On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 2:55 PM, Dave Fisher <dave2w...@comcast.net> wrote: > > On Nov 2, 2012, at 1:40 AM, Andrea Pescetti wrote: > >> On 01/11/2012 robert_weir wrote: >>> We (IBM) have consulted with customers, internal users, other IBM product >>> teams, on what our (IBM's) development priorities should be for the next >>> AOO release. Obviously, we're not the only ones with priorities or >>> interests or opinions. We don't make AOO decisions by ourselves. But we >>> want to be transparent about what our own priorities are >> >> Thank you for sharing. They are all good and needed contributions and they >> cover many of the main results from the Google Moderator user survey. >> >> There are still missing things that I've seen requested and that I would >> personally like to see in the product (a non-exhaustive list would include: >> better OOXML support, > > If a Java library is not a barrier then Apache POI might be helpful. Talk to > Nick Burch or Yegor Kozlov at Apachecon EU. > >> full or enhanced ODF 1.2 support, > > Again if Java is not a barrier the Apache ODFToolkit (incubating) might be a > reasonable tool - What do you think Rob? >
>From what I've seen the issue is not in parsing the file format, or operations at that level. The issues are in the fine points of layout and rendering, and even then it is often a disconnect between the document model implied by Microsoft Word's formats and those used internally by OpenOffice. For example, different models for dealing with nested lists. ISO did a report on how ODF and OOXML correspond, and what was possible via direct translation. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=45245 There is also a related whitepaper by Fraunhofer FOCUS: http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/en/elan/publikationen/infomaterial/white_paper/documentinteroperability/index.html (Microsoft sponsored, but still some good background info on the issues). In any case, to the question of priorities: If you check the trunk, you'll see that we have actually checked in quite a few MS interop related fixes. Our team in Beijing was focused on that while the rest of us were focused on the 3.4.1 branch. So AOO 4.0 will have some noticeable improvements in this area, even if we work on other items now. Regards, -Rob > Regards, > Dave > >> better defaults, better integration with the Extensions and Templates sites >> or in general better visibility for the additional resources, a refreshed >> visual identity not only in the interface...), and indeed it will be good to >> start collecting priorities on the wiki and assess feasibility of the >> underlying development. >> >> And then of course there's the community side: we are now able to engage >> localization volunteers but there is still work to do to be able to engage >> unaffiliated developers, so we might take that into consideration when >> discussing the new features. >> >>> releasing is PMC decision, not an IBM one. But we think that this work >>> could be completed and tested for a release in the March/April 2013 >>> time-frame. And the scope of the release might be significant enough to >>> warrant a "4.0" designation. >> >> Seems like this would be a good plan. Let's make it real! >> >> Regards, >> Andrea. >
