Modules, Services, and Interfaces

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Apache OpenOffice provides hundreds of services. To provide an overview of these services, they have been combined into modules. The modules are of no other functional importance for Apache OpenOffice Basic programmers. When specifying a service name, it is only the module name which is of any importance because this must be also listed in the name. The complete name of a service consists of the com.sun.star expression, which specifies that it is a Apache OpenOffice service, followed by the module name, such as frame, and finally the actual service name, such as Desktop. The complete name in the named example would be:

com.sun.star.frame.Desktop

In addition to the module and service terms, UNO introduces the term 'interface'. While this term may be familiar to Java programmers, it is not used in Basic.

An interface combines several methods. In the strictest sense of the word, a service in UNO does not support methods, but rather interfaces, which in turn provide different methods. In other words, the methods are assigned (as combinations) to the service in interfaces. This detail may be of interest in particular to Java- or C++ programmers, since in these languages, the interface is needed to request a method. In Apache OpenOffice Basic, this is irrelevant. Here, the methods are called directly by means of the relevant object.

For an understanding of the API, it is, however, useful to have the assignment of methods to various interfaces handy, since many interfaces are used in the different services. If you are familiar with an interface, then you can transfer your knowledge from one service to another.

Some central interfaces are used so frequently, triggered by different services, that they are shown again at the end of this chapter.


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