Ariel Constenla-Haile wrote:
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)
Ariel is right the documentation is currently very pure but
[email protected] will be the best place to ask further questions
and get support.
We should maybe create a more complex example and should document it in
the wiki in a tutorial style. Some volunteers?
Juergen
Regards
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