Hello POI developers,
first of all I would like to thank you for the effort of making a great
library that makes developing Office files much easier that automating
(Microsoft) Office via COM will ever be. It's nice to have such a stable
and grown library around.
The reason I'm writing is that I'm using POI now for more than two years
and I'd like to make some improvements to the API regarding spreadsheets
(XSSF/HSSF). The problem in most cases is, that the API contains
non-intuitive ways of doing things regarding to the current default
usage of APIs (>=Java 1.5). In short the problems contain: inconsistent
usage of Enums, irritating constants and mostly a lot of lines that are
needed to achieve something small. I suggest some changes that aim to
make the usage of XSSF/HSSF much easier and avoid a lot of search in the
help which is necessary because of unintutional API style. The major
changes would be e.g.
- convert short parameters to int to remove bulky short casts
- create enums for constants (e.g. BorderStyle) and change parameter
types for methods to use it
- convert fields to real enums (e.g. Row.CREATE_NULL_AS_BLANK which
should be Cell.CREATE_NULL_AS_BLANK anyhow)
- advance interfaces (e.g. Color with no methods) to simplify HSSF/XSSF
usage
- create ease methods, e.g. cellStyle.setBorderTop(BorderStyle, Color),
cellStyle.setBorders(BorderStyle, Color),
cellStyle.setBorder(BorderSide, BorderStyle),
cellStyle.setBorder(BorderSide, BorderStyle, Color)
- unify naming, e.g. cellStyle.setLeftBorderColor vs.
cellStyle.setBorderLeft
- create ease "constructors", e.g. workbook.createFont(Font cloneFont)
- create range operations, e.g. cellRangeAddress.forEach(CellMethod)
All these changes would leave the default behaviour as-is and would not
break any existing code. Nevertheless, some things should be marked as
deprecated afterwards to indicate the new unified "valid" behavior.
I'd like to ask about your opinion of these changes and the future plans
of the XSSF/HSSF support (if they already include and/or conflict with
some of these changes).
Regards,
Johannes
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