File Information for Microsoft Windows Explorer

OpenOffice.org 2.0 Windows Integration

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Tino Rachui	03th Aug. 2004	Final
Conforms to	
Applies to	Windows Desktop Integration
Task ID(s)	#97715#
Category	Feature

Abstract

The Microsoft® Windows® Explorer Details view normally displays several standard columns that list information, such as the file size or file type for every file in the current folder. With OpenOffice.org 2.0 the Windows Explorer will be extended by a plug-in which makes several meta information of an OpenOffice.org file available for the column view.

i-Team Members (The specification Owner is part of the i-Team)

	Name	E-mail Address
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove (MMP)	mmp@openoffice.org
Development	Tino Rachui (TRA)	tra@openoffice.org
Development	Gorden Lin (deuce)	deuce@openoffice.org
Quality Assurance	Thorsten Martens (TM)	tm@openoffice.org
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	ufi@sun.com

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove (MMP)	02.06.2004
Development	Tino Rachui (TRA)	02.06.2004
Development	Gorden Lin (deuce)	02.06.2004
Quality Assurance	Thorsten Martens (TM)	15.06.2004
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	02.06.2004
String Review	n.a.	

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
1.0	Specification setup	TRA	05.11.03
	spec review	MMP	12/4/03
	spec rework after iTeam meeting	TRA	12.05.03
	Some minor corrections regarding the form of the document	TRA	12.12.03
	A table that shows which meta information of Microsoft Office documents are displayable as column in the Windows Explorer 'Details' view	TRA	06.01.04
	Final decision which information will be displayed by the column handler	TRA	02.06.04
	The OASIS meta information 'description' will be displayed in the column 'Comments' in the Windows Explorer in order to be compatible to Microsoft Office; only OpenOffice.org text documents contain data about the number of pages	TRA	03.08.04

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	User Scenarios	2

3	Goals	2

4	Requirements and Dependencies	2

4.1	Requirements	2

4.2	Technical Dependencies	2

5	Competitive Analyses	3

6	Detailed Specification	3

6.1	Error Conditions	4

7	Notes	4

8	References	4

Glossary

Term	Description
column handler	A function that is used by Windows Explorer to display custom information in extra columns in the Details view
OASIS	Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards The OpenOffice.org file format is based on a standardized OASIS file format specification

Motivation

The Microsoft® Windows® Explorer Details view normally displays several standard columns that lists information, such as the file size or file type for every file in the current folder. By implementing and registering a column handler an application can make custom columns available, e.g. the name of the author, last printed etc. One big advantages of a custom column handler for OpenOffice.org 2.0 is that the user is able to sort a list of OpenOffice.org files ascending or descending according to specific criteria like e.g. the author's name. The following illustration shows a Windows Explorer Details view.

Illustration 1 Windows XP Explorer Details view

User Scenarios

The user can display additional columns by right-clicking one of the column headers and selecting the “More...” command from the menu. An own column provider may for example provide information about OpenOffice.org files like author, creation date, modification date etc.

Illustration 2Windows Explorer Dialog for the Selection of Displayable Columns

Goals

Better desktop integration of OpenOffice.org.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

To achieve a better system integration, OpenOffice.org 2.0 will make increased use of information and infrastructure that is provided with the Windows Desktop.

Technical Dependencies

This feature will only work with Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

This feature will not decrease the performance of the Windows Explorer or the Windows Shell as it will be implemented independently of any of the heavy weight OpenOffice.org libraries.

Competitive Analyses

Microsoft Office provides its own column handler for the Windows Explorer displaying additional information about Microsoft Office documents (see Table 1).

Detailed Specification

Microsoft Office Meta Information Displayable As Column In Windows Explorer 'Details' View	Comparable OASIS File Meta Information	Comments
Author	Initial Creator	In Microsoft Office a user supplied name specifying anybody. In OpenOffice.org this information is not user editable and will be written oautonomously by OpenOffice.org.
Title	Title	User supplied information that specifies the title of the document.
Comments	Description	User supplied brief description of the document.
Subject	Subject	User supplied information that specifies the subject of the document.
Category	-	No equivalent meta information available for OASIS files.
Pages	Document Statistics - Pages	Number of pages of the document.

Table 1Microsoft Office meta information displayable as column in Windows Explorer 'Details' view

For a complete list of meta information defined for the OASIS file format have a look at the respective specification.

Table () shows the type of information which the OpenOffice.org column handler is supposed to display.

Note: We don't need to provide strings for the respective column headings of the Windows Explorer. These are standard columns and Windows provides the column headings for them.

OASIS File Meta Information	Windows Explorer Column Title	Comment
Initial Creator	Author	The person who setup a document.
Title	Title	The title of the document.
Description	Comments	A short description of the document.
Subject	Subject	A subject of the document.
Keywords	Keywords	A list of user defined keywords for the document.
Pages	Pages	Number of pages of the document. Note: Will only be displayed for OpenOffice.org text documents because all other OpenOffice.org documents do not safe the number of pages in the meta information.

Table 2OASIS Meta Information displayable as column in the Windows Explorer

String list

n.a.

Error Conditions

In case of errors for instance an OpenOffice.org file is corrupted the column handler simply does nothing and no information will be provided to the Windows Explorer.

Notes

MMP: In conjunction with the Tamino integration it may also be interesting to display if a document is indexed.

References

Microsoft Developers Network Library (MSDN)

Creating Shell Extension Handlers

Creating Column Handlers

Shell Interfaces

The Summary Information Property Set

OASIS file format specification

Required - Give references to related documentation, such as engineering designs, technical specs, and other sources for related units. Also include links to documents that other sections in this spec need to refer to, such as user opinions usability test reports.

Integration into Microsoft Windows - Column Handler for the Windows Explorer

Page 1

http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/desktop_integration/windows_explorer_column_handler.sxw

Tino Rachui

2003-11-05T13:57:56