[ODP-dev] A first hello to all developers on the list!

[Norman M. <no...@se...>]

Hi folks,

I will start this mailing list with a short message on what is the =
current
status in the OpenDocumentPHP development. The whole text can be found =
as a
PDF on our project homepage (http://opendocumentphp.sourceforge.net). =
This
is just a not so long version of the text with less formatting and no =
links.
=20
Thanks to you all,

Norman

=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =
=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =
=3D =3D
=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =
=3D=20

__Some remarks about me, this project, poc and "stage 1"__

_Some information about me..._

Let me first introduce myself, my name is Norman Markgraf, I was born =
back
in 1971, I live in a town named Bochum (Germany)2 , I have got a so call
"Diplom" in math with a major in computer science.=20
I started to work with computer back in 1984, where I started =
programming in
Basic and assembler on a Commodore C=3D64, too. I have work with several
programming languages like Pascal, C, C++, Java, Haskel, PgSQL, Fortran, =
.
and PHP.=20
The last years I was very deep involved in developing DOM, XML, XSL, =
XSLT,
HTML, and CSS stuff in Java.=20
I ran a server on http://wikiheaven.de, with some wikis on it, i.e.
http://www.bigmampf.de.vu.

_Some informations about the project..._

I started this project on 17. February 2006, after I spend some days
thinking about how nice it would be to produce a better output for a =
nicer
printing for some documents I had in my wiki. I thought it might be a =
good
idea if you can use a office product, like Word or OpenOffice Writer, to
make a text or article and then put it in a wiki and get such a text,
spreadsheet or what ever you want back out of the wiki into your office
program, too.
So I decided to start a project for creating, storing, writing, =
modifying,
reading and do what ever you want, with a OpenDocument document. And I
started it in PHP, because I wanted to prove, that PHP is much more than =
a
"server sided script engine" and has the power to do this.=20
Alex Latchford ask me, if this will be a "editor" or solely integrated
within MediaWiki. Well, the truth is, I am not sure what it will be in a =
few
months, but for now your should thing of OpenDocumentPHP as a library. =
If
you want to make an online editor or make some extensions for
wikipedia/MediaWiki, you should be welcome to use OpenDocumentPHP as =
your
library to access OpenDocuments. That is my personal goal for this =
project.
When we developed some lines of real code (see POC and stage 1), I will =
try
to make a application which uses our library to support converting wiki
articles in OpenDocuments.=20

_Some informations about POC..._

Because nothing is easy when you start writing a program, I wanted a
playground, where I can experiment a little with some of the ideas I had =
in
mind. So I write a very short "prove of concept" which you all can find =
as
"/poc" in the Subversion repository at sourceforge.net . It is some =
starting
point for the whole project. But please take it as it is, only some code
from one coder.=20
A teacher of mine always told us, that "programs, are written code from =
many
people, for many people.", in his lessons. And I think he is right. So =
we
have to make our own code in the future. This code will go in to "stage =
1".=20
The reason why I published the "/poc" code is simple, not everybody has
experiences with "Phing", "PHPUnit2", "PEAR", "XML", and/or "DOM". So I
thought a playground for all of us would be nice and we all can learn =
what
we need.


_Some informations about stage 1..._

Having a playground like "POC" is good, but having a goal is even =
better. So
I like to announce "stage 1", the first real release of OpenDocumentPHP.

Goals for "stage 1":

* 	A fine object structure written in UML with at least one fixed
interface:

			OpenDocument

	and a factory class:

			OpenDocumentFactory

	which will give the "customer" a OpenDocument(Single/Package)
object.



*	All classes designed and coded in PHP 5.1.2 or later..
*	UnitTests written for PHPUnit2 for all objects in our code base.

For a customer it should be possible to get an OpenDocument class form =
the
factory class, (a single or a package document) and write some stuff to =
it,
like some lines, some paragraphs, headlines, images, formulas and so on.
After the class is filled with some of this stuff, the customer should =
get
the possibility write this OpenDocument as a file to disk, store it =
anywhere
else or publish it via HTML as an OpenDocument. I would like to fix the
interface for OpenDocument, and any other needed or useful interface in
stage 1 as soon as possible, to allow the development of applications =
which
uses OpenDocumentPHP as soon as possible. There for the documentation of
these interfaces and a short guide for it should be one of the first =
thinks
need to be done in stage 1 next to the code development.

Goals for "stage 2 and later" (headword only):

*	Better ZIP file handling
*	Less memory consumption (don't held all OpenDocuments in memory,
only needed parts)
*	Faster code (maybe some code parts should be written in C ?)
*	split up developing and production code. (Get a PEAR::Log free
version, to run faster in production, this version should be generated =
by
Phing "on the fly" from the code base)
*	Read OpenDocuments, (We should be able to read an existing
OpenDocument, and modify it.)
*	More options to manipulate OpenDocuments.
*	Help for CSS <-> OpenDocument styles conversion.

=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =
=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =
=3D =3D
=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D =
=3D=20