Re: [Planner Dev] [Fwd: RE: MPP file format]

[Richard Hult <richard imendio com>]

On tor, 2004-05-20 at 09:53 +1000, Malcolm Tredinnick wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-05-11 at 20:25 -0400, Kurt Maute wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > I ran across this project today - called mpxj.  Its a java library
> > designed to interpret M$P files in various formats including mpx, mpp,
> > and mspdi xml files, so I contacted the developer, Jon Iles (message
> > below), and it looks to me like we could leverage his work to enable
> > import/export functionality in Planner.
> > 
> > I like the sound of his option #2 - building mpxj with gcj rather than
> > re-implementing it in C++, but I'm not nearly as in touch with the
> > technical details to be sure...
> 
> I think a lot of the hard work for option #1 (using his algorithms,
> essentially) is possibly already taken care of in libgsf, which is used
> by gnumeric and a few other projects to handle reading files in these
> sort of formats.

Indeed, libgsf would help a lot here.

> The second option (building the Java stuff in a way that it can be
> linked) is only really useful if we can build some C code that be
> checked into CVS (or at least distributed with the tarball). Otherwise
> we are adding an enormous overhead to the build requirements. I start to
> bleed from the ears every time I need to get any kind of vaguely complex
> Java pile of wax working, especially with gcj. And I don't think I am at
> the bottom of the ability tree when it comes to building things.

There has been some work on getting jhbuild to build gcj and friends
lately. It would probably take a while before distros ship the necessary
parts though.

No matter which direction we take, it's good to know that mpxj exists,
thanks for the pointer.

/Richard

-- 
Imendio HB, http://www.imendio.com/