Calligra/File filters

This page is intented to discuss around the issues with the current filter

State

Calligra/filter_overview Overview of the KOffice filters and their state

Debugging

Keeping temporary imported files

KOffice filters create temporary ODF files during importing. These files are removed as soon as the resulting file is opened.

To keep the .tmp file, set KOFFICE_DEBUG_FILTERS to any value, e.g.:

% KOFFICE_DEBUG_FILTERS=1 kword file.doc

(this debugging functionality is implemented in KoDocument.cpp)

Extracting temporary imported ODF file for further analysis

Create script like presented below

#!/bin/bash
# performs ods to xls test conversion

path=~/tests/xls
cd $path 
temp=/tmp/kde-`whoami`/xls
mkdir -p $temp || exit 1

koconverter $path/sample.xls $temp/sample.ods && rm -rf $temp/*.xml \
  && unzip -o $temp/sample.ods -d $temp/ && touch $temp/*

List of issues

no progress report, no possibility to cancel: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158462
poor error reporting
configuration: it would be nice to save some configuration and to have the possibility to apply them again when saving different documents, to remember the last used configuration, and also a better way to disable widgets/dialogs (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83843)
some filters depends on the internal libraries of applications (while others are independent), and they might better be moved inside the application (this will allow developers to stop forgetting about them after some change in the libraries)
limit writing to the hard drive (make it possible for the full chain to work in memory)
should be possible to test filters without relying on configuration outside of the build directory
untie it from KoDocument
no way to handle subdocuments (that code was never finished)
make it possible to different UI