Creating my own MS Office Framework for .net

[AlexCode]

Hi,
I think the topic speaks for itself.

Im about to produce some kind of a framework just to make a bridge between .net and office. Why?!?... you may ask!

- Mostly because my target customers dont have the same office version. All between 97-2003 are possible.

Problems I know:
1- Using interop its very difficult do make the app compatible with all Office versions.
2- This new 2003 version capabilities are wonderfull but... only for v2003.

The main idea:
- Develop a structure so flexible as the ADO.nets.
Make an "Adapter" for each version of Office we want to use, and this "Adapter" is the one that "knows" how to deal with the Office core.

- Dont use Interop.
If possible, I would like to discard the interop. Build my own DIFF8 "encoder" (if a may call it like this).

- Make it entirelly free.
I dont want to make this to sell it, just to help me and other devellopers with the same problems...


Before I start:
I would like to ear some feedback from you guys.
- Will it worth it?
- Do you see any good use on this?
- Is there anything out there I dont know that smashes my idea?



Thank you very much.
Alex

 

[pelikan]

You have to use interop to bridge between managed code and COM - no way around it. Office is COM. You can produce strong named, versioned interop assemblies - but I believe MS has already done so - so you can use their published versions. These are called PIAs (Primary Interop Assemblies)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...1e-3060-4f71-a6b4-01feba508e52&DisplayLang=en

 

[AlexCode]

Hi... Thanks for the reply.

You have to use interop to bridge between managed code and COM - no way around it.

I know that to interact with MSOffice "on-line" I have to use interop but, the main idea here, its not to deal with EXCEL "on-line" but produce an EXCEL document that will be read by EXCEL latter on.
Based on this I mentioned the DIFF8.

I also want to make a "EXCEL on-line helper" using Interop but latter on...

The main question here is: "Can I deal directlly with the DIFF8, creating EXCEL docs directly with it? If so, how?"

Regards,
Alex

 

[PlausiblyDamp]

http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/index.html may be worth a look, open source project to read / write MS formats (including Excel) in Java.

 

[AlexCode]

Very very very good help... Thanks!
Thats exactly it... it already cleared my ideas on a few aspects of the process...

Anyway, if anyone else have any further resouses or ideas theyll be pretty much appretiated...

Best regards,
Alex