Open Office and Java

Yesterday week I was doing some programming at work and got stuck on an issue, so I decided to look at the openoffice.org forums. I typed in the URL and received an error message stating that the DNS couldn't be resolved. I then did a whois search and emailed the site admin. I got no response. Today I was still struggling with the same issue and was getting fed up but now the site is back up.

The highlights a problem with software development particularly if depends on other users being accountable rather than companies. They can have problems with support sites and not bother informing their user base that there is this problem. I should point out that openoffice.org open source project is sponsored by Sun and so this issue shouldn't have happened.

Java was officially open sourced this week under the GPL. What does this mean? At the moment very little because there are a lot of little Java libraries out there.

Technorati Tags: open source, forums, technology, computing, openoffice.org, Java

Writing Bad Java Code

Apparently it's possible to write bad Java code which amazes me. Have a look at obfusated Java






Technorati Tags: Java, programming languages

OpenOffice and Charts

Open Office Calc allows you to generate charts just like in Microsoft Excel. The charts are a bit basic IMHO in comparison but you can generate simple bar charts, scatter graphs and pie charts. Unfortunately if you then try and alter the chart using the OOo API you will discover that even though you have given your chart a name you cannot access it by this name easily. Why? It is because:

1. The chart is an embedded object
2. The embedded object is given a unique name in the calc workbook such as Object 1
3. Your name is given to the object using the XShape interface.

Another problem is if you want to find the exact cells your chart covers in a particular worksheet you cannot.

These are annoying limitations of the current API but luckily the Chart2 project is being done.




Technorati Tags: Openoffice, Java,charts, programming languages