Fwd: [sw-discussion] Smart Tags in Openoffice Writer

[Bruce D'Arcus <bruce.darcus@OpenDocument.us>]

An interesting post to one of the OOo dev lists today. I followed by 
asking them to look at our work for possible synergies.

Bruce

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jakob Lechner <jakob.lechner@fabalabs.org>
> Date: September 1, 2006 8:44:49 AM EDT
> To: dev@sw.openoffice.org
> Subject: [sw-discussion] Smart Tags in Openoffice Writer
> Reply-To: dev@sw.openoffice.org
>
> Hello,
>
> We would like to implement "Smart Tags"-like functionality in
> Openoffice Writer.
>
> According to our current plans we want to realize this feature as
> described below:
>
> 1.  Similar to MS Office recognized words in a document are underlined
>     in a special color.
>
> 2.  If the user clicks with the left mouse button holding the ctrl key
>     on the underlined word a dropdown menu is opened where the user
>     can select one of the predefined actions provided from the smarttag
>     library that matched this word.
>
> 3.  In case of MS Office there are simple and complex smarttag
>     libraries. For simple libraries just a xml smarttag specification
>     has to be provided (see [1]). Complex libraries require a COM DLL
>     that implements a special interface [2]. The actions that can be
>     specified with xml smarttags facilitate basically the invokation of
>     an URL. It is though possible to include the recognized smarttag
>     word as a parameter in the URL. In smart tag DLLs of course
>     arbitrary actions can be programmed. In a first step we want to
>     provide support for xml smarttags.
>
> 4.  The xml files have to be put into the smarttag directory in the
>     shared data folder of the openoffice installation
>     (i.e. $INSTALL_PATH/share/smarttags).
>
> 5.  Smarttag libraries comparable to the COM DLLs that Microsoft uses
>     could be implemented as UNO components in openoffice. A simple
>     interface could look quite similar to the Microsoft interface for
>     smarttag DLLs.
>     Basically the methods that have to be provided are:
>     1.  Recognize method:
>         This method checks if a given word is part of the smarttag
>         library.
>     2.  getActionCaption method:
>         Returns the captions of the possible actions for a given
>         smarttag.
>     3.  invokeAction method:
>         Executes a specified action.
>
> 6.  In order to be able to provide access to multiple smarttag
>     libraries there should also be a Smarttag manager. This class loads
>     available smarttag libraries implementing the specified interface
>     and constitutes the access point to smarttag libraries for the 
> other
>     parts of the program. The smarttag manager should be able handle 
> xml
>     smarttags but later on it could be extended to deal with UNO
>     components as well.
>
> 7.  Beside UNO components for complex smarttags it would also be
>     possible to build a support for native COM smarttags on the Windows
>     platform.
>
> 8.  For a more detailed description of the mentioned interface and the
>     architecture of the smarttag classes have a look at our UML diagram
>     in the attachments.
>
> 9.  Implementation details:
>
>     The smarttag implementation consists of three parts:
>
>     1. Underlining recognized smarttag terms in the opened document.
>     2. Xml smarttag classes that process xml files, provide the
>         recognize function and execute the defined actions.
>     3. GUI integration of applicable actions by a popup menu.
>
>     The process of recognizing and underlining words is very similar to
>     the online spell checking function. Therefore we would implement
>     another list just like the wrong list that is used for maintaining
>     misspelled words.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> [1] Paul Cornell: Developing Simple Smart Tags. Microsoft Corporation.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-
> us/dnsmarttag/html/odc_stxml.asp?frame=true
> [2] Paul Cornell: Developing Smart Tag DLLs. Microsoft Corporation.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-
> us/dnsmarttag/html/odc_smarttags.asp
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Best regards
>
> -- 
> Jakob Lechner
> Research & Development
> Fabalabs Software GmbH
> Honauerstraße 4
> A-4020 Linz
> Tel.: [+43] (70) 60 61 62
> Fax: [+43] (70) 60 61 62-609
> E-Mail: jakob.lechner@fabalabs.org
> Web: http://www.fabalabs.org
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@sw.openoffice.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@sw.openoffice.org