Please reconsider the present macro language and the way it links to the
OOo API. Originally macro languages were added to office software to
enable non-programmers to automate repetitive jobs, but in the OOo
paradigm macros should apparently only be developed by programming
geeks. For instance, the code to initialise a custom-made dialog box is
DialogLibraries.LoadLibrary("Standard")
oDialog1 = CreateUnoDialog(DialogLibraries.Standard.TranslateDialog)
I don't object to such constructs in Java or Python scripts, both
languages require some learning, and both use this kind of constructs
extensively, but Basic is supposed to be fit for use by rooks, and this
kind of code will discourage rooks right away. Please also remember that
if the time spent on developing the macro exceeds the time gained by
executing it, it's time wasted. This software is a productivity tool, it
should be aimed at improving the productivity of its users. In the forum
we often advice people who are new to programming but want to write a
macro to achieve something to avoid macros as much as they possibly can,
simply because macros are so hard in OOo. That's a shame. And quite
apart from the productivity aspect, writing code and seeing it work as
you wanted is great fun. So far, I never felt that fun when trying to
get an OOo macro to work.
Talking about dialog boxes, I toyed around with them and only after
spending some hours on that I found, /quite by accident/, that you can
select the dialog object itself by clicking on its border, and that the
same holds for the frame object. Before that the only way to adjust the
dimensions of a frame control was to edit the xcd file. I have worked
with Delphi, where you can click anywhere in a form or control to select
it (with the single exception of the bevel object), and if you have
controls that you can't select in the designer, you can still select
them from a list of controls at the top of the properties panel. Apart
from that I found that some of the default settings for the controls
differ from those in the average dialog box - for instance the
background of a label control is white by default, and when I tried to
change it to the background colour of the entire dialog box, I found
that it was impossible - that particular colour was missing in the
colour drop down list.
Last of all, could you add an interface for Pascal/Delphi/ Lazarus code?
That would enable people who can do great things in pascal but can't get
along with C or C++.
Thank you for bearing with me.
floris v
