Difference between revisions of "Calc/ODFF Implementation"

Revision as of 18:05, 14 March 2008

For details see the implementation schedule.

ODFF (aka OpenFormula), the upcoming OpenDocument Format Formula specification, will require several changes to be implemented to the formula compiler and interpreter. Here we have a schedule for OOo3.0 of features and changes planned. The schedule will be updated roughly every two weeks to reflect how things evolve.

Most important features that require quite some substantial changes to the core are listed under the Critical item. It is planned to have these ready for QA and integrated early enough to be able to gather feedback from snapshot builds.

All strings of new/changed function names and UI relevant changes like the functions' parameters in the formula wizard of course must be ready before UI/feature freeze, hence are listed under the UI relevant item.

For Beta freeze a few bigger changes to already existing functions are planned, listed under Beta relevant.

Finally smaller code changes are scheduled after Beta to make single functions comply with ODFF, listed under Code changes must (after UI), Code changes must (after Beta), Code changes must (any time) and Code changes should.

Items listed under Code changes must (any time) are good opportunities for volunteers to jump on, since they don't depend on any other changes. They are isolated function changes within the formula interpreter.

The schedule reflects prioritized necessary changes, some of the new functions ODFF will define in the Large set are not scheduled for OOo3.0, but hopefully will make it into OOo3.1 and OOo3.2

The list is quite extensive, and while all MustHave items should be doable in time, there isn't sufficient time to implement all ShouldHave items if only one person is working on all tasks. Currently these are flagged as OffFreeze and have some "not rfQA before feature freeze" comments in the Status Note column. You're more than welcome if you want to give a hand and help with implementation, of course not only for the functions that would otherwise be dropped, help is welcomed on any of the function items. Please join the Calc team on the dev@sc mailing list.

Note that several items have a reference issue assigned, which up to now (2007-11-28) usually means that the issues already existed before, mostly as interoperability issues regarding compatibility with MS-Excel. So, while implementing the ODFF specification we'll increase interoperability at the same time, because when working on the ODFF specification the OASIS OpenDocument formula subcommittee tried to achieve compatibility where possible.

See also: estimated OOo3.0 release time line.