Hi Ian,
Ian Laurenson wrote:
Hi Jürgen, Replies in-line.
On Wed, 2005-03-02 at 22:29, Jürgen Schmidt wrote:
Hi Ian, Ian Laurenson wrote:
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.
Sure and the add-on installer is already there but it needs to be extended with more functionality to install UNO packages for example from the web and detect new versions of alread installed packages ...
I agree that this would be the ideal! I just didn't realise that this was an option.
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.
Why it should change the installed files?
My apologies what I said was not clear at all. I will give an example of what I mean: Someone installs IannzFindFiles.uno.zip UNO package. They don't like my cluttered dialog and so modify the dialog and BASIC code in the IannzFindFile library so that it is a more intuitive wizard. Currently if they export the IannzFindFiles.uno.zip UNO package what they are exporting is my original cluttered version rather than their new improved wizard.
oh, ok now it is clear what you mean. I agree that would be the best solution and we should evaluate if it easy possible (after OO.org 2.0)
Further to this, I think it would be good if their was a wizard to help people build their UNO package.
Sure, the new SDK provides makefiles for creating UNO packages (both component packages and script/library packages). I also have the first running ant scripts and ideally would be an integrated wizard in NetBeans and/or Eclipse.
So if there are any volunteers who are familiar with one of the IDE'S and who are willing to investigate some time in this please let me know. I have a lot of ideas but didn't find the time until now.
Where can I find the updated Developers Guide for OOo2.0?
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?
It is documented in the updated Developers Guide for OOo2.0
It can be found in the Beta SDK and will be published soon on api.openoffice.org
[snip]
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.
good idea, the packages should definitely checked and QA'ed
My thoughts on the QA concept is that if it is easy for users to rate and review extensions then the users will be doing the QA. But, I suspect not many users would be able to check if some code had some hidden malicious intent (or accidental catastrophe).
Probably it is a good idea to have both. People who really review the code if desired because quality is really important. And on the other hand a rating from the users. The users will detect obvious hazards and we will get an ranking of the most useful and best extensions.
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.
Yes of course and i like the idea. And i think the package manager is still the right start point or at least the right point to trigger a further UI to cover the online search, update and deployment of packages.
I really like the concept of the package manager being the starting point for on-line searches, updates and deployment of packages.
I would suggest that we use a different term instead of add-on, because add-on in OOo is a specialized UNO component providing some kind of UI integration. But there are a lot of more UNO packages (BASIC library, calc add-ins, ). I would prefer "OO.org extensions". GBut of course it's only a guess to minimize confusion.
If we use the term "Extension" then the "Package Manager" should probably be renamed "Extension Manager".
I like the term "OpenOffice.org Extensions" and within OpenOffice.org simply called Extensions.
I wonder if there should be a top level menu item between "Tools" and "Window" called "Extension". The tools menu is already quite long, and having the main way of accessing extensions through the tools menu adds another click. E.g: Tools > Add-ons > Iannz > FindFiles Compared with: Extensions > Iannz > FindFiles
This should we probably discuss with the user experience group who will design the UI. I'am personally can live with both ;-)
Juergen
Thanks, Ian
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
