Re: Distributing data sources to multiple machines

On 12/19/06, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Matthias B. wrote:
> You say "Data Source", and I think "Base Document".
> You no longer need to register a data source to use it. You simply need
> to point at the Base Document.
> The primary
> advantage for this, however, is that they are displayed when the user
> presses F4 (I think it is F4).

You're thinking about programmatic access. But my problem is that we
have several template documents for form letters. The templates are
already linked to the appropriate data source (via Edit/Exchange
Database) by the template creators. We want the templates to "just
work" on every client PC, so we need to set up appropriate
datasources.

But even in the context of programmatic access, database files are not
a good replacement for registered datasources. We have a heterogeneous
environment here with different operating systems in different
networks connected to different servers. While we can standardize on
abstract datasource names such as "FormLetterSource", it is impossible
for us to define a single URL to a database document that will work
everywhere.

Think about the following problem: You have 2 completely separated
networks, one with an Oracle database storing client addresses and one
with a MySQL database storing client addresses. You want to create a
form letter template that works unchanged for users in both networks.
How would you do it?
Abstract datasource names look like the only good solution to me. And
that brings us back to the question how our admins are supposed to
preload them on all of our machines in an efficient way.

> If you desire the "data source" to be a registered data source, well,
> then you must run a script to register each base document.

You say "script", does that mean there is a command line tool or
options to call soffice with that will do that? Or do you mean I'll
have to write a program that uses "com.sun.star.sdb.DatabaseContext"
to register the datasource?
What about the problem of multi-user machines for which we do not know
in advance who will use them. Is there a way to register datasources
in a shared way, so that all users on the machine will see them?

Matthias