Thanks for offering this opportunity for commenting developer needs.
As a newbie in OpenOffice development here are my tips: - Documentation is very good. The Developers Guide has an unusual quality in describing how to extend the software - Also the OpenOffice SDK is an convenient environment for development. The user has examples that can be compiled without being root (even if the SDK is installed as root). Thus, for developing UNO components for extending OpenOffice both the documentation and supporting software are great. By contrast, it is difficult for develop for other purposes. Modifying the source is difficult because of the build system. The graphics layer VCL is not quite documented. The build system is difficult to use. It is based in a mixture of different tools, like dmake and the build script in perl. For instance, it is not obvious for the newcomer how to build a module. It is also not easy to hack it. For example, I would like to find the file list used to build the RPMS, to have something like "make install". I couldn't. Another example, how to change compilation flags for a single module (or perhaps for a single file). Some names are misleading, such as "solver". Hardly surprising that few people are interesting in downloading it, it looks like a module for the spreadsheet for solving constraints or something like that. The documentation of the build system is in the web and not in the source tar.gz, making it more difficult for people who do not have Internet connection at home. There should a README at the top of the source tree explaining how to build the software. Using dmake is unnecessary because GNU make has all its features, though it is only minor nuisance. Fixing these things is expensive. I would suggest instead to document them. Include in the source targz good instructions including: how to recompile a single module only, how to change compilation flags for it and so on. And one missing feature that I regard as almost essential is make install. I would like to test code that I have just developed without waiting for slow compression of files into RPMS and then install them. It should not be difficult to do, for people who understand the RPM building and know where the list of files comprising each package are. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
