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OpenOffice.org To-Do List

We are glad that you found the To-Do list for the OpenOffice.org project.
Please note that we have moved the content of this page to the To-Do List in our Wiki.

It is good to see that you would like to contribute code to OpenOffice.org. Below you'll find a To-Do list containing mixture of areas in need of your help. Note: For an up-to-date version, see our wiki.

User Interface (UI)
URL: http://ui.openoffice.org
Plan and conduct usability studies
Requirements
  • HCI knowledge
  • statistical skills
OpenOffice.org Benefits
  • Meaningful suggestions for usability improvements, potential for new student projects (see also http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is271/f01/projects/WordStar/ and http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is271/f01/projects/StarCalc/)
Contact
  • dev@ui.openoffice.org
  • Matthias.Mueller-Prove at sun.com
Lingucomponent
URL: http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org
Improve and create dictionaries
Summary/Comments
The are several languages which don't have a thesaurus
yet. Also, the existing spell dictionaries, hyphenation dictionaries, and
thesauri need to be improved.
Contact
  • dev@lingucomponent.openoffice.org
Clean up the hyphenation code
Summary/Comments
and create a standalone version of "patgen" that can generate hyphenation patterns
Contact
  • dev@lingucomponent.openoffice.org
Porting
has been moved to http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To_Do
Universal Content Broker
URL: http://ucb.openoffice.org/
Design and implement a UCB Resource Locking API
Requirements
  • Software Design
  • C++ Programming
  • Ability (to learn) to integrate abstract concepts (UCB, WebDAV).
OpenOffice.org Benefits
  • Close significant gap in functionality
  • Potential field for further projects (e.g. integrate File Locking).
Contact
  • dev@ucb.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Sommerfeld at sun.com
Finalize ODMA Content Provider into production quality
Requirements
  • C++ programming
  • Ability (to learn) to integrate abstract concepts (UCB, ODMA).
Student Benefits
  • Real life application of skills.
OpenOffice.org Benefits
  • Production quality access to Document Management Functionality.
Contact
  • dev@ucb.openoffice.org
  • Andreas.Bille at sun.com
Graphic System Layer (GSL)
URL: http://gsl.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: EPS Import
Summary/Comments
The current EPS import relies on a replacement bitmap on any device but a PostScript printer. This is barely ok for screen, however for PDF or SVG export this is largely insufficient. Basing a solution on GhostScript for rendering on demand in a suitable resolution would improve the situation dramatically. GhostScript might even allow for an own backend that would give more control over the file (maybe converting PS to metafile). This would extend the EPS import to generic PostScript import (or even basic PDF import). Requests for this feature pop up since years on the OpenOffice.org mailing lists.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: PDF Enhancements
Summary/Comments
Even OpenOffice 2.0 will still not be using the full PDF feature set. Features like encryption, or signing are still pending.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: Gnome Integration
Summary/Comments
Gnome 2.6 provides system dialogs for "file open", "print ..." and the like. Based on the system plugin mechanism of OpenOffice.org 2.0 we could start using them for the sake of better system integration.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: Layout Manager Widget
Summary/Comments
Currently all dialogs a designed based on pixel design. Typically this gives good result when designing for a single language having a static dialog size. It is awkward in a multi language scenario since text placement is static and does not adapt to the actual length of the string.  It is even worse when it comes to resizable dialogs or windows. All modern Widget set solve this problem by computing placement on the fly using a layout manager. This feature eases dialog design. OpenOffice.org is lacking any competitive feature.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: Support for Unicode 4.0
Summary/Comments
OpenOffice.org does not support characters out of the basic plane (i.e. characters out of the surrogate area) since string handling is often done in an uncontrolled way using character arrays. To get OpenOffice.org into shape as this is concerned Strings have to be encapsulated completely. This opportunity shall be used to get rid of the String-class zoo.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: OpenOffice.org GUI builder
Summary/Comments
Ease the creation of new OpenOffice.org UI. This shall enable for example user experience to build dialogs / UI exactly the way they like. As well it should relieve the UI team from being a bottleneck by getting UI done more quickly. Probably done best together with "Layout Manager Widget".
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: VCL Unit tests
Summary/Comments
Avoid regression early by providing additional unit tests for VCL
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: VCL Interface improvements
Summary/Comments
Avoid tight coupling with huge number of modules that depend on VCL. This allows for faster and more robust changes of the VCL implementation details, prevents changes from being incompatible, requiring complete rebuilds of OpenOffice.org.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: VCL font configuration improvements
Summary/Comments
Understanding and changing the OpenOffice font configuration is often requested by people working on porting or localized builds. The current font configuration scheme is lacking flexibility in this regard.
Contact
  • dev@gsl.openoffice.org
  • Philipp.Lohmann at sun.com
Tools
URL: http://tools.openoffice.org/
has been moved to http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To_Do
Installation
URL: http://installation.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: RPM Patching mechanism
Summary/Comments
RPMs do not allow for patching but only for the replacement of a whole package. This is suitable as long as the package is small or bandwidth is not an issue. OpenOffice will consist of a set of relatively large packages. To ease patching and upgrading it would be good to provide only the files that actually need to be exchanged. This could be solved by providing a patching mechanism on top of RPM. However this feature would be quite experimental.
Contact
  • dev@installation.openoffice.org
  • Ingo.Schmidt at sun.com
Writer (sw)
URL: http://sw.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org Writer: Enhanced Forms
Summary/Comments
Completion of the StarOffice 8 implementation. We want to support the complete xForms standard.
Contact
  • dev@sw.openoffice.org
  • Andreas.Martens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Writer: SmartTags
Summary/Comments
We need a competitive feature like smart tags from MS. As examples: If StarOffice has automatically corrected the input of the user or automatically changed the formatting there should be inserted a smart tag. This allows the user to undo the autocorrecting or to modify it or to disable this autocorrecting feature. If a user has inserted text via clipboard he may change the formatting of this inserted text afterwards with an other occurring smart tag.
Contact
  • dev@sw.openoffice.org
  • Andreas.Martens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Writer: Improvement of field handling
Summary/Comments
We have to identify and solve problems during field im- and export. Here are two examples for field enhancement which is needed in the next version. Cross references to headings or paragraphs of numberings in OpenOffice.org 1.1 and below, could only be created manually in separate steps. Cross references to headings and numberings should be set directly by selecting them from a list of all headings and numbered items of the current document and insert the reference in a single step. This is a usability improvement of this frequently used functionality. The behavior of the "Chapter" field in headers and footer needed to be improved to meet user's expectations. It should be replaced by a new field “Styles” that improves compatibility and interoperability with MS-Word.
Contact
  • dev@sw.openoffice.org
  • Andreas.Martens at sun.com
Bibliography
URL: http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/
OpenOffice.org Writer: Bibliography
Summary/Comments
Many institutions require their documents to conform to a specific Style Convention, which covers aspects of document format, including the styles of bibliographic tables and citations. [Citation: a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage.] There are a number of Style Conventions: these include MLA, ASA, PSA, Harvard, Chicago. These different styles differ in the way in which they present citations and references for different types of source documents, such as books, articles, journals, collections etc. If a document has been written with one Style Convention it is a laborious task to convert all these references to another style. The ideal would be a fully automated method of conversion. Most word processor users who require good bibliographic support purchase commercial packages such as Endnote and Reference Manager. The products have good integration with Microsoft office. OpenOffice will need to provide similar bibliographic support if it is to gain acceptance amongst academic and educational users and institutions.
Contact
  • dev@bibliographic.openoffice.org
  • Andreas.Martens at sun.com
Base (dba)
URL: http://dba.openoffice.org
Extended Task List for the Database Access Project
Spreadsheet (sc)
URL: http://sc.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org Calc: Creating a solver component
Summary/Comments
A solver component modifies a range of input cells within a spreadsheet with the approach to track the results of this input changes. Goal of this process is to find an optimal set of input values to satisfy given constraints. An UI is to be created to set the input cells and the input constraints.
Contact
  • dev@sc.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Calc: Statistical data analysis tools
Summary/Comments
A set of data analysis tools is to be created, to support the selection of input and output cells as well as the appropriate parameters in dialogs. After the analysis process, the results should be transferred to output cells. Access to cells should be handled via OpenOffice API.
Contact
  • dev@sc.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Calc: Validation of spreadsheet functions
Summary/Comments
All integrated functions in OpenOffice Calc need to be validated against the corresponding functions in competitive products
Contact
  • dev@sc.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Calc: CSV import enhancements
Summary/Comments
CSV is a Comma Separated Value file format that can be already read by OpenOffice Calc but still needs some enhancements and improvements.
Contact
  • dev@sc.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Calc: Accessibility support
Summary/Comments
We're just creating a new Chart module that has been completely rewritten from scratch. Similar to the old Chart module, this new module needs support for assistive technologies (Accessibility support). There already exists a complete OpenOffice API for Accessibility support that needs to be implemented for the new module. Implementation for the old module can be taken as an example for the new implementation.
Contact
  • dev@sc.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
Graphics
URL: http://graphics.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org Impress: Enhancing an existing FLASH export filter
Summary/Comments
FLASH is a stream based vector format, that is capable of handling animations. The format itself was developed by Macromedia and can be used for free. We currently have an export filter available to create FLASH files out of Impress animations. This filter needs some enhancements in the slide transition and sound support areas as well as some additional effects support.
Contact
  • dev@graphics.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
OpenOffice.org Impress: Creating a new OrgChart component
Summary/Comments
A tool is to be designed and implemented that helps the user to easily create OrgCharts. It would be possible to write an external component e.g. in Java to layout the org chart or to fill in the appropriate values and to finally create the necessary elements via API in OpenOffice
Contact
  • dev@graphics.openoffice.org
  • Kai.Ahrens at sun.com
Framework
URL: http://framework.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org Platform Technology: Multi-language scripting IDE
Summary/Comments
Provide a generic IDE that enables to plugin scripting languages to give a unified l&f for all scripting languages.
Contact
  • dev@framework.openoffice.org
  • Carsten.Driesner at sun.com
 
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