Hello Frank, On Friday 09 January 2009 10:35, Frank Schönheit - Sun Microsystems Germany wrote: > So, why I am writing this is as follows: You, as a user of > OpenOffice.org, be it casual or expert, for private fun or business > needs - what do you miss in this list? What would you like to see? What > would make your life with Base a little or much easier? > > If you have an answer to this question, share it by replying to this mail. > > Please be as concrete an concise as possible
ok, I'll try. The following may not be of interess for end-users (though they may really benefit from it!), so end-user reading this mail can skip it. Thanks to OOo Base developer's, OOo Base has become highly programable. A step forward will be what we can call "bringing the application Framework to the OOo Base application". A [not so sure how] similar effort has been made in the drawing apps. with the "drawing framework" [http://api.openoffice.org/docs/common/ref/com/sun/star/drawing/framework/module-ix.html] The basic idea is that the application can: * be controlled by configuration files, and API calls, so that a system administrator can disable some feature (like access to tables and queries) by simple configuration files. * be simply extended by external components Of course this already done, but I propose to take it further. Just an example [well... to be honest the only thing I had in mind]: currently the left panel on the app. window, containing the category of "database objects" (tables, queries, forms, reprots), is generated on the basis of fixed categories (dbaccess/source/ui/app/AppIconControl.cxx). A way of "bringing the application Framework to the OOo Base application" may be: * generate the categories at runtime, on basis on configruation regisitries * categories can be added and removed (thus blocking functionality) * each category is bound to a command URL * the selection of each category triggers the instantiation of a UNO component registered to handle this command (much like the PopupMenuController and ToolbarController) * the UNO component is responsible for filling that category with items (in a tree or non-try structure), for each item the component also provides a command it will handle on a ProtocolHandler upon user selection, etc. etc. Q: What comes with this? A: extension developers can extend OOo Base to the point to add new functionality in the way of new database categories. A simple example: a very common RFE, is a GUI for designing macros with no programming knowledge at all (very a la MSAccess). This could be achieved prefectly in an extension by the means of only API calls: there is API to embed foreing content in any OOo file, there is also API to add macros and basic libraries, etc. etc. [well, the GUI design is quite impossible with the current toolkit, but one can use Java Swing praying for OOo toolkit to become better] Just my 2 cents. Regards -- Ariel Constenla-Haile La Plata, Argentina "Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens - Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich härter." Nietzsche Götzendämmerung, Sprüche und Pfeile, 8. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
