etc. are defined there. I'm on that list too, of course.

> I'm working on an implementation of the Drawing API and have checked in
> some code and marked-up IDL already in sourceforge project bonobo-draw.
> Perhaps we could work together and use the OO Drawing API as a testbed
> to start making this happen?

Surely, I welcome such cooperations. But I do not understand what exactly 
you mean with using the OpenOffice Drawing API as a testbed. Please 
specify. Thanks!

	Michael