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BASIC Guide

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• The Language of OpenOffice.org Basic

• Overview of a Basic Program
• Working With Variables
• Strings
• Numbers
• Boolean Values
• Date and Time
• Arrays
• Scope and Life Span of Variables
• Constants
• Operators
• Branching
• Loops
• Procedures and Functions
• Error Handling
• Other Instructions

• Runtime Library

• Conversion Functions
• Strings
• Date and Time
• Files and Directories
• Message and Input Boxes
• Other Functions

• Introduction to the API

• Universal Network Objects (UNO)
• Properties and Methods
• Modules, Services and Interfaces
• Tools for Working with UNO
• Overview of Central Interfaces

• Working with Documents

• The StarDesktop
• Styles and Templates

• Text Documents

• The Structure of Text Documents
• Editing Text Documents
• More than Just Text

• Spreadsheet Documents

• The Structure of Spreadsheets
  • Rows and Columns
  • Cells and Ranges
  • Formatting Spreadsheet Documents
• Editing Spreadsheet Documents

• Drawings and Presentations

• The Structure of Drawings
• Editing Drawing Objects
• Presentations

• Charts (Diagrams)

• Using Charts in Spreadsheets
• The Structure of Charts
• Chart Types

• Databases

• SQL: a Query Language
• Types of Database Access
• Data Sources
• Database Access

• Dialogs

• Working With Dialogs
• Properties
• Events
• Dialog Control Elements

• Forms

• Working With Forms
• Control Element Forms
• Database Forms

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OpenOffice.org provides hundreds of services. To provide an overview of these services, they have been combined into modules. The modules are of no other functional importance for OpenOffice.org Basic programmers. When specifying a service name, it is only the module name which is of any importance because this must be also listed in the name. The complete name of a service consists of the com.sun.star expression, which specifies that it is a OpenOffice.org service, followed by the module name, such as frame, and finally the actual service name, such as Desktop. The complete name in the named example would be:

com.sun.star.frame.Desktop

In addition to the module and service terms, UNO introduces the term 'interface'. While this term may be familiar to Java programmers, it is not used in Basic.

An interface combines several methods. In the strictest sense of the word, a service in UNO does not support methods, but rather interfaces, which in turn provide different methods. In other words, the methods are assigned (as combinations) to the service in interfaces. This detail may be of interest in particular to Java- or C++ programmers, since in these languages, the interface is needed to request a method. In OpenOffice.org Basic, this is irrelevant. Here, the methods are called directly by means of the relevant object.

For an understanding of the API, it is, however, useful to have the assignment of methods to various interfaces handy, since many interfaces are used in the different services. If you are familiar with an interface, then you can transfer your knowledge from one service to another.

Some central interfaces are used so frequently, triggered by different services, that they are shown again at the end of this chapter.

Content on this page is licensed under the Public Documentation License (PDL).