Tech BuZZ

Create OpenOffice Extensions ?

2010-11-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

For the readers who are completely new to the phrase Open Office ,It is an open source project with word processing,presentation,Spread Sheet + many more applications which can be a good alternative to Microsoft Office package. It supports the ISO/IEC standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format. It is a community project where developers from all the over the world contribute to improve product features or to add new facilities.

This post will give you a basic idea on how to become a part of this wonderful project . I will be using Netbeans as my IDE and java as my language.Still you need to install NetBeans OpenOffice plug in as well as the OpenOffice SDK.

Setting up the Environment

Download Netbeans IDE and Install.

Download the OpenOffice Package and Install.

Download the latest version of OO plugin within NetBeans by clicking on Tools ---> Plugins. You can find the plugin in the "Available Plugins" section as "OpenOffice.org API Plugin"(For the latest version of NetBeans (6.9) above method will not work.So download this file and install it manually.)

Then download OO SDK (I assume that you have already installed OpenOffice package ) and install it.

Now We Are Ready to Rock and Roll !!

Creating your FIRST Project

Restart the IDE .Then go to File--->New Project . Scroll down on New project window and find OpenOffice.org entry.Click on it

Select Project Type

From the above window select the entry "Open Office Add-on" .Click Next.

Now It is time to give a unique project name to your work.I chose "MyProject".And click Next !

Command Name

The above is an important window where you need to specify your unique command. As an example when you click "save" menu item in an application Save window get opened. So you should give a command name to your task . hmmm Lets say command is "Say Hello " . You can also insert icon images to your project using that icon column .For now, Lets just forget icons and click Next to proceed .

Menu Name

Alright now it's time to give a menu name . I gave "My Menu" .After that proceed by clicking next !In the next window you will have Check Boxes for each Open Office application.(Etc Writer ,Calc) Select the checkBox of the writer.This will add your add-on to the writer application.Then just press Finish! Your Friendly IDE will create the Project for you

Now it's time to play with some codes! Go to SourcePackages---->com.example------->MyProject.java file.Using the CTRL+F key combination find the method named "dispatch" inside that java file .That method looks like this.

public void dispatch( com.sun.star.util.URL aURL,
                           com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue[] aArguments )
    {
         if ( aURL.Protocol.compareTo("com.example.myproject:") == 0 )
        {
            if ( aURL.Path.compareTo("Say Hello") == 0 )
            {
                //add your own code

                return;
            }
        }
    }

Now replace that " // add your own code here" line with the code segment below.

String name = JOptionPane.showInputDialog("Enter your Name"); JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Hello " + name + " How are you?", "Hello", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);

Right Click Menu

Alright we are almost there now ! Right click on the project and find "Deploy and Run Extension ...." menu item. And observe other two menu items Debug Extension and Create OXT . For now let us use the middle one Deploy and run .This will run your extension on the Open Office package which is installed in your computer . After few steps Open Office will be automatically started . Open a Text Document .And you will see your Menu "My Menu" in the top menu bar.

Click on it and it will have the "Say Hello" entry .Voillaaaaaa !! You just created your first OO extension!!

9 Tips to success in SCJP

2010-07-16T01:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a while I'm writing a new post .And I guess this one will be a really helpful to all the guys who are preparing them selves for the SCJP examination. Anyway your goal should be to learn the technology other than adding extra 4 letters to your resume.So here we Go !!!

First and Foremost

If you are a java professional who has been working with industry based java projects for a long time ,DO NOT underestimate the exam.This exam is looking for a human compiler rather than a good designer.So Take the exam Seriously :)

Secondly

Become a member of JavaRanch community and be active in SCJP forum .At least read the new threads which are being posted every day.

And thirdly

Buy the SCJP guide by Kathy sierra and Bert Bates.Or if you are a great fan of EBooks go for the ebook.

Fourth Step

Make your Goal .Buy the voucher and fix the exam date. Then your mind will always alert you about the money you are going to miss if you waste time. At least give yourself 2 months for study when you fix the exam date . The exact date will depend on you.If you are new to j2se and can sacrifice 3 good hours in a day for this exam I suggest you to get at least two months for studies.

Fifth step

First read the book one time completely ,doing all the SELF TESTS, going though all the Two Minute Drills ,preparing a good short note for your self.And Code all the examples using a text editor(Notepad++) .Please avoid all those IDEs including Netbeans and Eclipse.And write lot of codes changing the same example in various ways.Spent good 15 minutes with a example which you couldn't answer at first time.

And the Sixth is

Focus on the areas where you score low marks on self tests.And read those chapters one more time.

Now its time to test your self .Find some good mock exams. You can find some really good mock exams on javaranch specially ExamLab is a great tool which toughens you for the real exam.

Seventh will be

When you review the Mock exam results find your weaknesses and Read K&B book again for those chapters.And Loop through step 7 and 8 for at-least a week .

Eighth step

Day Before Exam-Read all the Two Minute Drills sections in the SCJP book.Go through all the steps in the book which tells you how to face the real exam.(In the first few pages). It tells you different methodologies to answer different questions.And Please make sure to sleep early .At least get a sleep of 6 hours.

And the last will be

Arrive one hour early to the exam venue and go through your short note(areas where you have some doubts) once again.And be calm and cool for 10 or 15 minute without doing anything.Face the exam with confidence using all the tips you learned.

And Finally Good Luck to Everyone who are going to face the exam!!

A logic problem: Who is the killer??? (Do you Have a Mr:Sherlock inside you?)

2010-06-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

For most of the time in our life we are busy with our day today works.May be with our studies or with our job. So here I present you a small problem which is not related to any of those,but will need some brain cells to provide the correct answer.So here goes the Adventure.

There were five people travelling in a train and they are named A,B,C,D and E. Here A,C and E are men and B,D are women. Suddenly train passed through a tunnel and when it emerges E was found dead.

And a detective came to the place and talk to other for passengers to get evidence.This is the result he got after talking to remaining four people.

A Said

I'm innocent : B was talking to E when the train was passing though the tunnel

B Said

I'm innocent : I was not talking to E when the train was passing through the tunnel.

C Said

I'm innocent : D committed the murder.

D said

I'm innocent :One of the men committed the murder.

You can see these four people are making eight statements,two by each person.And the detective could find out that four of these statements are true. And four of them are false.But he doesn't know which one of them are true and which are false.And he also got to know that only ONE person did the crime.Assuming you are the detective try to find out the killer?

These are small logic problems which can be easily solved by doing some rough works.And these kind of problems are belong to the area called discrete mathematics .Try To Answer without help .I will post my answer Later. :).

Do you want to learn Programming ? Here are Some Cool Websites

2010-06-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

"Practice Makes Perfect " That is a golden quote when it comes to programming .And of course you need dedication and desire in What you are doing. So Best way to learn programming is to learn it interactively than reading a Book on "How to Program " without touching the keyboard.

So I thought of providing some really nice and COOL websites with lot of challenges where you can practice yourself if you are already familiar with a language or you can learn a specific language by dealing with them.And guys belong to the first group ,why don't you try these sites with another language which you dreamed a lot of learning.

So Here it goes

#5 Python Challenge

This one is great tool if you want to learn python.And Guys who are already familiar with python test your skills.And the most interesting thing about this is the way they have presented their challenges.Its a really interactive site. If you visit once and click the start Start Challenge you will find it really hard to stop with proceeding :)

#4 Ruby Quiz

Next One is set of challenges using Ruby . But here you can try these challenges
with a any programming language you know(You name it what ever C++.C,Java,C# even assembly if you are assembly geek :) ) .This site contains both non math problems and math problems.

#3 Timus Online Judge

This is a wonderful place for anyone to start from the beginning .This contains problems where you can improve yourself from step to step(Though it doesn't have a good UI in the website problems are attractive ).Try it Too.!

#2 TopCoder

Alright ! If your are looking for competitions in programming ,

This is a wonderful place .This site has weekly competitions in which you can participate And WIN PRIZES!!! Voilaaa!!

So Try it and share the prize with me :)

#1 Project Euler

And Finally ! My favorite one.But I have to tell you .This one is really mathematical based.So you won't find any problem without Maths :D .(At least I didn't find any problem without Maths..Even though directly Not Maths .All the problems are Mathematical based )But Maths means FUN !!! Try it .Use any language. You can use tools like MATLAB,Mathematica in some problems .They DO NOT expect any source code,but only an integer answer.

These were some my favorites sites.But Still a novice in them. But thought of sharing these with you so that it can help some other guys who are craving for challenges.And here are some other sites and forums which will be really helpful for a learner as well as professionals .

So That's it for today.Have fun with these sites.And Happy Coding !

Java : Reading words from a File ?

2010-05-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

When I was developing an algorithm for one of my assignment I had to read a String from a file and then separate all the words in that String .I tried to implement it using several methods .But most of them were really annoying !! :( . So after Googling for sometime I found out a nice method using the Regex facility in Java :)

I hope you are familiar with how to read a String from a file .:) Are you ? Oh! You are NOT :(
Then Look at this .



String str;

BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(YOUR FILE PATH HERE));

while ((str = in.readLine()) != null) {

YOU CAN PROCESS YOUR STRING HERE

}

So here what kind of process we do ? We just separate all the words in that String.OK
So you know String class have a method as split.We can use it here.



String[] wordArray=str.split(" ");

split method returns a array of String .So by the above line we can separate all the words which have a SPACE between them .But that is not enough ...Is it ? What will happen to the words separated by commas,question mark ...etc (all the punctuations ).

So this is where Regex helps us out.It has some pre-defined Strings which we can use in split method .String "\\W" stands for all the NON WORD CHARTERERs .



String[] wordArray=str.split("\\W");

The above code will give the exact output you need.Then you can use that String array for further process. Happy Coding !!!

How to add a picture to your JFrame in Netbeans?

2010-02-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

When you develop applications using NetBeans how often you use JFrames? Occasionally you may want to add a picture to your JFrame(May be the main frame of your application.And you want to add your application logo on it).So this is how you are going to do that.

Creating the JFrame(For Novices)>

First open your Netbeans application .Then go to File and select New Project.Following dialog box will appear.

From that dialog box select Java----> Java Application (as we are going to build a desktop application) and finally press Next..If you are successful the another dialog box will appear to enter your project name.And after pressing next it will lead you to your new project.

Then from your project go to Source Packages ,right click on your project name ,select New ,then select JFrame Form.And enter a preferred name for your JFrame in the dialog box ,and press Next and you have successfully created your JFrame.

Adding the Picture

Go to the palette and then go to Swing Controls.Here you will find Label Component.Drag and drop the Label component to the JFrame.And it will give you something like this

Then right click on the Label and select Properties from the drop down menu.And Locate Icon property and press the white button in that row which will lead you to a new dialog box.

Select External Image.Then provide the path to the image and finally press import to the project.

Then resize the image as you want and after you are done right click on the JFrame file in the Source packages and select run.And you can get the required output !