Re: [gnome-db] GRAND MASTER PLAN

[Ryan Pavlik <abiryan ryand net>]

Silvana Di Martino wrote:

> Alle 12:43, domenica 7 marzo 2004, Dru ha scritto:
> Please, allow me to bring some contribution to this thread.
>
>  
I don't really want to join the argument, "take a side" or whatever, but 
there are a few practical issues with what you suggest here.

> > Overall vision:
> >    
>
> Should not you know them already, have a look at:
>
> Rekall, a clone of MS Access (runs on Qt):
> www.totalrekall.co.uk
> www.rekallrevealed.org
> www.thekompany.com
>
> GNUccess, another clone of MS Access (alpha):
> gnuccess.sourceforge.net
>
> GNU Enterprise:
> www.gnuenterprise.org
>
> Mozilla SQL native interface:
> www.mozilla.org
>
> XULMaker, a Visual GUI builder for Mozilla/XUL:
> www.mozdev.org
>
> They can be a source of inspiration and, maybe, the people working on these 
> project could be willing to cooperate with you.
>
>  
These I have not examined, but it is unlikely (from my point of view) 
that the "big people" in Gnome Office would want *more* dependencies 
(Mozilla, QT, which is actually a big part of KDE, a somewhat-competitor 
with GNOME Desktop...)

> > Forms creation.
> >
> > I think we all seem pretty confident in glade here. thats solved.
> >    
>
> Glade is fantastic. I vote for it.
>
> As an alternative, have a look at Mozilla, XUL e XULMaker. The way they create 
> and manage the program GUI could bring to a "GUI Building/Management 
> Standard" in the future. It could be nice to be there at that moment.
>
>  
Again, with the reducing dependencies.  It may not be a bad idea to make 
it *possible*, but I'd say making Mozilla required would be a definite 
turn off.  The developers are working hard to reduce dependencies to the 
minimum, and to an easily-ported minimum, with the hope that the suite 
can be cross platform.

> > Reporting
> > Report Designer.
> >    
>
> Have a look at the report designer of Rekall for inspiration.
>
> I vote for not wasting time in creating a specific Report Designer and Report 
> Engine. Just make your data available to OpenOffice, AbiWord and KOffice and 
> let them do the job. Wordprocessors and Spreadsheets are well-known by 
> end-users and can make a great job on reporting.
>
>  
AbiWord would really probably be the choice here (though maybe 
Conglomerate, I'm not very familiar with it...).  OpenOffice and KOffice 
are not only more dependencies, but entirely separate office suites from 
GNOME Office.  Probably not the best thing to make your user download 
the application suite that may compete mind-share wise with your own in 
order to make it work.

> > 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?
> >    
>
> OpenOffice: can exchange data via UNO (its own interface) and has a large part 
> of what you would need. It is much more mature than other systems, as long as 
> I can see. I vote for OpenOffice.
>
>  
I vote for AbiWord.  Much cleaner codebase, smaller footprint, and plus, 
it's already a huge part of GNOME office.

> AbiWord: I have never seen it working on my machines, so.... :-(
>  
Join the AbiWord user list (check abisource.com) and I (or someone else 
helpful) will help you get that fixed. :)

> KOffice: can exchange data via DCOP and other protocols. It has many 
> interesting features that you can use. Not available on Windows, as long as I 
> know.
>
>  
Yeah, the downsides of this you have already partially named.  Not 
available on Windows (or Mac OS X), the biggest (in my mind) porting 
targets, as they have significant user share, and a uniform office 
suite/application between platforms can do nothing but help us.
<snip rest of message due to the fact that I am completely unqualified 
to offer further opinion on the DB matters>

> See you
>
> ------------------------
> Alessandro Bottoni
>  
Ryan