Usage of ActiveX in Libre Office

[Bryan Quigley]

Hi.

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:07 AM,  <libroffice.dev at artavi.de> wrote:
> Hi,
> Am 25.01.2017 um 20:43 schrieb Bryan Quigley:
>>
>> Welcome and thanks for responding to notice!
>>
>> You're the first person (AFAICT) who has written in response to the
>> deprecation notice.   My original intention was to remove it from the
>> 5.2 release if we got no responses to that notice (that obviously
>> hasn't happened).
>>
>> At this point the soonest release we could remove it from is 5.4
>> (which might be around Aug 2017).  It's far from scheduled though.
>>
>> We really don't have much data to base this decision on, so I'll ask
>> you instead.  Knowing keeping support has an impact on LibreOffice
>> development, when do you think is reasonable for ActiveX support to be
>> removed?
>
>
> IMHO ActiveX (aka COM) is a major technology in Windows, even if it will not
> be developed further because of .NET.

Looking back over my previous attempt, I think you might not be
affected.  (In any case COM/ATL support would not be dropped)

> A lot of software packages using this
> technology and I believe it will never be removed from Windows. Even if it
> disappears completely from internet services it will stay under the hood of
> Windows.
> But I also thought in the late 1970's that Pascal is the best programming
> language ever and will be the #1 in the future. Or when Java was introduced
> that this technology will die fast. So don't give too much on my opinion...
>
> So I can't answer the question. If the automation bridge is removed, we will
> stay with the last supported version of LO until we decide to get a new ERP.
>
> I didn't look into the code and I don't know how ActiveX is implemented. But
> if it doesn't need to be touched when something in UNO changes, is there a
> need to remove it?

It has been getting touched, but if I remember correctly we don't have
good coverage there.

I would suggest testing newer builds of LibreOffice to make sure it
keeps working as you expect.

The other problem was not having good test cases for making changes to
the code.  I do note in my original release notes "We specifically
want feedback if you use ActiveX to embed LibreOffice components into
your application."  Our original intention was to remove the plugin
that allows you to embed LibreOffice inside other applications (like
IE) using ActiveX.  Without test cases that worked, we weren't able to
ensure we wouldn't break something.

I don't currently have time to pursue this right now, but would be
interested in testing some custom builds to ensure that we remove the
right part of ActiveX while your use case keeps working?

Kind regards,
Bryan

>
>> What Windows version are you running?
>
>
> Windows 7
>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Bryan
>>
>> [The whole original thread - quite long]
>>
>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2015-December/071580.html
>
> Best regards
> Jörgen Pisarz