[kplato] Re: Summer of Code Project for KOffice Component Framework

[Dag Andersen]

A bit late, but that's how life is these days...
This would be great!
(I can certainly understand what you aim at, but then I know koffice. 
It may be more cryptic for other people.)
AFAICS the project will be two parts:
a) Enhance the component functionallity in koffice, and
b) Rewrite kplato to use the new framework.
I suspect that b) is the major part, but imho, just doing a) will be a 
significant improvement to koffice as most other apps will benefit 
also.
When it comes to using DCOP, I've also had some thought of using this 
for report generation. Not much dcop is implemented for kplato of 
course, and AFAICS sitting with the kdcop browser, most calls in 
kword brings up dialogs which somewhat defies automation ;) I'm no 
expert but if this is so, new dcop calls need to be implemented. 
However, being able to control koffice apps automated from scripts 
could be very useful for other purposes too.

On Mandag 13 juni 2005 23:37, Raphael Langerhorst wrote:
> On Monday 13 June 2005 08:24, Tomas Mecir wrote:
> > On 6/12/05, Raphael Langerhorst <raphael-langerhorst at gmx.at> 
wrote:
> > > attached is a Summer of Code proposal I would like to send it
> > > to Google. Please review and give some feedback.
> >
> > Hmmm... The idea looks nice, but I really think (and judging from
> > the google's faq, they think it too), there should be some more
> > specifics. What are you trying to achieve ? How is it supposed to
> > work ? Maybe also a bit of an architecture overview, that you are
> > planning to implement - if possible ...
> > Really, from what you describe, I have no idea how is this thing
> > supposed to work. :(
> >
> > / Tomas
>
> [resending this in clear text, takes less kB]
>
> Hmmm... ;) the _how_ exactly needs some more fine planning, the
> general idea is written down in the proposal. Please tell me ASAP
> if you still think there is something missing.
>
> Regards,
> Raphael
>
>
> This is my current proposal:
>
> Summer of Code Project
> Improving KOffice Component Framework - Document Embedding
>
> 1. Mentors
> Lauri Watts <lauri at kde.org>
> Adriaan de Groot <groot at kde.org>
>
> 2. Applicant
> Raphael Langerhorst <raphael-langerhorst at gmx.at>
>
> 2.1. Software development skills and experience
> I can speak C/C++ fluently, know Java very well, can write some
> assembler and have some experience with scripting languages like
> shell and python. Additionally I have experience in leading Open
> Source projects (see below)
>
> Some of my completed projects:
> 2001-2002: Complete 3D Engine with level editor based on DirectX,
> written in C++.
> 2002-2003: Intelligent Navigation System for robots, implemented in
> Java.
>
> Some of my ongoing projects:
> started 2002: G System, virtual reality. I am one of the two
> initiators and the main developer. I wrote most of the code and I
> take care of team management. It builds on Qt/KDE technology:
> http://www.g-system.at
> started 2004: Contribution to the KDE and in particular to the
> KOffice project. I would now like to get more involved into this
> through the Summer of Code project.
>
> 3. Overview
>
> KOffice is an integrated office suite directly built on the KDE
> technology. It extends the integration capabilities of KDE to allow
> good KOffice component/document integration. It is lightweight, yet
> offers a complete set of office components - more than any other
> commonly known office suite.
>
> http://www.koffice.org
>
> 4. Project Proposal
>
> There is only limited control over what information of an embedded
> document is presented in the parent document. In particular there
> is no control over what part of the embedded document gets
> presented. To allow finer control over presented content the common
> component framework needs to be extended to allow additional
> embedding configuration.
>
> The idea is to extend the component library with an additional
> configuration framework that allows for fine tuning the
> presentation of the embedded document. The required code changes
> are extending the core libraries with a generic interface for
> creating and managing the presentation options for embedded
> documents. Each KOffice component then needs to honor this
> interface and present its content according to the desired
> configuration in the parent document.
>
> Additional care must be taken to honor these settings in the file
> format.
>
> 5. Vision
>
> It is currently easily possible to integrate flow charts and
> diagrams into presentations, spreadsheets into text documents (or
> any other way round), even in multiple depths. You can even have a
> database frontend (Kexi) inside a spreadsheet (KSpread).
>
> KPlato (K Planning Tool) is a project management component still
> under development and it will be included in the next major KOffice
> release. A desired goal is to allow for example KWord, the text
> processor, to include various pieces of information about a project
> by means of embedding the KPlato component. The text document
> should be able to selectively show different pieces of information
> of the project, the Gantt chart, resources,  general project infos,
> etc. This also applies to spreadsheets for example and a lot of
> other things. To achieve this, the component framework needs to be
> extended. This allows very flexible automated report generation for
> example, in particular in connection with the DCOP interface.
> _______________________________________________
> kplato mailing list
> kplato at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kplato

-- 
Mvh,
Dag Andersen