Hello Everyone,
Does anyone have an OpenOffice or Libre Office plugin for Real Studio or Xojo?
Over the years I have had many requests for these plugins that may work across the platforms. The Microsoft Office Plugin works in the Windows OS environment. Does anyone have a plugin for these Office systems? If not, I am willing to try and write a plugin for one of these Office systems. If someone has a basic template, then this would help greatly!
Sincerely,
Eugene
I’d be interested in a Libre Office plugin. As a Linux user, the Office plugins do me no good.
Hello Eugene,
You can count me on your list of people who want an OpenOffice / LibreOffice plugin for Xojo.
With or without OpenOffice / LibreOffice plugin, you wrote again an excellent book about Excel automation with Xojo. If you succeed in creating such a plugin, that would be great. Depending on my search on the internet, there will surely be a demand for such a plugin.
Anyway I will be more than willing to buy your plugin when it becomes available.
Friendly greetings,
Chris
Eugene,
I’m interested in a Libre Office Plugin. However, I lack any knowledge to write plugins to Xojo but I can happily be a beta tester.
I have not had a chance to create plugins yet, and am willing to dedicate some time to this project.
My first question is ‘what is a good language to create plugins?’. After following these discussions on the previous forum, it appears that there are a few languages which work across platforms (would Xojo work to create Xojo plugins?)
The second part is to create an open project as I believe that everyone would be able to benefit from this plugin. I would probably eventually end up writing a book on how to use LibreOffice with Xojo, and the plugin would remain free. Here is a proposed document to get us started. Download Document
I have a couple of computers which I can dedicate to this project to have different OS’s for troubleshooting and coding. Having said this, my strength is Windows, and am weak in Mac and Linux.
Would there be enough support to work on this type of project with the Xojo community? Any volunteers?
Sincerely,
Eugene
The first question is: What do you expect from such a plugin?
Remote control OpenOffice?
Hello Christian,
You always have good questions 
My expectations for a plugin are similar to the expectations of the MSOfficeAutomation.rbx plugin which is:
These are my initial thoughts. Since you (Chrisitan) are the guru at plugins , what would you recommend?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Eugene
So you are looking into remote controlling OpenOffice?
Eugene wrote:
Having said this, my strength is Windows, and am weak in Mac and Linux.
I am OK in the Mac platform (since the 1980s).
I too am asking myself what to do with, but I do not use M$ Office, so BUT I use Libre Office (I just downloaded version 4.0.4).
People, as Christian asked, can you answer to waht are you using the M$ Office plugins for ?
Hello Emile and Christian,
I use Microsoft Office for reports, templates, data gathering, data manipulation, and integration with databases. A more specific example is that professional oilfield workers create technical reports in the oilfield. Although the oilfield simulation and reporting programs are good, data involving the real world always involves reporting real values. This is where Word, Excel, and Access are involved. The original simulation program creates a majority of the report and most of the number crunching. Measured data MUST be added to the report as this is a legal document. Most people are familiar with Microsoft Office products and this makes it a natural fit to add the actual data to the report. These reports are then kept on a series of servers and are continuously scanned (in Microsoft Office format). All three formats (Word, Excel, and Access) are generated and updated in the field and then uploaded to the main hub when an internet connection is available. Because work is performed in over 80 countries, internet is not always available.
Being forced to work with Microsoft Office means that PC’s will never be obsolete, with both Mac and Linux OS’s will not be allowed in business because of the lack of the ability to create reports. Simulation data has been gathered and refined over 20 years with literally millions of reports in the database. This database is used to create new reports for clients who are looking for tenders on future work.
Charging for an addin would be cost prohibitive (there are approximately 100,000 computers with just one company). As with anything, it takes time to remove bugs and prove reliability. To help Mac and Linux OS’s gain popularity, this would be a benefit to have a multi-platform addin that can withstand the tortuous environment around the globe and yet work on multiple platforms.
BYOD is gaining traction in the oilfield and has some very limiting stumbling blocks in the field. BYOD is common in the main offices for limited applications. Internet driven applications are not even close to being an option, as the internet is not available in remote areas where oil is being drilled. If internet is available in a remote area, the bandwidth is easily used by a rig which costs $100,000 per day in rent for mission critical applications (safety hardware, communication, drilling data, feeds, etc.)
Creating a Word, Excel, and Access document will be around for many years. Creating a plugin for OpenOffice or LibreOffice would be a step in the right direction (IMHO) as there is the ability to read, write, and edit existing Word, Excel, and Access data. The added ability to use multiple operating systems would further enable BYOD in the field.
There is much more that I can discuss. Feel free to ask questions and we can discuss this some more.
Just my $0.02
Eugene
http://api.libreoffice.org/examples/examples.html
I expect the usual things we do with MS-Office and automation under MS-Windows.
Embedding and controlling. We usually add a Excel spreadsheet control in a window under MS-Windows (OLE).
LibreOffice can make the same, but multiplatform, like embedding Calc spreadsheet and controlling a 3D Chart for example. We can load documents into our apps, process and save. Those kind of things.
Hello Christian,
Yes, remote controlling either of these two applications are preferred. What program do you use for cross compiling since CodeWarrior (Metrowerks) doesn’t exist anymore? Or is this the reason why there are only 32 bit applications (chuckle, just thought of that now)
…or are declares the way-to-go?
Rick, thanks for the link to LibreOffice plugins. It looks like much of the monotonous code has been written.
Sincerely,
Eugene
Declares don’t work with C++ libraries.
to compile a plugin, you use Xcode on Mac, Visual Studio on Windows and gcc on Linux.
For the Linux part, Your might have an interest on these two links :
Writing a Program to Control OpenOffice.org, Part 1: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8550
Writing a Program to Control OpenOffice.org, Part 2: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8608
The links are old, but I believe it still can be useful
Thanks for the help everyone!
As the Philosopher ‘Confucious’ would say, ‘a 1000 mile journey begins with the first step’ … Here I go!
Eugene
Starting on the Windows portion first (just because I am most familiar with the OS).
What is the most common Linux OS? The reason for the question is this OS will need to be installed on a computer for programming/testing. Many articles point to Ubuntu as being the most common. For those who are active in the Linux community, is this true?
Thanks for your help,
Eugene
[quote=17744:@Eugene Dakin]Starting on the Windows portion first (just because I am most familiar with the OS).
What is the most common Linux OS? The reason for the question is this OS will need to be installed on a computer for programming/testing. Many articles point to Ubuntu as being the most common. For those who are active in the Linux community, is this true?
Thanks for your help,
Eugene[/quote]
If you have a look on Distrowatch. Linux Mint is the one that most users are downloading, Second is Ubuntu
http://distrowatch.com/
Due to the support and active development towards all the fields (Desktop, Servers, TV, Tablets and Phones): Ubuntu.
In the desktop area, there is the Mint Distro too, Debian based as Ubuntu.
Many users switched to Mint instead Ubuntu due to recent changes of Ubuntu sending your data to their servers to know your habits and offer you sales content. Many people did not advanced from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to any later release due to this and are waiting to see.
For the server part, the pure Debian is an strong contender. This is the father of both Mint and Ubuntu.
The main not Debian-based contenders are Fedora for Desktop and Cent-Os for Server both Red Hat based.
As a focus, I suggest you go with Ubuntu right now. 
Making sure your software works with Mint (probably will) and Fedora is a plus.
Reading this thread I remembered I posted something similar a few years back at the old forum requesting real life examples of fiddling with Word & Excel from within RB.
It seems to me that the main purpose of fiddling with Word & Excel (and OpenOffice) is for reporting though I suppose the added advantage is that users can further manipulate the documents from within Word or Excel (or OpenOffice).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for OpenOffice addons or extensions since we have them for Microsoft Office.
I haven’t had a reason to use the Office stuff but very soon will be looking at creating a Word doc and populating with data. Hopefully headers, footers, sections etc. are easy to create and manipulate.
Hello,
I’m also interessted in creating reports with Libre Office. I use LO Writer to create letters within Libre Office and use Templates as the document base. I would now like to fill the template document (Adress field, tables) with values from Xojo and then print the documents and save them from Libre Office as pdf or odt documents (without starting libre office).
Is there some progress done by someone?