Re: GRAND MASTER PLAN

[msevior physics unimelb edu au]

>> Forms creation.
>> I think we all seem pretty confident in glade here. thats solved.
>
> Uhh, forms and reports are two sides of the same coin.  Remember
> my 'bugzilla' analogy:  The bugzilla "report" for bug 123 is also
> a "form" that allows the user to modify bug 123.   I'd like to
> be able to embed widgets into abiword docs, and use libglade-like
> api's to find & work with those widgets.
>

OK You don't mean literally "GtkWidgets" You mean addressible regions of a
document. Yes we can do that with abiword rather easily via the
"external-source" property tag I just introduced with it's unique
identifier, much like a libglade widget name.


>
>> Reporting
>>
>> reporting engine, what is gnomedbs requirements? Linas, maybe a gtk
>> output engine or a xml to gladexml converter, or use the existing html
>
> Reporting is on the same coin as forms, its just on the other side.
> A "form" flows data from somewhere else to my application.
> A "report" flows data from my application to somewhere else.
>
> This is THE "high level" abstraction layer/API, to me.
>
> My app codes to this high-level API.  It then picks a particular
> driver.  There is one driver that will push data into an abiword
> doc.  There is another driver that will push data into a pane
> of gtk widgets. There is a third driver that will push data
> into xml.  There is a fourth driver that will pushd data into
> sql. A fifth driver will push data into ldap.  A sixth driver
> builds a web page and pushes it out to Apache. Etc.
>
> (My "DWI" project was my attempt to create this high-level API.
> I currently have drivers for glade/gtk and sql.)
>
> Its possible that gnomedb and/or libmergeant has this kind of
> ability, but if so, I haven't figured it out yet.  Its not
> clear how to create new drivers.
>
>> Report Designer.
>>
>> None of have anything here (expect gnue).  Its needed. I was thinking
>> orginally using openoffice or abiword to design reports but i really
>> havn't started looking at this at any detail. Any suggestions on how we
>> are going to achive this? Does this sound feasible?
>
> I've been trying to explain to Martin Sevior what my vision for abi
> is, and I think he almost gets it. I thnk once he gets it, it will be
> easy.  I want abi to have a libglade-like interface.  The report
> designer creates a named text block, and my program can then change
> the text/color/font of the named text block.  I can't beleive this
> is going to be hard.
>

You right :-) It isn't hard at all. It's one weeks work I think.

The GUI is trvial. Simply select a region of a document, choose "External
Source" from a menu, pop a simple dialog and ask for the unique name of
the property.

The Property could just as easily be an input as an output. ie the
external app could look up the property and find the text with the
property. The input text could be used to modify what we want for output.
We could also mark these properties as non-printable so they're removed
fromt he printed report.

Cheers

Martin