[udk-dev] PyUNO development

[David Douard]

Hi everybody, Hi Joerg,

I am a quite advanced Python developper, and I have some expertise in writing C/C++ Python extensions.
I'd like to help in the development of PyUNO (I have 2 hours of train a day I'd like to at least partially invest in PyUNO development) which seems to me at a very early stage, even if a wonderful work as already been achieved.
I do not have knowledge in UNO, but I am trying to acquire some for now.

Here are some reflexions, questions and remarks I can make for now (OOo 2.0.0, Linux) (please forgive me if I ask here stupid things or make stupid assumptions):

- I am trying to understand the C code of the pyuno module.
I must admit that for now, I find this task not very easy (I know, being in front of a new and complex piece of code always looks a little bit like being in front of a citadel), mainly because I have very poor knowledge in UNO and the Uno C++ bridge, but also because the source code is not very documented.

- One thing that I find disappointing is the fact that the UNO introspection capabilities are not  (as far as I understand, but again, I am very new in this code) very well reflected in the pyuno module (at least the python way).

- Is there a technical reason (but the lack of dev time) why UNO types, classes, services and interfaces are not exported in Python as types and classes (rather than instances of an obscure class like it is the case for now)?

- Why is the (very basic) Python editor disabled in the actual 2.0 OOo release (the MacroEditor dialog file is even missing)? Even if it is very basic, it is very useful to be able to create/modify scripts directly without having to hack the OOo file. Note that I have made a very simple patch that uses Idle as python editor in  OOo (just to have a colorized editor, and I have no idea for now on how to implement this feature in the MaroEditor dialog using UNO).

One remark: when I tried to use Tk in OOo, I noticed inconsistencies in the Python install that is shipped with OOo 2.0.0: the _tkinter.so module is linked against a inconsistent libtk (which is not shipped with OOo, and was not matching the version natively installed on my computer).In fact, it is linked against libtk.so.8.3 (as reported by ldd), but seems to have been compiled with tk8.4 (when I add libtk8.3 in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, it complains about tk version mismatches. Everything works fine if I copy libtk8.4.so in OOO/program an rename it libtk8.3.so (and libtcl also)).

My main question is (for Joerg maybe?):
what is the most important task in pyUNO development I could work on? Note that I do not have MS-like nor MacOS environment to work on, so almost all the tasks that are listed on the PyUno bridge project page are not really things I can work on?

Yours,
David