Developers FAQ

The Developers FAQ is a collection from different questions asked by Developers who are new to OpenOffice.org:

This is work in progress, the developer mentioned behind the question will write the answer soon.

FRAMEWORK

• Description of the SFX2 framework
• There are many shells and views in the source files. In OO design ideology, what roles do they play?
• Explanation of the dispatch mechanism
• How is the OOo framework generated, and how to implement the framework-model-controller mode?
• What is the purpose of listener and broadcaster, What do they do?
• How does the framework implement the interface management, how to load toolbar, and how to implement berth area?
• The mechanism of messages: IMPL_LINK,listen and slots
• SFX2, command handling, generic user interface and add-ons
• Filter configuration, dispatch/interception, extensions support
• API for accessing OOo package format
• Embedding
• Templates
• The general part of the document storing/loading process

UDK

• Mechanism of Multi-Platform support
• How to communicate with other OOo components, and how to implement a bridge
• Python UNO components may be run within the OOo process - how can they be called from Java, C++ or StarBasic?
• The relationship between UNO, COM+, CORBA.

APPLICATION, WRITER

• Structure of tables
• Mechanism/Implementation of undo
• Mechanism/Implementation of frames
• Class structure of SwNode, SwNodes, SwNodeIndex, ...
• Relationship of all kinds of frames
• Relationship of all kinds of nodes (startnode、endnode）
• Method and process of fixing bugs

APPLICATION, DRAW/IMPRESS

• The mechanism of slide show and animation (what is the difference between before and after)
• Copy&Paste: Memory structure of clipboard in SD, difference between coping objects inside slides and coping objects from or into other applications like SW, SC
• The rendering method for the font?
• Mechanism of designing and implementation of master page and layout style in presentation
• Flash Export:
  • Difference between the export of the simple character and the complex character?
  • The implementation of the Polygon in VCL. Such as the EM square，Body，Ascent and Descent to realize of the glyph.
  • The custom animation will be lost after the slides being exported into the swf. What cause it? There is no support to export the animation, is there? Do you have any plan to consummate it? And what's your purpose in this area?

APPLICATION, CALC

• Structure of Charts
• Relationship between cells, sheets and workbooks
• Copy&Paste

APPLICATION, DATABASE

• Why was the dbase driver engineered into file_based driver? And compared with the text/csv driver, what are the advantages of it in OOo's database, and how it was being designed in OOo's database ?
• What are the project's short-term plan or the direction of development now?
• In the project named "Native, cross-platform access to MS Access databases", what is the current solution? Is there anyone beginning to re-engineer the MDB format himself?

GENERAL QUESTIONS

• How many threads are typically used at runtime, and what are their functions?
• How is the messaging mechanism implemented?
• Structure of VCL
• How to improve stability? Where to start?
• How to improve performance? Where to start?
• The system of standards and specifications used in OOo: unicode, gb2312, ...
• How/where is the Boost library used?
• Which code/features are affected by the "Design Mode?
• The process of SVG protraction and SVG parse. The relationship between controller protraction and the resource of the controller.
• Mozilla and ActiveX plugins
• Currently a document can only be processed by one of the OOo applications - what about having just one application processing all kind of documents?
• Are there any plans to integrate a desktop search engine?
• Any plans to introduce classes comparable to CObject and CWinApp in MFC?
• What's the future on network communication regarding OO?