Re: is the Type Browser finished enough for production?

Hi Dean,

I wrote the type browser and you are correct, its not quite finished and
without some contributions will never be finished =]

My background is Swing / Java programming / XML and I took on the type
browser as a challenge and at the time, I had some requirements for
accessing native code.

The type browser itself is feature complete, code wise, its just the
stylesheets that need to be polished.  The type browser uses XSL stylesheets
to generate the Java  (or other languages) wrapper code.

This really needs to happen as people are using the product and new cases
for the billion or so type lib M$ constructs can be handled.

Contributions welcome =]

Josh


>
>I am considering making serious use of Jawin in our product, and I am
>trying
>to understand the status of the Type Browser.  I have the impression that
>the Type Browser is a fantastic idea that received a great deal of hard
>work, but that was never taken to a fully usable state.  Can someone
>confirm
>whether this is the case?  (If so, that's perfectly fine -- I still love
>Type Browser.  Maybe my company can contribute improvements.)
>
>Here are the reasons I think Type Browser may be unfinished.  Perhaps I
>just
>haven't learned how to "think in Jawin" -- if someone can enlighten me,
>that
>would be super.
>
>- I have not been able to find any documentation or examples showing how to
>invoke the stubs generated by the Type Browser.
>
>- Many of the generated stubs take Variant parameters, but I have not been
>able to find a way to construct a Variant short of piecing it together by
>hand (setting the vt field and the appropriate value field).
>
>- When a COM method requires ByRef, the generated stub takes a Variant
>parameter, but there does not seem to be any way to create a Variant that
>serializes with the VT_BYREF bit set.
>
>- The lack of support for CoClass blows a hole in my very first efforts to
>use the Type Browser for Excel, because both Workbook and Worksheet are
>CoClass.
>
>I will be very grateful for any help.
>
>Dean