Any scripting support on Linux?

[biterror]

I have been using Applixware for a long time and use its scripting language to retrieve data from spreadsheets and create certain text documents automatically and to initialize new spreadsheets etc. Does SoftMaker have any support for scripting on Linux? I don't need BasicMaker specifically, I could use python or perl - but is this supported?

Thanks.

[sven-l]

There is no support for scripting on Linux for SoftMaker Office.

[biterror]

Okay, thanks for the quick reply. Have to keep using Applixware, then.

[Michael Uplawski]

See also: “Macro capability?”

The Ruby gem “Roo” can read and work with PMD files, as well as ODS, XLS and XLSX. PMDX files, although they do not conform in all details with the Microsoft OOXML standard are readable, too! (Edit, 29/08 2016)

Anyway, with the other file-formats being supported by SoftMaker Office as well as the Roo gem, spreadsheet files can be manipulated in ruby-programs. That is pretty much all the scripting support that I need, personally . Just use your favorite text-editor and code along... Write-support is currently only available for Google Spreadsheets, but as PlanMaker imports CSV-files and in the process discerns characters from numbers, writing to CSV is a simple work-around. (Edit 30/08/2016)

Screen shot: my spreadsheet viewer application for the terminal. Mime-Types determine the Roo-instance to be used, either ODS, XLS or XLSX. As PMD is a “Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian“, it is handled like an xls file, and here it is:

(I could also just paste the table here, as it is pure text).

Edit: Obsolete text removed. See at the end of this discussion on www.linuxquestion.org how the viewer is used to display spreadsheet attachments received with the Mutt email-client.

[Michael Uplawski]

There is no support for scripting on Linux for SoftMaker Office.

You can put that differently: “There is no support for scripting SoftMaker Office in SoftMaker Office”. Linux is just fine...

[biterror]

Hi,

I just purchased Softmaker 2016 Professional for linux. Are there any plans for any kind of scripting support in the linux version of Softmaker? I need to fetch information from the spreadsheet cells - it wouldn't be that hard to implement a few commands for doing this and adding, say, a unix domain socket for communicating with the minimal command parser.

Please?

[Michael Uplawski]

I need to fetch information from the spreadsheet cells

This is possible in different ways. What kind of complication would the export to CSV mean to you and if there is none, what could you use to extract data from a CSV file? Which programming/scripting language would you deploy to make use of a SoftMaker-provided programming interface?

It all depends on your demands and capabilities. See above.

Cheerio,

Michael

[biterror]

Well, maybe I could extract the data from a csv file using perl or python. It just feels kind of stupid - my current spreadsheet has a scripting language and I can simply click a cell in the spreadsheet to execute a script and collect the data I need. Feels like a big leap back in history.. actually, I think all spreadsheets I have ever used have had scripting support.

[Michael Uplawski]

Feels like a big leap back in history.. actually, I think all spreadsheets I have ever used have had scripting support.

Though some of them had to make a big leap back in history to allow scripting support. I do not know, what a good scripting engine for SoftMaker Office could look like, because I know less than nothing about their code or project management. Just imitating the LibreOffice example could have a devastating effect. There are more important tasks waiting for a small team, “longstanding bugs” (see there) to be handled.

Maybe the simplest way to get script support would be by means of an old-fashioned file-interface (export -> modify -> import). When these interfaces where common, XML had not been popular or inexistent (I am not old enough to know). So, nowadays, a little leap back in history could maybe facilitate recurring tasks, which is just one kind of PROGRESS!

[Michael Uplawski]

Conclusion: a subset of the XML-code used by SoftMaker Office, as derived from OOXML or OpenDocument, can be used to create Documents which are readable by SoftMaker Office. This comprises the file-formats with a terminal 'X', ODT and ODS. I know nothing about presentations but they should be fine, too.

As regards modification of existing documents, you must lower your expectations. The best approach is to base everything on some initial situation, e.g. the original files, that a new document is based on and rather re-generate a newer version of the same document from this original source... Technically, though, nothing prevents you from opening any such document and manipulate the XML-code therein. But use the tools that are meant for this kind of work, as, once saved from any office-suite, the xml-code has seized to be “yours”.

There is a truth or paradigm that I have once learned to accept blindly, after some very bad experience: Generated code is definite.
All you can do with it is: Throw it away and re-generate anew when parameters change.

If I look at the file-interface as a means to simplify access to the file-content, it does probably mean inventing a subset of the XML in use by the SoftMaker Office-Suite.

Abiword produces simpler docx files. I will not dig into this further, but they are a fine base for Document-Templates.
Edit (June 2019): The same facilitation is given, when you modify existing Abiword (*.abw) files. As the code is simpler, addressing tags and attributes is more straightforward than with the other XML-based office-files. The abw-format is a single, uncompressed XML-file. You can open it straight away in a text-editor.

Just save them as OOXML (docx) or OpenDocument (ODT) afterwards and voilà !
Libreoffice opens abw-files without hassle. You are free!