Hi Andrew,
Andrew Jensen escribió:
Hello again,
I wanted to follow up on this thought, and make it clear that what
prompted the first email was not just this years OOocon. It is deeper
then that and I wanted to give two more examples of what I mean.
In March of this year the Marketing group within OO.org created a new
web site, http://why.openoffice.org/ to help promote the package. The
site has a definite business orientation, well what would one expect
for an Office Suite.
If you look at the site it is very nice, a number of different markets
are addressed and each module is given a few words and one screen shot
to impart the feeling that the package is 'ready to go to work'.
For example -
Writer has a nice shot of a fairly full featured document.
Calc a sheet with multiple ranges of data from what looks like a real
business use and embedded graph.
The same for Impress - a full blown presentation in the making.
Base, well that is a different matter IMO.
http://why.openoffice.org/images/base-big.png
Look at this image used to impart it's readiness for business. A basic
front screen with tables for a DVD collection and Recipes? How does
anyone seriously expect that to engender thoughts of 'Enterprise
ready'. That is still the image used to show off Base at the main
website today by the way.
Next - May of this year, the OpenOffice.org API Plugin is released.
Outstanding, and created to the best of my knowledge by SUN engineers.
At the time I had a look and was surprised that when creating an addon
and selecting which modules a menu item should be displayed with one
is not even offered the option of Base. It was as if they forgot the
module was part of the package. Well, perhaps it had something to do
with the quirkiness of the Base main window model.
I agree completely with you...
Things are even more complex with OOo 2.3, see the mail I have send to
Jürgen Schmidt( I quote myself):
*********************************************************************
[start quoting]
By the way, with the new OOo 2.3 release , the context for UI
configuration has grown to 20 modules (css.frame.ModuleManager XNameAccess):
1. com.sun.star.chart2.ChartDocument
2. com.sun.star.drawing.DrawingDocument
3. com.sun.star.formula.FormulaProperties
4. com.sun.star.frame.Bibliography
5. com.sun.star.frame.StartModule
6. com.sun.star.presentation.PresentationDocument
7. com.sun.star.report.ReportDefinition
8. com.sun.star.script.BasicIDE
9. com.sun.star.sdb.DataSourceBrowser
10. com.sun.star.sdb.FormDesign
11. com.sun.star.sdb.OfficeDatabaseDocument
12. com.sun.star.sdb.QueryDesign
13. com.sun.star.sdb.RelationDesign
14. com.sun.star.sdb.TableDesign
15. com.sun.star.sdb.TextReportDesign
16. com.sun.star.sheet.SpreadsheetDocument
17. com.sun.star.text.GlobalDocument
18. com.sun.star.text.TextDocument
19. com.sun.star.text.WebDocument
20. com.sun.star.xforms.XMLFormDocument
The wiz. on the NetBeans IDE plug-in offers a very little range of the
20 modules.
Will this be fixed? (I remember that the OfficeDatabaseDocument module
was not even available)
[end quoting]
***********************************************************************
As you see, now Reports AND Forms have their own configuration!!!
Before, an add-on with GUI for Writer worked on Forms, now it doesn't!!!
The Base modules are:
1. com.sun.star.report.ReportDefinition
2. com.sun.star.sdb.FormDesign
3. com.sun.star.sdb.OfficeDatabaseDocument
4. com.sun.star.sdb.QueryDesign
5. com.sun.star.sdb.RelationDesign
6. com.sun.star.sdb.TableDesign
7. com.sun.star.sdb.TextReportDesign
and we can even include:
8. com.sun.star.sdb.DataSourceBrowser
9. com.sun.star.xforms.XMLFormDocument
As you see SEVEN modules!!!!! The plug-in does not even have the
OfficeDatabaseDocument!!!!
(By the way, I send the message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] on the 18 of Sept., but
without answer)
At the time there was an entry about this on the GULLFoss blog. I
added a comment to that entry:
"I would propose that you look into a project type for extending the
embedded HSQLdb engine in Base. HSQL supports the creation of Triggers
for table events ( Insert, Delete, Update ). It also supports creation
of User Defined Functions ( UDF ) and stored procedures callable from
within user created queries within Base.
Triggers are realized by supplying a class that implements the
org.hsqldb.Trigger interface. While UDFs are static Java functions.
For Triggers connections back to the running database must also be
managed, use of the OOo API for this would seem like a great
combination.
Just a little food for thought. It should at least be worth a quick
conversation with someone in the Base project."
What was the response to that comment - absolute silence. Not even so
much as a 'Well, not a good idea to us.'
Recently version 1.1 of the plugin was released. Is Base a recognized
context for commands? NO!
How is it that SUN engineers seem to not even know there is a Base
module? Even if one chalks it up as simple oversight on the initial
release, there is no excuse for missing it on the next release. Given
the recent work done by the Base developers the context options are
now even greater, the query designer window for instance. Hopefully
someone will let the folks working on the plugin know that this work
has taken place.
Since I said there where only two more examples in this email I shan't
mention the issue of VBA code in MS Access files, and the apparent
belief that only Excel files come with these.
Finally my question really should not have been phrased as "Where is
Base", it should have been. Where is the Base evangelist within the
organization? Where is the product management? The project management
is active and engaged, hopefully they have someone in the next echelon
as engaged as they are.
Respectfully
Drew
My conclusion here is that OOo Base seems to be an unwanted child!
Bye,
Ariel.
--
Ariel Constenla-Haile
La Plata, Argentina
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.arielconstenlahaile.com.ar/ooo/
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