OpenOffice.org Application Program Interface

The OpenOffice.org API is based on the OpenOffice.org component technology UNO and consists of a wide range of interfaces defined in a CORBA-like IDL. While the component technology UNO determines how the components or applications communicate with each other, the OpenOffice.org API defines the interface for accessing office functionality from different programming languages. The OpenOffice API reference manual is available from http://api.openoffice.org/.

The API has to be seen, more as an independent specification, than being dependent on a preexisting implementation. Therefore, it is our goal to keep all component APIs in this project, and to keep all implementation code out of this project.

Furthermore, this API is version independent, scalable, durable, and reusable. And because it is implemented using the OpenOffice.org component technology, UNO, it is programming language independent as well.

Its version independence and durability results from the fact that we limit changes to the API. You can add interfaces, services, and so on to the OpenOffice.org API. However, other changes are rather limited, as follows:

Its scalability and reusability results from our design pattern, to approach an orthogonal architecture rather than having specialized interfaces for certain requirements. For example, each interface only covers exactly one aspect of the behavior of an object.


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