Subject: Re: Abisuite - Word! What about Spreadsheet an Dbase?
From: Rob Campbell (rob.campbell@att.net)
Date: Sat Mar 03 2001 - 20:10:30 CST
>On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 04:29:34PM -0500, Pierre Abbat wrote:
>> I think we should start on AbiCalc soon, maybe get the basics working
when we
>> release AbiWord 1.0. Yes there's Gnumeric, but does it run on as many
platforms
>> as AbiWord?
>>
>> phma
>
>Really, this is mess we *do not* want to get ourselves into. Our 1
>and only priority is creating AbiWord. The Abi framework is well
>done, and would work well with a spreadsheet. But we have our hands
>full already, and starting a spreadsheet program would not help
>anything.
>
> sam th
Not that I have contributed a single line of code yet, but if I just had to
work on AbiCalc (it was killing me not to), this is the procedure I would
follow:
(1) Help AbiWord get to 1.0 and beyond. You will need to learn the
framework, after all. And it would be nice if AbiWord had tables, so there
could be some kind of useful integration of AbiWord and AbiCalc on platforms
without Bonobo or OLE.
(2a) Port AbiWord to wxWindows GUI API. Concentrate only on the platforms
that wxWindows has stable support for: Win32 and GTK+.
(2b) Once the basic port is done, recruit wxWindows developers to make
wx/AbiwWord run on other platforms. There are projects to port wxWindows to
many different platforms at various stages of development. Finishing those
ports is essentially what would be involved. Having a significant, fully
functional "reference application" to work with would provide motivation and
direction.
(3) Write AbiCalc, using wxWindows as the UI toolkit. (3) happens in
parallel with (2b).
Personally, I think it would be much more interesting to do an opensource
version of MathCAD, using AbiWord as the basis. Aren't there already enough
spreadsheets in the world? The procedure would be the same.
For now, I'm happy to help make AbiWord more functional and useable. And
there is also work that could be done to make it more portable and
maintainable (what is the problem with gettext on non-unix platforms?). In
short, there is lots of cool stuff to do on AbiWord.
Rob Campbell
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