Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hello all,

There is currently a discussion in the API mailing list about introducing incompatible changes in the API for the future version Apache OpenOffice 4.0. I think application programmers of this forum should be interested.
It is a long thread that you can read here.
Subscribe to the API mailing list ( api-subscribe@openoffice.apache.org ) if you want to post a comment.

Thanks for the pointer! I've stickyfied the topic.

This is a real shame. Sorry, I don't want to subscribe another list and all has been said by you and Hans Zybura.
Perhaps it should get a [Vote] topic on the dev mailing list. This is a major issue for the current eco-system of the extensions.

I fully agree about old code that is still in use, many users will be at loss, especially when expecting great changes from a new AOO version.

And that max version! what a poor idea! Firefox used to have that too, I had to edit each of the extensions to put a 99 in the max version field so that they would not be deactivated at the following FF version. But the devs noticed the users disappointment and now extensions are not deactivated anymore (don't know if there is still a max version but anyway it is of no use then).

Following a hot discussion about what is in my opinion an ultra minor issue about the 0^0 corner case, see: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoff ... 03989.html I've raised the extension problem to the dev mailing list too: http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoff ... 04066.html

Let's see how it goes...

OpenOffice has a very old code, we need to update this code and this will undoubtedly create backward incompatibilites, and is the price to pay. However I think this is for the better.

Simple example, take the Dublin core convention and the custom fields on the document property, OOo 2.0 didn't support them, 2.4 did, if I have 10 custom fields in the file, and I open it in OOo 2.0 those fields will disappear. However the advantage of having custom fields, gives the office suite a great advantage, so OpenOffice win. Same can be said for the current graphic engine, html renderer engine, and other rather obsolete parts of the office suite.

Agreed but the changes should be worth it. The loss of backward compatibility must be compensated by great improvements, it should not be done for very minor features.