Hello Konstantin, On Tuesday 11 August 2009, 08:06, Konstantin Tokarev wrote: > Hello! > > I think every chemist which wants to use Linux faces with one serious > problem: structural formulae cannot be inserted into the text in editable > way. Also I think that only OpenOffice.org can provide this functionality > today. > > In MS Windows there are many GUI based editors, which can be used to create > and edit formulae incorporated into documents. In *nix-like systems there > are no OLE-like interfaces. Only possibilities for user are to insert > formula as image, SVG, or use OLE objects, incorporated in files which were > created in Windows, Objects, created by external software and inserted into > document cannot be edited after incorporation. > > On the other hand, there is an extension for OpenOffice.org called 'quick > formule', which provides a language for textual description of chemical > structural formulae. It constructs formula as OOo Draw object from text > string. But created object cannot be edited as chemical structure. If a > possibility to store this text string alongside with drawing, it could be > used for further edit, and required functionality would be achieved. > > I see solution of this problem in creating new OOo application working the > same way as OOo Math and based on its code. Using simple GUI (probably > jchempaint), user will actually change text string with formula > description, and when string changes, drawing object will be > re-constructed. This complex document may be incorporated using OOo OLE > implementation like OO Math objects are incorporated. > > My question for OOo developers: is it the simplest way to achieve such > functionality? Or it is simpler to realize through OOo extension?
I think that Jürgen gave you the best advice: develop your own embedded object. I once developed a propotype following the SDK example, "embedding" JMol: inside the document I stored the pdb file, and as replacement graphic one generated by JMol from this pdb together with some JMol specific data in order to store Jmol's state. When the user activated the embedded object I opened Jmol's frame, etc. The prototype worked fine (until - I guess - the changes in OOo classpath policy) but didn't have time to play with this again. But this shows the big potential of the embedded object API. You could do something similar with JChemPaint (and of course you're free to take the Jmol idea and create two embedded object types, this may make OOo very popular among scholars) > I'm C++ developer, well, both JMol and JChemPaint are Java applications, you could benefit of the Netbeans OOo API plug-in > but I've never worked with OpenOffice.org API. the embedded API is rather undocumented (by documented I mean there is nothing AFAIK in the Developer's Guide), though you have the abstract API specification, and the SDK example (it's helpful but hard to follow, I remember it took me a 2 weeks winter holiday to understand this stuff) Regards -- Ariel Constenla-Haile La Plata, Argentina --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
