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2002-02-18 11:12:48 -05:00
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<td valign="top" align="left"><a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/index.html"><img hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" src="images/jakarta-logo.gif"></a></td><td width="100%" valign="top" align="left" bgcolor="#ffffff"><img hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="right" src="images/header.gif"></td>
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<td colspan="2" bgcolor="#525d76"><span class="c1"><a class="black" href="http://www.apache.org/">www.apache.org ></a><a class="black" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/">jakarta.apache.org ></a><a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/" class="black">jakarta.apache.org/poi</a></span></td>
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</tr>
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2002-02-18 11:12:48 -05:00
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<td width="1%">
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<br>
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</td><td nowrap="1" valign="top" width="14%">
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<hr>
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<span class="s1">About</span>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="index.html">Index</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="historyandfuture.html">History</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="historyandfuture.html">Future</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=32701">Download</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="plan/POI10Vision.html">1.0 Vision</a>
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<a class="s1" href="plan/POI20Vision.html">2.0 Vision</a>
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<a class="s1" href="who.html">Who we are</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="changes.html">Changes</a>
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<hr>
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<span class="s1">Sub-Projects</span>
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<a class="s1" href="overview.html">Overview</a>
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<a class="s1" href="poifs/index.html">POIFS</a>
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<a class="s1" href="hssf/index.html">HSSF</a>
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<a class="s1" href="hdf/index.html">HDF</a>
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<a class="s1" href="hpsf/index.html">HPSF</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="utils/index.html">POI-Utils</a>
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<br>
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<hr>
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<span class="s1">References</span>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="inthenews.html">In The News</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="livesites.html">Live Sites</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="http://sc.openoffice.org/excelfileformat.pdf">XLS spec [PDF]</a>
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<a class="s1" href="http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/">Apache Cocoon</a>
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<a class="s1" href="resolutions/index.html">Resolutions</a>
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<br>
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<hr>
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<span class="s1">Get Involved</span>
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<a class="s1" href="contrib.html">Contributing</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?product=POI">Bug Database</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/cvsindex.html">CVS</a>
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<br>
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<a class="s1" href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/mail.html">Mail Lists</a>
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</td><td align="left" valign="top" width="*"><font size="-2" color="#000000">
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2002-02-18 11:12:48 -05:00
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<p>
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<a href="mailto:"></a>
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</p>
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</font>
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<td bgcolor="#525D76"><font color="#ffffff" size="+1"><font face="Arial,sans-serif"><b>Brief Project History</b></font></font></td>
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<br>
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<p align="justify">The POI project was dreamed up back around April 2001, when
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Andy Oliver landed a short term contract to do Java-based
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reporting to Excel. He'd done this project a few times before
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and knew right where to look for the tools he needed.
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Ironically, the API he used to use had skyrocketed from around
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$300 ($US) to around $10K ($US). He figured it would take two
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people around six months to write an Excel port so he
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recommended the client fork out the $10K.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">Around June 2001, Andy started thinking how great it would
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be to have an open source Java tool to do this and, while he
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had some spare time, he started on the project and learned
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about OLE 2 Compound Document Format. After hitting some real
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stumpers he realized he'd need help. He posted a message to
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his local Java User's Group (JUG) and asked if anyone else
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would be interested. He lucked out and the most talented Java
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programmer he'd ever met, Marc Johnson, joined the project. He
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ran rings around Andy at porting OLE 2 CDF and rewrote his
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skeletal code into a more sophisticated library. It took Marc
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a few iterations to get something they were happy with.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">While Marc worked on that, Andy ported XLS to Java, based
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on Marc's library. Several users wrote in asking to read XLS
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(not just write as had originally been planned) and one user
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had special requests for a different use for POIFS. Before
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long, the project scope had tripled. POI 1.0 was released a
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month later than planned, but with far more features. Marc
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quickly wrote the serializer framework and HSSF Serializer in
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record time and Andy banged out more documentation and worked
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on making people aware of the project
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</p>
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<p align="justify"> Shortly before the release, POI was fortunate to come into
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contact with Nicola -Ken- Barrozzi who gave them samples for
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the HSSF Serializer and help uncover its unfortunate bugs
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(which were promptly fixed). More recently, Ken ported most
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of the POI project documentation to XML from Andy's crappy
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HTML docs he wrote with Star Office.
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</p>
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<p align="justify"> Around the same time as the release, Glen Stampoultzis
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joined the project. Glen was ticked off at Andy's flippant attitude
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towards adding graphing to HSSF. Glen got so ticked off he decided to
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grab a hammer and do it himself. Glen has already become an integral
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part of the POI development community; his contributions to HSSF have
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already started making waves.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">Somewhere in there we decided to finally submit the project
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to <a href="http://xml.apache.org/cocoon">The Apache
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Cocoon Project</a>, only to discover the project had
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outgrown fitting nicely into just Cocoon long ago.
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Furthermore, Andy started eyeing other projects he'd like to
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see POI functionality added to. So it was decided to donate
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the Serializers and Generators to Cocoon, other POI
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integration components to other projects, and the POI APIs
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would become part of Jakarta. It was a bumpy road but it
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looks like everything turned out since you're reading this!
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</p>
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</table>
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<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" border="0" width="100%">
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<td bgcolor="#525D76"><font color="#ffffff" size="+1"><font face="Arial,sans-serif"><b>What's next for POI</b></font></font></td>
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<br>
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<p align="justify">First we'll tackle this from a project standpoint: Well, we
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made an offer to Microsoft and Actuate (tongue in cheek
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... well mostly) that we'd quit the project and retire if
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they'd simply write us each a really large check. I've yet to
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get a phone call or email so I'm assuming they're not going to
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pay us to go away.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">Next, we've got some work to do here at Jakarta to finish
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integrating POI into the community. Furthermore, we're
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still transitioning the Serializer to Cocoon.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">HSSF, during the 2.0 cycle, will undergo a few
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optimizations. We'll also be adding new features like a full
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implementation of Formulas and custom text formats. We're
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hoping to be able to generate smaller files by adding
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write-support for RK, MulRK and MulBlank records. I'm also
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going to work on a Cocoon 2 Generator. Currently, reading is
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not very efficient in HSSF. This is mainly because in order to
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write or modify, one needs to be able to update upstream
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pointers to downstream data. To do this you have to have
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everything between in memory. A Generator would allow SAX
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events to be processed instead. (This will be based on the low
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level structures). One of the great things about this is that,
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you'll not only have a more efficient way to read the file,
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you'll have a great way to use spreadsheets as XML data
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sources.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">The HSSF Serializer, will further separate into a general
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framework for creating serializers for other formats and the
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HSSF Serializer specific implementation. (This is largely
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already true). We'll also be adding support for features
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already supported by HSSF (styles, fonts, text formats). We're
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hoping to add support for formulas during this cycle.
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</p>
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<p align="justify">We're beginning to expand our scope yet again. If we could
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do all of this for XLS files, what about Doc files or PPT
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files? We're thinking that our next component (HDF - Horrible
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Document Format) should follow the same pattern. We're hoping
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that new blood will join the team and allow us to tackle this
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even faster (in part because POIFS is already finished). But
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maybe what we need most is you! </p>
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<td align="center"><i>Copyright © 2002 Apache Software Foundation</i></td>
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<td align="right" width="100%"><a href="http://krysalis.org/"><img alt="Krysalis Logo" src="images/krysalis-compatible.png"></a><a href="http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/"><img alt="Cocoon Logo" src="images/built-with-cocoon.png"></a></td>
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