Re: Remove ActiveX from LibreOffice

If you search for "Microsoft Excel Automation" you'll find many references
online of how ActiveX is used in other applications to allow the Excel
engine to compute things in a spreadsheet form.  Were the same ability
well-documented in LibreOffice, many people would switch as LibreOffice is
free, and Excel costs hundreds of dollars.

I urge you not to remove it, but to improve it for simpler integration.  It
should work like this:

lo = CreateObject("libreoffice.application")
lo.open("c:\path\to\my\document\file.ext")
lo.visible = .t.

And in that way, an application can directly integrate operations into
their app which loads LibreOffice.  Note that these examples are in Visual
Basic, but the same general form works from any application, including C++
(see below):

Here are some automation examples for Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint:
Excel:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/219151
Word:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/316383
Outlook:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/220595

A more example-by-example based tutorial:
PowerPoint:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb871574%28v=vs.80%29.aspx

Here's a code snippet on how to access ActiveX from another application
using C++ from MSDN:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/196776

ActiveX allows applications to integrate each other, and to have windowed
portions within an application which are actually a "portal" through to the
other application, though it appears to be fully integrated.  It is a
powerful tool.  And as I say, I have not used LibreOffice for integration
because I could not find good documentation on how to do it, whereas there
are many online resources on how to use Microsoft Office integration.  If
the documentation were better, Windows people would use it as it is highly
desirable.

Best regards,
Rick C. Hodgin


On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 9:52 AM, James E Lang <jim+lod@lang.hm> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryan Quigley <gquigs@gmail.com>
> To: libreoffice <libreoffice@lists.freedesktop.org>
> Sent: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 15:41
> Subject: Re: Remove ActiveX from LibreOffice
>
> ---------->8=====
>
> > My position on ActiveX is to leave it (lest we break applications in the
> wild,) and to *announce its deprecation* with two goals: first, solicit the
> feedback of LO ActiveX consumers and, if so inclined to continue using it,
> help in its support. And second, to flag a date in the future when ActiveX
> will be completely removed from LO codebase, pending sufficient reason and
> support by its consumers.
>
> [Just to toss in a comment from a NOT NECESSARILY typical USER, I would
> probably fail to see any depreciation notice unless it were thrown in my
> face each time I used the feature until I say (in effect), "all right,
> Enough Already, SHUT UP!" aka, "Don't show this notice again." The same
> should apply to revising any existing menu accelerators. --jl]
>
> ---------->8=====
>
> --
> Jim
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