OpenOffice.org BASIC Guide.pdf - OpenOffice.org wiki

The StarDesktop 77
' supplies (under Windows) c:\doc\test.odt
The example converts a local file name into a URL and displays it in a message box. It then
converts a URL into a local file name and also displays this.
The Internet Standard RFC 1738, upon which this is based, permits use of the 0-9, a-z, and
A-Z characters. All other characters are inserted as escape coding in the URLs. To do this,
they are converted into their hexadecimal value in the ISO 8859-1 (ISO-Latin) set of
characters and are preceded by a percent sign. A space in a local file name therefore, for
example, becomes a %20 in the URL.
XML File Format
OpenOffice.org documents are based on the XML file format. XML-based files can be
opened and edited with other programs.
Compression of Files
Since XML is based on standard text files, the resultant files are usually very large.
OpenOffice.org therefore compresses the files and saves them as a ZIP file. By means of a
storeAsURL method option, the user can save the original XML files directly. See
storeAsURL Method Options, below.
Creating, Opening and Importing Documents
Documents are opened, imported and created using the method
StarDesktop.loadComponentFromURL(URL, Frame, SearchFlags,
FileProperties)
The first parameter of loadComponentFromURL specifies the URL of the associated file.
As the second parameter, loadComponentFromURL expects a name for the frame object of
the window that OpenOffice.org creates internally for its administration. The predefined
_blank name is usually specified here, and this ensures that OpenOffice.org creates a new
window. Alternatively, _hidden can also be specified, and this ensures that the
corresponding document is loaded but remains invisible.
Using these parameters, the user can open a OpenOffice.org document, since place holders
(dummy values) can be assigned to the last two parameters:
Dim Doc As Object
Dim Url As String
Dim Dummy() 'An (empty) array of PropertyValues
Url = "file:///C:/test.odt"
Doc = StarDesktop.loadComponentFromURL(Url, "_blank", 0, Dummy)