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Wednesday, 22 Aug 2007
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Wednesday, 22 Aug 2007
Kai Sommerfeld
On our long road to improve the Extension Infrastructure of OpenOffice.org (here is the full story), we managed to implement another bunch of cool features and enhancements for OpenOffice.org 2.3, namely:
Preferences Dialogs for Extensions
An extension can now define its own set of preferences dialogs. These dialogs will be seamlessly integrated into the common Preferences Dialog of OpenOffice.org (the dialog behind the Tools/Options... menu item). The extension's preferences dialogs can be inserted somewhere in the hierarchy (of existing) preferences pages.
The dialogs can be designed using OpenOffice.org Dialog Editor. The Editor itself has been extended to support the export of single dialogs, including eventually existing localizations. Formerly, only complete basic libraries or OXTs were supported. The exported dialogs can be included directly in the package file (OXT) of extensions.
UNO AWT Tree Control
The often-requested and long awaited UNO AWT Tree control is now available! And there already is Dialog Editor support for the new control.
UNO AWT Developers Guide Chapter
Finally, there is documentation for UNO AWT! Now, the OpenOffice.org Developers Guide contains a completely new chapter covering this important topic.
Official OpenOffice.org Extension Repository
Currently we're in the final phase of the implementation of the official OpenOffice.org Extension Repository Web Site (http://extensions.services.openoffice.org). Every extension developer can create entries for her extensions there, gaining a maximum of awareness for these extensions by distributing it via The official OpenOffice.org Extension Repository. Although we're not yet completely done, it's already definitely worth to take a look...
Additionally, the OpenOffice.org Extension Manager now contains a clickable link "Get more extensions here..." which leads you directly to the Extension Repository.
Extension Menu and Toolbar Items “everywhere”
This feature makes it possible for an extension to integrate seamlessly into the OpenOffice.org menu bar or any existing toolbar. An extension can add new menu entries and sub menus, replace existing menu items or remove menu entries. This is also possible for toolbars.
Netbeans OpenOffice.org API Plugin
Version 1.0 of our Netbeans OpenOffice.org API Plugin has been released and is now available to every Netbeans user via the official Netbeans Update Center. Version 1.1 is in the works and almost completed.
Last not least, we did a Gazillion of minor bug fixes and smaller enhancements in almost all Extension Infrastructure components.
... and there is still a lot of work to be done in this area for the next releases of OpenOffice.org. Stay tuned. :)
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Comments
While I applaud any work done towards more flexibility for add-ons, I think it
is troubling that the preferences dialog keeps on growing and growing from
release to release.
I think it would be highly desirable to make it simpler not more complicated.
Some examples:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=69676
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=31190
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=31188
Posted by Ralph Aichinger on August 22, 2007 at 06:53 PM CEST #
Very excited about the new extension architecture in 2.3. Looking forward to the final release.
Posted by David Mackey on August 23, 2007 at 02:37 AM CEST #
Posted by Plan-B for Software Documentation on August 23, 2007 at 01:48 PM CEST #