Difference between revisions of "Documentation/DevGuide/AdvUNO/Advanced UNO"

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Choosing an Implementation Language

The UNO technology provides a framework for cross-platform and language independent programming. All the OpenOffice.org components can be implemented in any language supported by UNO, as long as they only communicate with other components through their IDL interfaces.

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A developer can customize the office to their needs with this flexibility, but they will have to decide which implementation language should be selected for a specific problem.

Supported Programming Environments

The support for programming languages in UNO and OpenOffice.org is divided into three different categories.

1. Languages that invoke calls on existing UNO objects are possibly implemented in other programming languages. Additionally, it may be possible to implement certain UNO interfaces, but not UNO components that can be instantiated by the service manager.
2. Languages that implement UNO components. UNO objects implemented in such a language are accessible from any other language that UNO supports, just by instantiating a service by name at the servicemanager. For instance, the developer can implement a OpenOffice.org Calc addin (see Spreadsheet Documents).
3. Languages that are used to write code to be delivered within OpenOffice.org documents and utilize dialogs designed with the OpenOffice.org dialog editor.

The following table lists programming languages currently supported by UNO. 'Yes' in the table columns denotes full support, 'no' denotes that there is no support and is not even planned in the future. 'Maybe in future' means there is currently no support, but this may change with future releases.

Java

Java is a an accepted programming language offering a standard library with a large set of features and available extensions. Additional extensions will be available in the future, such as JAX-RPC for calling webservices. It is a typesafe language with a typesafe UNO binding. Although interfaces have to be queried explicitly, the type safety makes it suitable for larger projects. UNO components can be implemented with Java, that is, the Java VM is started on demand inside the office process when a Java component is instantiated. The OfficeBean allows embedding OpenOffice.org documents in Java Applets and Applications.

There is a constant runtime overhead of about 1 to 2 ms per call that is caused by the bridge conversion routines when calling UNO objects implemented in other language bindings. Since OpenOffice.org consists of C++ code, every Java call into the office needs to be bridged. This poses no problems if there are a few calls per user interaction. The runtime overhead will hurt the application when routines produce hundreds or thousands of calls.

C++

C++ is an accepted programming language offering third-party products. In addition to C++ being fast since it is compiled locally, it offers the fastest communication with OpenOffice.org because most of the essential parts of office have been developed in C++. This advantage becomes less important as you call into the office through the interprocess bridge, because every remote call means a constant loss of 1 to 2 ms. The fastest code to extend the office can be implemented as a C++ UNO component. It is appropriate for larger projects due to its strong type safety at compile time.

C++ is difficult to learn and coding, in general, takes longer, for example, in Java. The components must be built for every platform, that leads to a higher level of complexity during development and deployment.

OpenOffice.org Basic

OpenOffice.org Basic is the scripting language developed for and integrated directly into OpenOffice.org. It currently offers the best integration with OpenOffice.org, because you can insert code into documents, attach arbitrary office events, such as document loading, keyboard shortcuts or menu entries, to Basic code and use dialogs designed within the OpenOffice.org IDE. In Basic, calls are invoked on an object rather than on a specific interface. Interfaces, such as com.sun.star.beans.XPropertySet are integrated as Basic object properties. Basic always runs in the office process and thus avoids costly interprocess calls.

The language is type unsafe, that is, only a minimal number of errors are found during compilation. Most errors appear at runtime, therefore it is not the best choice for large projects. The language is OpenOffice.org specific and only offers a small set of runtime functionality with little third-party support. All office functionality is used through UNO. UNO components cannot be implemented with Basic. The only UNO objects that can be implemented are listeners. Finally, Basic does not offer any thread support.

OLE Automation Bridge

The OLE Automation bridge opens the UNO world to programming environments that support OLE automation, such as Visual Basic, JScript, Delphi or C++ Builder. Programmers working on the Windows platform can write programs for OpenOffice.org without leaving their language by learning a new API. These programmers have access to the libraries provided by their language. It is possible to implement UNO objects, if the programming language supports object implementation.

This bridge is only useful on a Win32 machine, thereby being a disadvantage . Scripts always run in a different process so that every UNO call has at least the usual interprocess overhead of 1 to 2 ms. Currently Automation UNO components cannot be implemented for the service manager, but this may change in the future.

Python

A Python scripting bridge (PyUNO) is currently developed by Ralph Thomas. It is available in an experimental alpha state with known limitations. For details, see PyUNO on udk.openoffice.org.

Use Cases

The following list gives typical UNO applications for the various language environments.

Java

• Servlets creating Office Documents on the fly, Java Server Pages
• Server-Based Collaboration Platforms, Document Management Systems
• Calc add-ins
• Chart add-ins
• Database Drivers

C++

• Filters reading document data and generating Office Documents through UNO calls
• Database Drivers
• Calc add-ins
• Chart add-ins

OpenOffice.org Basic

• Office Automation
• Event-driven data-aware forms

OLE Automation

• Office Automation, creating and controlling Office Documents from other applications and from Active Server Pages

Python

• Calc add-ins

Recommendation

All languages have their advantages and disadvantages as previously discussed , but there is not one language for all purposes, depending on your use. Consider carefully before starting a new project and evaluate the language to use so that it saves you time.

Sometimes it may be useful to use multiple languages to gain the advantages of both languages. For instance, currently it is not possible to attach a keyboard event to a Java method, therefore, write a small Basic function, which forwards the event to a Java component.

The number of languages supported by UNO may increase and some of the limitations shown in the table above may disappear.