An Open Window for OpenDoc

Cross-platform OpenDoc comes closer to reality as IBM releases the Windows 95 and NT toolkits.

Peter Wayner

Even Microsoft knows it: The desktop paradigm is quickly giving way to a network-centered computing world. While OpenDoc refers to an open standard for building a document-centric (versus application-centric) interface, the real power of component technology will be manifested when intelligent, platform-independent applets begin interacting across LANs and WANs. IBM has delivered a key part of the puzzle with the second beta version of its OpenDoc toolkit for Windows 95 and NT.

By enabling reusable components, OpenDoc saves you time and effort. For instance, there's no need to write a text editor for your application; simply include a text object (called a part ) in the document, and OpenDoc ensures that all calls to it invoke the built-in text editor. Ideally, you can create a range o f objects to mix and match in different documents. You can also build extensions to OpenDoc that become available to every component in an OpenDoc application.

We found that IBM's latest beta re-lease is an improvement over its predecessors in both performance and features. Besides VisualAge C++, the new beta supports Visual C++ and ActiveX, as well as any other System Object Model (SOM)-compliant compiler. To create a new part, you just fill in a few boxes and let a new tool, PartMeister, produce the C++ OpenDoc interface code.

Developers need only drop the new OpenDoc WebPak and Multimedia PartPak components into their applications to enable support for Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Java applets, and Netscape plug-ins. With the multimedia components, an application gains support for a range of media files.

Since we were testing a beta version of the toolkit, we found many more bugs than we'd like. For instance, there's some confusion when an object asks to be edited in place in a document, and other portions of the document can obscure menus. Plus, screen updating is often done incorrectly. But these are easily fixable.

For now, OpenDoc should be of great interest to developers in cross-platform shops, since it's available for OS/2 Warp, Mac OS, AIX, and Windows 95 and NT. Corporate programming teams will be particularly attracted to OpenDoc as a strategy for building specialized, reus-able parts and deploying them throughout an enterprise. As it matures into a network-aware, platform-independent framework, OpenDoc could revolutionize the software industry by delivering a true component architecture for enterprise applications.

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Product Information

OpenDoc.............................Final pricing not yet available

(download latest version from 
Internet: 
http://www.software.ibm.com/clubopendoc/odbeta2.html
)
IBM Corp.
Armonk, NY
Internet: 
http://www.ibm.com

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The Parts Are Contained Within the Whole

screen_link (36 Kbytes)

An OpenDoc container can have multiple parts, all live at the same tiem.

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Peter Wayner is a BYTE consulting editor and freelance writer living in Baltimore, Maryland. You can reach him at pcw@access.digex.net .