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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Scripting status for koffice?
From:       Christian Lavoie <clavoi14 () po-box ! mcgill ! ca>
Date:       2001-01-03 16:56:49
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> > 1. Is DCOP expected to be used as the API for scripting?
>
> I'd assume that DCOP can be used if an interface is provided with any
> Koffice app but that DCOP will not replace more conventional scripting
> languages like Python which can be used more comprehensively than DCOP can
> be used.  What about koscript?  Is that no longer being maintained?

Why can't DCOP be used as a generic interface for KDE apps' internals? Let me 
tell a tale I lived during the last holidays....

Dad talks to son: " I need you to write me some script which must his 
<proggy> perl's interface and create Visio diagrams. Here's a win2k laptop 
with office2k, activeperl and <proggy>" (I'll hide anything not directly 
related to the problem at hand. It's <company>'s private stuff.)

So I took up some editor, the perl doc (I didn't knew perl last week) and the 
laptop in question. Learnt OLE and created the script in question. If 
<proggy> had required me to use a Python interface, I could have done the job 
with python as well. In fact _ANY_ scripting language implementing the OLE 
api could have done the job. DCOP is the closest thing KDE has (afaik) and 
its not up to the job (just yet?). In fact, most application do not export 
their internals using DCOP.

Now, a quick and easy reason to do such an interface: Well, scripting, across 
all KDE application (maybe only KOfffice's stuff, but anyway) is 
automagically done, forward compatible with itself (as far as the scripts are 
concerned, if the API doesn't change) and easily network-transparent (that's 
my personnal graal; I'm wondering if MCOP could be used as a DCOP backend)

> I'd be interested in a better response to you query, Shaheed, from someone
> who knows more about these topics.  But, for starters, does anyone have a
> comprehensive list of ALL the scripting (and other) languages with bindings
> for Qt and/or Kde?


No comprehensive list, but:

I recall reading something about Qt bindings for perl
There's been some interest for Java JNI bindings for KDE and a QtAWT port, 
but its either dead or progressing dead slow. (afaik) Probably to be blamed 
it on the Java complexity, and the unnatural feeling of Qt's slot mechanism 
in most languages. 

----

My dream is of writing a .php file, which start a GUI-less kivio, create some 
chart with <somehow>-acquired data, boot up a PostScript script (yep, it's a 
programming language) to render the chart itself, with some high-class 
rendering capabilities, then hand it all over to OCAML to write the rest of 
the document surrounding the said chart. and back to the PHP file to send 
back to the user.

Now, that's _FOUR_ scripting languages, all of 'em needing interfaces to KDE. 

Is there, currently, someone attacking this problem? Is there a "We'll do it 
<this way> when we'll come around doing it" plan? Anyone else interested?

-- 
Christian Lavoie
clavoi14@po-box.mcgill.ca
UIN: 947212

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