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Hello, Andrew,

Andrew Ziem wrote:
> I have started* a Microsoft Works (.wps) document importer.  Since 
> libwpd has been incorporated into three word processors, I thought I'd 
> emulate the libwpd API to make it easy to implement support for Works.  

Very wise approach :-) It goes in line with Will's vision from this
e-mail
http://lists.ximian.com/pipermail/openoffice/2004-October/000556.html
and with an approach that I was trying to urge the OOo Google SoC
mentors to consider
http://sw.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=1241
Unfortunatelly, due to a low number of slots allocated to OOo, none of
the "Text importer" projects went through for SoC 2006, as you may know
:-( So, I am glad to see you in the "Text importer" universe again ;-)

> Then, it was necessary or convenient to copy and paste libwpd's source 
> code.  Now, I'm seeing there is a lot of copying, pasting, and renaming 
> strings like "WP" to "WPS."  To avoid forking what has turned out to be 
> an increasing amount of  code, any thoughts on consolidating efforts?

Yes, copy&paste == evil. Andrew, quick look at our API would suggest
following: Do not copy anything. Just for the time being make depend the
libwps on classes from libwpd public headers (WPXProperty* family
classes, WPXString, WPXHLListenerImpl (and eventually WPXInputStream)
interface class(es),...). It is quite possible that one could extract
the framework for the next ABI breakage from the libwpd-0.8.so into a
separage libwpd-framework-0.9.so, but as far as I am concerned, my todo
list is still long enough and the libwpd API is written in written in
stone for at least 1 year more. I have some ideas for API changes for
next release cycle of libwpd (like removing completely the libgsf
dependency from the provided stream implementation, some changes
concerning the page spans and adding callbacks for embedded objects...)
but I do not want to touch the API as long as I have still non-breaking
changes in my todo list.

> * I am able to dump plain text from Works 4 and 7/8 formats.  Also, I 
> have some progress on page and character formats in Works 4, which is 
> apparently the most popular of the Works formats.  But I don't have any 
> source code worth showing.

Even the most ugly code that has some desired functionality is worth
showing. IMHO, technical discussions around an existing, though
imperfect, code are really useful for one's growth ;-) And I know what I
am saying when I speak about imperfect code from my own hacking
experience :-)

Will, Marc, Ariya, any ideas to add?

Cheers

Fridrich

P.S.: Andrew, please subscribe to the libwpd-devel so that you will
receive all e-mails concerning this topic ;-)
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