Hi Andrew, > I agree pretty much..in fact I figured that what would happen is that > only a particluar piece would be implemented to any large degree, > Contact management say, or order entry.
Okay, that's probably realistic. >>For instance, I'm not sure about the actual benefit of the external web >>hosting company. >> > Ah, that just a rouse to allow me to interject a daily import file, and > show off how to use the HSQL text table feature. Ah, okay, that's good to have :) > Honestly I don't know how we are going to get away from needing ancilary > files. I do have a few ideas on how to handle that, after all it is a > database...we can have our own config tables and these can have columns > of type varbinary, so we can bring our files along with the database. > There is no reason why the database library can't use the API methods to > create its own directory under the users lcoal directory. Once this is > done the files can be moved from the database to the file system, this > allows us to construct a path to them at runtime. I see. We probably need to care for what happens if you then open the DB in an installation which does not have the templates, yet, and things like this, but it might work. > The bottom line for me is this - If we don't want any graphics on forms > fine... (if we don't use controls as graphics, but the Writer image, then we could even embed them into the document.) > but reporting is problamatic..this is a big issue to users and > the wizard just isn't going to take us very far. I suppose the other way > to go would be to completely generate any words or calc files via code - > but it would be so much easier using templates. Programmatic creation would in fact be undesirable, I'd say. The user doesn't lear anything about Base there - she learns how to create document via API, but how often will a average user really need this knowledge? No, you're right, templates are better here. > Not too mention...using templates and user defined variables in the > templates I have an idea for a good way to allow the users to customize > the reports and still have the applications basic procedures generate > their custom reports. It will be limited, mostly playing with the > appearance of the report but I think it would be a really nice thing to > show. Not sure how this would look like, but might be interesting. The truth is that the report templates coming with the wizard aren't very ... helpful :-\ sometimes. Giving the user a possibility to adjust a report to own layout ideas might in fact be more useful than just shipping additional templates. Ciao Frank -- - Frank Schönheit, Software Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - Sun Microsystems http://www.sun.com/staroffice - - OpenOffice.org Database http://dba.openoffice.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
