Currently active document

The currently active document can be accessed using thisComponent.

An almost equivalent to the BASIC command thisComponent is:

 StarDesktop.CurrentComponent

In Apache OpenOffice Basic it is generally preferable to use thisComponent.

By using StarDesktop.CurrentComponent, a macro in one document can be run on another document.

Another exception is when a routine is run by the Apache OpenOffice event "Document Open". In this case use StarDesktop.CurrentComponent and a check on the document type. The reason for not using thisComponent is that when a library is opened the event fires and thus runs a second time on the currently active document.

To determine the type of document that is currently active you could use the following function:

function fnWhichComponent(oDoc) as string
if HasUnoInterfaces(oDoc, "com.sun.star.lang.XServiceInfo") then 
   if thisComponent.supportsService ("com.sun.star.text.GenericTextDocument") then
      fnWhichComponent = "Text"
   elseif thisComponent.supportsService("com.sun.star.sheet.SpreadsheetDocument") then
      fnWhichComponent = "Spreadsheet"
   elseif thisComponent.supportsService("com.sun.star.presentation.PresentationDocument") then
      fnWhichComponent = "Presentation"
   elseif thisComponent.supportsService("com.sun.star.drawing.GenericDrawingDocument") then
      fnWhichComponent = "Drawing"
   else
      fnWhichComponent = "Oops current document something else"
   end if
else
   fnWhichComponent = "Not a document"
end if
End function

An example of calling this function is:

if fnWhichComponent(thisComponent) <> "Text" then
  msgbox "Sorry - this only works for text documents", 16, "Error"
  exit sub
end if