Hi Jürgen, Reply in-line. On Tue, 2005-03-01 at 20:42, Jürgen Schmidt wrote: > Hi, > > I'd like the idea as well and i will try to share some facts and > thoughts here. > 1. OO.org 2.0 comes with a smart integrated package manager (UI and > command line support) which supports installation as well as removing of > new UNO packages (real components as well as Basic or script libraries)
A great advancement it is to! It is the possibility of adding packages while OpenOffice.org is running that makes the concept of an add-on installer possible. > 2. it offers also the export of UNO packages to extract UNO packages > from an existing installation As far as I can tell, the export of UNO packages provides a way of copying an installed UNO package to another location. From a brief test it doesn't include any changes to the installed files. > 3. UNO packages are described with a XML based package descriptor file > Could you let me know where the documentation for this file format can be found? > I think it would be a great start point and we should concentrate on > this package manager and should define how we can improve and extend it > with missing features (what ever make sense). The important thing from > my point of view is that we have at the end only one kind of UNO > packages. To many different formats will probably confuse the end users > and nobody will know which installer is necessary for what kind of package. > I agree that there should be "only one kind of UNO packages"! > What do you think? > I'll try and explain the overall concept of what I am trying to achieve. I have written a number of Openoffice.org macros which I have made available from: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/hillview/OOo/ The most common request / feedback that I receive is for an add-on installer along the lines of that provided by Firefox. My interpretation of that request is that the installer needs to: * work from within OpenOffice.org * help people to find the addons that they require * install selected add-ons at a click of a button My first attempt at a user interface to try and meet this need is a wizard which is available from: http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=43532 The first step of that wizard is to download a file that contains information about all available add-ons and templates in "the system". It is the format of this file that the thread has been about. [By "the system" I am referring to a proposed central place for uploading OpenOffice.org add-ons and templates.] Also on that first step is the possibility to download rating / review information. The second step allows the user to see and select updates for add-ons and templates that they already have installed. For add-ons I think that this could be done by checking the names of installed UNO packages against the names of packages in the downloaded information file. I confess that I haven't checked the feasibility of this yet. Also on this step it is possible to upload rating / review information to the central site. Steps 3 - 6 are to help the user find their desired add-on or template. Step 7 is to display dependency information (add-on 50 is dependent on add-on 12 so add-on 12 should be included). On clicking install, all the selected add-ons and templates get downloaded and installed. The add-ons would all be standard UNO packages. I have no preconceived preferences for the uploading of the files to the central site. Whether it be from within OpenOffice.org or through a web interface. I think that some members of the OpenOffice.org community should have the responsibility for checking uploaded files for malicious content. The wizard has a check box for eliminating from the displayed list those add-ons or templates that haven't been checked. I hope it is clear from the above, that I am not proposing a different format for UNO packages, but I am trying to find a way of helping users to find UNO package to meet their needs, and to do that may require an additional file with information about available UNO packages. Thanks, Ian --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
