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Released: Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15
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OpenOffice.org Conference (OOoCon 2008)

5th-7th November 2008
Beijing, China
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Abstracts of Conference Papers - Thursday

State of the Project, Year 8

Suarez-Potts, Louis (Community Manager / Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

Abstract: This presentation examines the state of the project after eight years of continued extraordinary growth and activity. The focus is on work that has been done in the last year, in particular, OpenOffice.org 3.0, and our ambitions for the coming year. Briefly: OpenOffice.org 3.0 represents both a cumulative accomplishment by the community, a peak reached after years not just of coding but of organization, and a point of departure. At this point, OpenOffice.org has reached, I believe, a status in the world that places it not just on equal footing with any other productivity suite but above. OpenOffice.org 3.0, equipped with the ODF, goes well beyond any single productivity suite or application; rather, it functions a primary star in a constellation of applications that are giving all users the tools and reach to do what they want, what they dream of. With this exuberant moment reached, what then for the coming year? Should we expect new features, new code? Perhaps a new look? This presentation will look at some suggestions, but as with all such presentations, the focus will be on honouring those who have taken us to where we are now and whose vision will take us even farther.

Biography: Louis Suárez-Potts is the longtime Community Manager and Chair of the Community Council for OpenOffice.org; he joined Sun Microsystems in 2007 and has led the OpenOffice.org community since 2000. The lead and co-lead of several projects and the primary spokesperson and representative of OpenOffice.org, Suárez-Potts also represents the project regarding OpenDocument format (ODF) matters, and is on the OASIS ODF Adoption Technical Committee and is a member of the ODF Alliance. He speaks frequently on the ODF, OpenOffice.org, education and open source, and community development throughout the world. Suárez-Potts is currently working on several articles regarding open source development and education. He lives in Toronto and received his PhD from U.C. Berkeley.

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State of the User Experience Project

Frank Loehmann (OOo User Experience Project Lead / Sun Microsystems/OOo User Experience Project)

Abstract: The OpenOffice.org user experience team runs several activities to get direct usability feedback from our users and works on a community based usability improvement process to increase community participation in the project. Beside a report on the state of the project we will also give an overview about our activities towards OpenOffice.org 3.1. The panel will end with an extended QA session.

Biography: Frank Loehmann has been working on StarOffice/OpenOffice.org since 1995, the last 8 years with the OpenOffice.org/StarOffice User Experience Team. He holds a degree in Computer Science.

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The State of the Documentation Project

Frank Peters / Clayton Cornell ( / OpenOffice.org Documentation Project)

Abstract: The OpenOffice.org documentation project is a community effort focused on creating and maintaining all aspects of the documentation for OpenOffice.org. We will report on the current status of the documentation project and outline the trends, opportunities, and challenges for the upcoming year. A focus will be put on importance of the OpenOffice.org community effort, how to increase community participation in the project, and how to consolidate the documentation efforts across OpenOffice.org.

Biography:

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OpenOffice.org Portable - the office in your pocket

Mantke, Andreas (Content Developer / andreasma@openoffice.org)

Abstract: The presentation gives an overview of the technology behind OpenOffice.org Portable. Which different portable storage devices are able to run this special version of OpenOffice.org and what's to keep in mind when using this special version. The presentation will also inform about the benefits of OpenOffice.org Portable, especially for marketing OpenOffice.org

Biography: Born in 1959, Andreas is working for the social insurance institution. Since autumn 2002 he has been a member of the de-project of OpenOffice.org. He provided there some howtos / documentations and wrote websites. In 2005 he wrote a book about OpenOffice.org Impress and Draw together with Stefan Koehler. Currently he is also engaged in the extensions and documentation project of OOo and working on OpenOffice.org Portable (-Plus). In the last few months he wrote some howtos for plone and translated some into German.

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Introduction of the Mozilla Calendar Project

Cornelius, Berend (Software engineer / Sun Microsystems)

Abstract: The Mozilla Calendar project is an Open-Source project that drives the development of the standalone application ?Sunbird? and its counterpart ?Lightning? that can be added as an extension to the popular email client ?Thunderbird?. In this presentation I'd like to talk about the capabilities of Sunbird and Lightning - also in comparison to competitive applications-, about the current status of the project and its future perspective. Being a perfect appendix to OpenOffice.org I want to present ideas how the two projects could be linked together more tightly in the future as calendaring is not offered by the office suite. But this presentation should also address developers or other people who are interested in getting involved in a comparatively manageable and somehow ?familial? Open-Source project that yet has found a worldwide broad distribution. Therefore I'd like to introduce the underlying technologies XUL, XBL, JavaScript and explain how the Mozilla community is organized and what is the best way to get started.

Biography: Born in 1966 in Heide/Germany I Studied "Mechanical engineering", where I also startedd programming. I am employed by Sun Microsystems since March 1999 and worked for the OpenOffice project for 8 years before I got involved in the Mozilla Calendar project

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Migration to OpenOffice in Commercial Enterprise

Mulya Bhakti, Indrayana ( / )

Abstract: In this presentation I would share our experience in migrating from MS Office to OpenOffice in my company. We Start it with IT Regulation, and then build an awareness to all of the employee. Trained them to work with the new environment. And implement it. With full commitment of the Board of Directors, we get a successful result.

Biography:

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OOo deployments by big companies and local governments

Hirano, Kazunari (OpenOffice.org Community Contributor Representaive Deputy / OpenOffice.org Japanese Native Language Project)

Abstract: OOo deployments by big companies and local governments, and perspective of OOo professional support services On May 12th Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd announced they will use OpenOffice.org company-wide.[1] On May 28th, Mayor Ichiro Kanke announced the city government will introduce OpenOffice.org into all its offices.[2] They bought Ashisuto Co's [3] support services such as training, FAQ and e-learning. They also build inhouse support tools such as an original installer, Help Desk, Intranet Web support pages. Good-Day Inc., a long-time OOo supporter, has a big client, NTT Group [5], who is planning massive OOo deployment and seeking sustainable and efficient OOo support services professional. Why did they adopt OpenOffice.org? What kind of support they want? What is sustainable and efficient support? My presentation will try to answer these questions. [1] http://openoffice.exblog.jp/7104488/ [2] http://openoffice.exblog.jp/7168127/ [3] http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/index.html [4] http://www.good-day.jp/en/index_html [5] http://www.ntt.co.jp/index_e.html

Biography: Live in Ichinoseki, Iwate, Japan 2007.02.13 OpenOffice.org Marketing Contact Japan and Japanese 2005.08.26 OpenOffice.org Community Contributor Representative Deputy 2004.09 Presentation at OpenOffice.org Conference in Berlin, German 1979-84 Vietnamese, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies 1959.10.16 Born in Sanuki-machi, Futtsu-shi, Chiba, Japan

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Symphony performance improvement best practices

Yuan Cheng, Lei Wang ( / IBM)

Abstract: We have been facing startup, document loading/saving performance challenges, which have great impact to user experiences. In this session, we would like to introduce what we have done to improve Symphony performance in above areas, e.g. asynchronous loading, saving performance improvement by saving modified content only and preload etc. We see the big performance improvement through the work above. Most of those techniques, solution or method could be applied to OpenOffice.org base application performance as well. We also will share our practices - performance benchmark design, and automated performance testing, tools and methodology used to analyze and identify Symphony performance problems.

Biography: Yuan Cheng is Symphony performance technical lead and Lei Wang is Symphony performance technical expert in the China Software Development Lab

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The complex world of Quality Assurance on OOo

Ziehm, Thorsten (Manager Quality Assurance / Member of the QA project / Sun Microsystems / QA project)

Abstract: What are the needs and the musts in the QA project and why the 'stupid' QA work is very important for the whole OOo project and for the product itself. Also I will present which QA metrics are used to give a Go/No-go for a release. Information about the QA processes and the collaboration between the Sun QA team and the QA community will be given.

Biography: I am the manager of Quality Assurance team for StarOffice/OpenOffice.org at Sun Microsystems. I started as tester for StarOffice in 1996. After a short time I was responsible to integrate VCL Testtool into general testing process and started with writing test scripts for all OOo application. The first team I lead was the Automated Testing team inside the Quality Assurance. Since 2002 I am the manager of QA team.

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QUASTe - Quality Assurance Statuspage

Delfs, Helge (QA Engineer / OOo Automation Team Lead / Sun Microsystems / QA Automation)

Abstract: QUASTe is collecting, validating and comparing all test results created by VCL-Testtool while testing OpenOffice.org builds and creates easy to read results pages. Everyone interested in quality of a specific build of OpenOffice.org has the ability to check the results of automated and of course manual tests. If one is familiar in running/writing automated tests you should create an account in QUASTe to administrate your tests or upload test results of your personal test runs of a specific build. See Web page (http://quaste.services.openoffice.org) for details

Biography: Working for Sun Microsystems GmbH as a QA Engineer in automation area which means software testing with utilization of a testtool since 1999. Before joining SUN I've been working also in QA but in the metalworking industry responsible for production control, final inspections and programming of 3D-Coordinate Measuring CNC-machines.

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Testing OpenOffice.org at Redflag 2000

Zhu Lihua (Testing Engineer / Beijing Redflag Chinese 2000 Software Co., Ltd.)

Abstract: This presentation introduces the QA at Redflag, mainly the people, their responsibilities and the processes they use for testing. It will both feature the achievements of the past and our plans for the future. As well, we will take a look at existing difficulties we have in joining the OOo QA and our ideas to resolve the problems. Last but not least, we also want to express our appreciation to all the people who helped us to join the OOo community so far and in the future.

Biography: I jioned RF2000 in July, 2007 and work in test department. Before this, I was a developer work with C++Builder, PHP. Also worked with some singlechips, both hardware designing and software development.

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You Don't Love Me Yet: Adventures into packaging OOo 3

Bergmann, Stephan (UDK project co-lead / Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

Abstract: Adventures into building and packaging have caused OpenOffice.org 3 to change substantially in shape (though not in user-visible functionality). The infamous Three Layer Office was borne, received by developers with mixed reactions. Change!? For better? For worse? For what reason at all, if the user does not notice it, anyway? I will try to recap how and why we got where we currently are, and how we can and should move into the future. I will talk about the disasters (so we can avoid them next time) as well as the things that really worked and helped bring us forward. Maybe that will allow some of you to reconsider your love-hate relationship with OOo 3. So that, ultimately, those adventures can be brought to a happy ending – for all of us.

Biography: Working on the beast for over a decade now, as a member of the StarOffice/OpenOffice.org development team at Sun Hamburg. And regularly enjoying presenting new findings at OOoCon.

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Distribution of OpenOffice.org

Andrae, Joost (StarOffice, OpenOffice.org Program Manager / QA Co-Lead / Sun Microsystems / OpenOffice.org QA project)

Abstract: The presentation will shed some light on the way how OpenOffice.org is distributed and what tools are used to release OpenOffice.org to the community by using the mirror network. Aspects of the release process in coordination with the QA project and QA teams of native language teams are shown. The following items will be presented: o Why using a distribution network? o Some numbers (platforms, languages, downloads, etc.) o What is a distribution network? o QUASTE o QATrack o mirror network + regular mirror network + extended mirror network + archive mirror network o Bouncer o Product Update Notification

Biography: - Born in May 1965 in Jever, Germany - Working for StarOffice/OpenOffice.org since 1995 - StarOffice/OpenOffice.org Program Manager at Sun Microsystems in Hamburg, Germany. - OpenOffice.org QA project Co-Lead - Responsible for uploads/releases of OpenOffice.org

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ODF@WWW - An ODF Wiki.

Ramme, Kay (Senior Technical Architect / Uno (UDK) Project Lead / Sun Microsystems)

Abstract: Demonstrate an ODF Wiki and show how this approach may be extended to enable advanced use cases such as collaboration and compound documents, extending ODF's reach to the server. See also: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/odf_www_an_odf_wiki

Biography: I am the lead of the Uno (UDK) project on OpenOffice.org. I started programming in 1980 on a CBM PET, continued to do that on Atari 8 + 32bits and finally arrived in the PC world. I got a masters degree in computer science from the University of Hamburg. I joined former StarDivision in 1997 and work for Sun Microsystems since StarDivisions acquisition in 1999.

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Woorknet - The OpenOffice Server

Mudjiarto, Arvino (Founder & President Director / Worxcode)

Abstract: OOo3 now has a server! People increasingly need to work connected. They need to get their document reviewed, annotated, shared, approved by people, peers and superiors with whom they are working with. Yet there's no server mechanism exist today which would enable people to do that quickly, easily and conveniently. As a result, people are still working semi off-line. They compose their document online using OpenOffice, then they process it across manually, or ? at best ? circulate it via email. Such approach doesn't provide the complete feature nor integrated ?working assembly? mechanism that would make tracking, managing, sharing, filing, measuring and digital tracing work that has been done quickly, easily nor conveniently. Through its ?digital workdesk? and unique ?work-processing? functionality, Woorknet ? the OpenOfficeServer -- try to provide such seamless working assembly mechanism, integrated seamlessly with OOo as the ?digital paper? front-end. Developed and enhance further together, this, we feel -- perhaps could be one of the major differentiator of OpenOffice.org in the future compared with what Microsoft can offer with their MS-Office offerings. This also could be the source of advancement whereby OpenOffice.org and its underlying ODF transform from being a "traditional" document word processor and spreadsheet, to become a true "digital paper" for social and business -- an integral and integrated part of new and future digital office system and work-processing systems that people will need to help them work-connected, around the globe.

Biography: Arvino Mudjiarto is 7 times asia pacific award winner for digital office system design, implementation and innovation. He is currently the founder of Worxcode, an internationally award winning automation design & software construction company, where together with his team, he is putting together web2.0 for business, integrate office-desktop system with the web, and make everything seamlessly interactive, mobile, tag-based, linked and connected.

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Integrating CMS /DMS into OpenOffice

Bohn, Michael E (Senior Consultant Office Migration / Sun Microsystems)

Abstract: The interest in OpenOffice.org and its file format, called Open Document Format (ODF), has been growing in the past few years. This has resulted in increased demand to integrate OpenOpen into DMS/CMS systems. As the growing number of DMS vendors offering a proprietary in interface to gain access to their underlying content repository the integration of them gets more complicated. The presentation is going to show how all these Systems could be integrated into OpenOffice by using a single extension. The Content Repository for Java technology API is used to establish the communication between OpenOffice and the DMS system. The presentation will demonstrate the Integration and the communication by using the "jackrabbit" project.

Biography: Michael Bohn is a Senior Consultant Office Migration at Sun Microsystems. In 1996 he joined Sun Microsystems, after he finished mechanical engineering and printing technologies. Since then he is deeply involved in customer projects responsible for helping the customer to integrate OpenOffice into their IT - environment. The last project where he has migrated 5000 seats of a German customer from Lotus Smart Suite to OpenOffice has been finish last year. At the moment he is involved in a OpenOffice migration pilot at the ministry of defence of Austria. Besides his work on customer projects he is eager to spread the knowledge about the OpenOffice.org and his programming abilities around the world in a lot of presentations and trainings session around the world. A few books have been enriched by his experiences with OpenOffice projects that he has gathered. He is one of the co-authors of the OpenOffice migration guide, was the technical editor of the CUE book "Special Edition Using StarOffice 6.0" and one of the co-author of the German Book "OpenOffice.org Basic".

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OpenOffice.org Extensions Repository - resumé after 1 year

Juergen Schmidt (Main Developer, API project lead, Extensions co-lead / Sun Microsystems, Inc)

Abstract: The presentation will reflect the extensions repository after 1 year. The session will highlight the most popular extensions, will present the current status, future plans etc. The presentation will also summarize the latest extension infra-structure features that can be used to integrate best in OpenOffice.org and that improve the overall usability of extensions like the new extensions manager UI.

Biography: Juergen Schmidt is working for Sun Microsystems in the StarOffice group for more then 11 years. He was deeply involved in the development of the UNO component model which is the foundation for the OpenOffice.org/StarOffice API. The OpenOffice.org community is one aspect of his daily work. He is involved in the OpenOffice.org project since the beginning, he is the project lead of the OpenOffice.org API project and the co-lead of the Extensions. His main goal is to spread the knowledge around the programmability features of OpenOffice.org around the world and to show that it is more than only an office productivity suite. Juergen Schmidt speaks frequently about the programmability features of OpenOffice.org. Some examples are the OpenOffice conferences, JAX 2003 (Germany), OOP 2004 in Munich (Germany) and JavaPolis 2006 in Antwerpen (Belgium), Jazoon 2007 in Zurich (Switzerland), JavaOne 2003, 2007 and 2008 in San Francisco (USA), FOSS.in 2007 in Bangalore (India), FOSDEM 2008 in Brussels (Belgium), Sun Tech Days in Hyderabad 2008 (India), Community One 2008 in San Francisco (USA) and LinuxTag 2008 in Berlin (Germany).

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The OpenOffice.org Scripting Framework: Adding a Scripting Language

Flatscher Rony G. (Professor / Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien)

Abstract: This presentation introduces the OpenOffice.org Java based scripting framework and how it allows to add a scripting language of your choice to OpenOffice.org. Using the open source scripting framework "Bean Scripting Framework (BSF)", version 2.4, from the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), it becomes possible to bridge any of the many BSF supported scripting languages with the OpenOffice.org scripting framework. In effect, the combination of both Java-based frameworks allows to employ additional scripting languages as macro languages for OpenOffice.org, like Groovy, Jython (Python in Java), Jacl (TcL in Java), JLog (Prolog in Java) and the like. This presentation will use the open source scripting language "Open Object Rexx (ooRexx)" as a proof of concept. Using ooRexx is interesting for different reasons, one being, that it is implemented in C++ yet allows to be used via Java. Hence, the audience will learn that practically any scripting language could be used for OpenOffice.org. There will be a few, easy to understand scripting examples given, which demonstrate how one becomes able to remote control all of OpenOffice.org from any scripting language that takes advantage of the OpenOffice.org scripting framework. The presentation concludes with a possible outlook to incorporate BSF 3.0 (currently in beta) to OpenOffice.org. BSF 3.0 is an open source implementation of the JSR-223 Java standard for the Java scripting framework as introduced with Java 6 (1.6) by Sun. Goal: the audience should be able to conceptually understand the OOo Java based scripting framework, the BSF 2.4 scripting framework and become able to assess and implement new scripting languages for OpenOffice.org, including of how easy it is to employ those scripting languages thereafter by exploiting the respective OOo APIs.

Biography: Rony G. Flatscher is senior professor of Business Informatics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (WU) and has been successfully developing the OpenOffice.org support for and the deployment of the scripting language ooRexx for end-user programming of OpenOffice.org.

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Filling Gaps With Extensions

Jopp, Christoph (Observer in the Extensions Project / freelance)

Abstract: Open Source brings us the possibility to join existing programs for our needs. The advantages of each can boost usability and work-flow. But do we really need to study the source code of large projects to fit the parts together in every case? The OpenOffice.org-API enables us to write gluing-code in form of extensions. This session will show an example how extensions help making a publishing framework like Apache Forrest becoming a little but powerful "Documentation Management System" with a GUI that is well known - OpenOffice.org. The example extension will be downloadable from the OpenOffice.org Extension Repository by the date of the OpenOffice.org Conference 2008. You can see the extension in action and have a look at the code - if you want.

Biography: I'm a freelance developer, author for computer magazines, system administrator. Working in these fields since about 10 years. Using OpenOffice.org from the very beginning. Developing OOo extensions for 4-5 years (f.e. the Annotation-Tool)

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Redesign of accelerator to support extensions

Wu Yan & Zhang Xiaofei (Software Engineer at Redflag 2000, Developer for the Framework Project in the OOo community / Beijing Redflag 2000 Software Co., Ltd.)

Abstract: The current accelerator configuration, which is XML based, cannot be extended by packages. In order to support extensions, we move the accelerator configuration to an XCS/XCU based configuration. Now an extension can define it's own set of accelerators.

Biography: Software Engineer from OpenSource Department of Beijing Redflag 2000 since 2006. Currently focus on Framework.

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Lotus Symphony extension model

Jin Hua, Chen (Staff Software Engineer / IBM)

Abstract: Lotus Symphony leverages OpenOffice.org technology and rich client platform form Lotus Expeditor, resulting a more flexible and extensible offering for extension and business integration. OpenOffice.org provides the capability to access and manipulate document content directly. Lotus Expeditor delivers the higher level programming interfaces for customizing the user interface (for example toolbars, menus, side shelves, status bars) and a plug-in framework to extend with other applications. More ever, lots of advanced features from Lotus Expeditor can be integrated for solution development, for example composite application, enterprise content management, account framework, etc.

Biography: Currently I am the Symphony programmability team lead. I have Worked on Lotus Symphony project in the past 4 years.

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NetBeans plug-in for OpenOffice.org - a look under the hood

Steffen Grund (co-lead of API project / Sun Microsystems GmbH)

Abstract: The OpenOffice.org plug-in for Netbenas has been around for a while now. The download numbers show that it is very popular and the feedback by users is huge. Unfortunately, the resonance regarding the actual project has been sparse, although it has been an open source project from the beginning on. I will give some insight on how the plug-in is constructed and what the challenges in making it were. A large part will be the changes that had to be done regarding NetBeans 6 on one side and OpenOffice 3 on the other. I will also give an outlook on what is planned in future versions ? and the possibilities a closer interlocking with NetBeans will offer.

Biography: Steffen Grund has been working at Sun Microsystems for 7 years, first as member of the QA development and now as member of the Programmability team. He is frequently speaking and tutoring about the OpenOffice.org API plug-in for NetBeans on conferences and co-lead of the OpenOffice.org API project.

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Seamless UI integration of extensions into OpenOffice.org

Driesner, Carsten (Software Engineer / Framework project lead / Sun Microsystems, Inc. / Framework)

Abstract: The presentation will give an overview on features provided by the framework project which can be used by developers to integrate their extension seamlessly into the OpenOffice.org user interface. The presentation is a guideline to understand the purpose of the features, possible use cases and provide examples. The following features will be presented: o Complex Toolbar Controller o Popup Menu Controller o Context Menu Interceptor o Merging of menu and toolbar items o Custom images for menu and toolbar items o Keyboard shortcuts

Biography: Software Engineer of Sun Microsystems, Inc. He works on StarOffice/OpenOffice.org since 2000. Starting from the end of 2006 he is the lead of the framework project.

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Creating/Devising Specific OpenOffice.org Support for Dynamic Scripting Languages

Flatscher Rony G. (Professor / Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien )

Abstract: Adding a new dynamic scripting language to OpenOffice.org is possible by exploiting the Java based OpenOffice.org scripting framework. However, programming and remote-controlling OpenOffice.org with the "Unified Network Objects (UNO)" framework can be quite challenging. As a result, it is quite difficult to teach/train end-user programmers to automate (remote-control) the different OpenOffice.org document types. Therefore, OpenOffice.org dynamic scripting languages like OOo Basic or Python provide support for easing programming of OOo, e.g. by implicitly carrying out queryInterface()-calls and as such alleviating the (end-user) programmer from this sometimes pesky task. Introducing new dynamic scripting languages to OOo will most likely challenge the implementer for creating an appropriate scripting language support specifically for OpenOffice.org. This presentation will use the "Open Object Rexx (ooRexx)" dynamic scripting language as an example and discusses the many fold possibilities of creating support for OOo. As the author of such an OOo supporting infrastructure who also has been gaining experiences with end-user type of programmers (students at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration) for more than two years by now, the most important pros and cons of such a specific support will be talked and discussed about. Goal: the audience will learn the most important areas of OpenOffice.org programming for which specific support could and should be created for new scripting languages. However, it also should become aware of thinking about trade-offs between creating too much and too few such support.

Biography: Rony G. Flatscher is senior professor of Business Informatics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (WU) and has been successfully developing the OpenOffice.org support for and the deployment of the scripting language ooRexx for end-user programming of OpenOffice.org.

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The present and future of Pootle

Wynand Winterbach (Software Developer / Translate.org.za)

Abstract: The Translate Toolkit and Pootle are powerful tools for translation and translation management. The tools are widely used in the open source world and notably by OpenOffice.org. We discuss new language specific quality checks and demonstrate improvements specific to OpenOffice.org. In this session, we also discuss current roadmaps, learn about tool development, and listen to feedback from users and localizers. This is your chance to learn about new features and to influence the future of Pootle.

Biography: Wynand Winterbach is a software developer at the non-profit organization Translate.org.za which develops and promotes the Translate Toolkit and Pootle.

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Can XLIFF facilitate the process of localizing OpenOffice?

SOLA, Javier (President of the WordForge Foundation / Coordinator of the Khmer Sofware Initiative / WordForge Foundation)

Abstract: OpenOffice is normally localized using PO format files. The amount of process or meta information that is possible to code into this files is quite restricted. XLIFF files are designed to include most of the information needed to facilitate and improve computer assisted localization. In particular, the two major advantages of XLIFF files are 1) that it is possible to store in them specific glossary and translation memory (TM) information that will be useful for the translator to translate the messages in that file, 2) that it is possible to follow the localization workflow, so that reviewers and those who need to approve the translations know exactly the status of each message (if it was reviewed after its translation or not, etc.) largely reducing the amount of work that they have to do. Localization editors that use all the information stored in XLIFF files can help provide homogeneous translations produced by less experienced translators (glossary control), and workflow management, without having to install and maintain glossaries and TM for each translator, but just sending to them self-contained XLIFF files that can be processed by an XLIFF localization editor. These editors - with differentiated interfaces for translating, reviewing and approving messages - can help manage and simplify the localization workflow, and reduce the amount of work necessary for the localization process.

Biography: Javier Solá leads the Cambodian FOSS localization effort, which has taken OpenOffice to become the mandatory software to be used in all Cambodian schools. He is also the president of the WordForge Foundation, which funds localization projects in Cambodia and Bangladesh, and works on localization tools, trying to produce tools that will strongly facilitate the localization of FOSS software.

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Complex Text Layout Issues with examples from Myanmar

Stribley, Keith (Developer on graphite and my.openoffice.org / ThanLwinSoft.org)

Abstract: Many languages require complex font support for correct rendering and non-space based line breaking. The presentation will demonstrate Graphite complex fonts working in OpenOffice, including basic support for Graphite's font features and ideas for how features could be included into the User Interface and the OpenDocument format. The publication of Unicode 5.1 in April 2008 opened the way for Burmese and most of the other languages in Myanmar to be encoded in Unicode for the first time. The examples will show how many of these languages require reordering and context specific glyph substitutions. Font features allow language specific tailoring of glyphs for the same code sequences within a single font. Line breaking will also be discussed, since neither space nor syllable based solutions give a good results in Burmese.

Biography: Physics degree from Cambridge. 5 years working in embedded software developement Developing localized Unicode software for Burmese language since 2004 including working on Graphite font integration project and Myanmar OpenOffice.

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BrOffice.org Zine - YOUR OpenOffice.org fanzine around the world

Ferreira Filho, Claudio (Presindente / Lead of NLP pt-BR / BrOffice.org / OpenOffice.org NLP pt-BR)

Abstract: BrOffice.org Zine is an old dream of the Brazilian community that, following the same line of other free software user groups in Brazil, has the intention to provide high quality material, with tutorials, use tips and news about OpenOffice.org on Brazil and around the world, besides the news about ODF. This work presents the success case of our fanzine, explaining steps we took while developing the project, like the study made about the tools to be used, the visual communication, search and content classification part of the work and the team management. As a basis for the BrOffice.org Zine's work there is a clipping, research and content classification process to the BrOffice.org web portal, that is responsible to collect informations about BrOffice.org, OpenOffice.org and ODF on several languages like Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, English, Spanish and galician. Beyond the work of developing the BrOffice.org Zine in Brazilian Portuguese, the fanzine was used as an anchor to bring together different communities like Galician and Spanish communities, which resulted in the creation of BrOffice.org Zine - Galicia and from starting point, became the idea of expanding the fanzine to other languages like French and German. After the project was restructured, new perspectives appeared. One of them was the partnership with institutions that are already using BrOffice.org to publish advertisements and articles, always related to BrOffice.org and ODF, generating financial sustainability to the Brazilian community and the other one is the idea to create a high quality graphical material to help in the process of support and promote Br/OpenOffice.org and ODF around the world.

Biography: Gratuate in Information System, work with IT since 1988, and with Linux since 1994. In opensource world, initiated in 2001 with localization of OpenOffice.org for brazilian portuguese, and created the brazilian communities of Mozilla and PostgreSQL. Today, living in Galicia - Spain, working in Tegnix ITC, a specialized company in free software migration projects and still participates in the brazilian and galician open-source projects and initiative.

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Proposal: Regional Groups

Suarez-Potts, Louis (Community Manager / Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

Abstract: I propose the formal creation of regional groups able to undertake and conduct marketing, user-group events, and developer and other contributor meetings. These groups would operate like Linux User Groups and tie into the existing MarCon network as well as the Native Language Confederation. The difference would be that these groups would not be based on language but region. Thus, as has already been discussed on the dev@native-lang list as well as the project_leads list, an Indian Regional group would coordinate development as well as events regardless of language. In the case of India, this is an especially important point, as there are 22 official languages. But India is not the only locale for such groups, and I propose setting up African, Scandinavian, Latin American, and Native North and Central American groups as a start. Similar groups in Europe, where such already exist in Spain, Germany, France, is welcomed. The focus, again, would encompass both marketing and developmental efforts. The obvious drawback of any such group would be coordinating their activity with the Web project. At present, we already see such difficulties arising from the Brazilian group BrOffice, and there are no doubt other instances. But by formalizing the idea, I anticipate we would be able to better address precisely this and other, related, problems. Right now, little is actually done beyond personal emails, and each of those takes time. How would these groups be established and who would lead them? These and other points will be discussed in the presentation.

Biography: Louis Suárez-Potts is the longtime Community Manager and Chair of the Community Council for OpenOffice.org; he joined Sun Microsystems in 2007 and has led the OpenOffice.org community since 2000. The lead and co-lead of several projects and the primary spokesperson and representative of OpenOffice.org, Suárez-Potts also represents the project regarding OpenDocument format (ODF) matters, and is on the OASIS ODF Adoption Technical Committee and is a member of the ODF Alliance. He speaks frequently on the ODF, OpenOffice.org, education and open source, and community development throughout the world. Suárez-Potts is currently working on several articles regarding open source development and education. He lives in Toronto and received his PhD from U.C. Berkeley.

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IBM Lotus Symphony: Worldwide IBM internal deployment Best Practices

John Walicki (IBM Open Client Architect / IBM Lotus Symphony deployment)

Abstract: Learn how IBM IT designed and initiated its worldwide deployment of Lotus Symphony. IBM's document interchange policy is based on ODF, with Lotus Symphony becoming the preferred personal productivity suite for most employees. This talk will detail the methodology and deployment experiences of IBM's large scale deployment of Lotus Symphony. Open Document Format extends our Open Computing strategy which is centred on the value of open standards, open source software and open architectures.

Biography: John Walicki is part of the IBM Senior Technical Staff and architect for the Open Client Initiative. He leads the internal enterprise integration of Linux clients within IBM. He also leads the open standards based Browser Independence deployment of Firefox within IBM and the Document Interchange strategy to switch IBM to Open Document Format based productivity editors. John is a member of the IBM CIO Office Total Workplace Experience organization. His global development and integration teams are working to lower the costs of deployment of an enterprise enabled Linux Client. John is an active leader in the Linux desktop community where he represents IBM on The Linux Foundation's Desktop Linux Workgroup and as a member of the Gnome Advisory Board. John previously was a manager in the Watson Information Services department at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center where he spent 16 years supporting the IBM Research user community.

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A Vision for the Post-OOo 3.0 Times

Shaoliang Yang (Director of Product Dept. / Beijing Redflag2000 Software Co., Ltd)

Abstract: OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be a remarkable milestone after long-term development of OpenOffice.org. However, which direction will be good for OpenOffice.org to go after that? One option for such consideration would possibly be: Lightweight, Specialized, Diversified and Individualized. Lightweight accounts for the isolation among modules, more logical classifications of fundamental and extended functions,and separation between system's running core and interface; Specialization encourages the research of deeper exploitation of each module for its corresponding application field and intensifOpenOffice.org's value in the data processing capacity for structured semi-structured data. Diversification stands for the grand support for multiple hardware platforms, various document format standards and additionally, some specific data processing standards, XBML, for instance. Individualization favors users to be dominant to choose any function sets, usage pattern and even differentof OpenOffice.org at their will.

Biography: Director of Product Dept. of Beijing Redflag2000 Software Co., Ltd, embarking on the research of OpenOffice.org since year 2001 and currently being responsible for the product planning and architecture design of RedOffice.

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ESC achievements since Barcelona

Fuhrmann, Nils ( / )

Abstract: Since OOoCon 2007 in Barcelona, the Engineering Steering Committee held several face to face meetings to discuss and address issues which hindered contributes within their work on OOo. Focus of the ESC were especially infrastructure issues, such as version control, process issues and build infrastructure. Beside the charter of the ESC, a presentation will give a overview about the different items on the ESC dashboard and will reflect the current status as well as the achievements of the ESC over the last year. Afterwards, there will be the chance for open discussion with the ESC members.

Biography:

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