10 days ago, we created a proof of concept for using JAXB on a subset of wml.xsd (one of the OpenXML schema files).

We’ve declared that a success, and moved it from a branch into the trunk of docx4j. Here be the generated classes.

plutext-server has now been migrated to use it.

And Jo is working with it as he codes docx4all.

So we’re pretty committed at this point!

We’re tidying up bits of the object model as we go (ie editing our xsd to generate Java that we like). So far, paragraphs (p, pPr, r, rPr, t) and structured document tags (sdt, sdtPr, sdtContent) have had our attention.

We’re also making a few changes to the generated classes, so we need to think about how best to prevent those changes from getting lost when the classes are re-generated. There’s a bit of support in XJC for this, and diff may come in handy, but I’d love to hear best practices.

What we have now is an object model for key pieces of the Main Document part (document.xml), in package name
org.docx4.jaxb.document. Next cab off the rank is the Styles part, which we’ll put in org.docx4.jaxb.styles.

The plutext solution enables many users to work on the one Word document at the same time.

Why would you want to do that?

The way we put it in the Wiki:

1. Get documents finished ahead of deadline. Sales proposals, contracts, reports. Our focus is real time simultaneous collaboration – two or more people working on the document at the same time.
2. Plutext allows you to continue to use Microsoft Word as your editing environment. You know how to use Word (at least until you installed Office 2007 anyway..).
3. So you can format the document using Microsoft Word. If you did your collaboration in Google Docs, chances are you’ll have to bring it back into Word to make it pretty. Our collision handling is nicer to.
4. Work offline. It’s Word, after all.
5. Word’s docx is our native document format. So there is 100% fidelity. No numbering going haywire.
6. Complete version history / audit trail.
7. Don’t have Word? Coming soon … Use docx4all, our WYSIWYG docx editor – on a Mac, on Linux etc.
8. Oh, and its open source. All GPL 3 (Affero GPL 3 in the case of the server side bits). Use our server (developers only for now), or build your own.

I’ve uploaded the plutext-client-word2007 source code to subversion.  Let me say up front that right now, this is for developers, not end users.  Here are instructions for setting up your Visual Studio 2005 environment.

This is the add-in for Word 2007 which lets you collaborate with other people on a docx document.  I’ll post some screenshots to the website tomorrow.
At the moment, you need a plutext-server (BYO or use our development server).  It also helps to have some collaborators, though you can open the document twice in Word and collaborate with yourself.  All collaborators currently have to be using Word 2007 with the add-in – a Word 2003 add-in is currently under development.

The plutext-server code is now checked in.

Actually I checked it in on Friday, but I’ve spent the weekend wrestling with Axis 2 – first, to specify a Maven 2 POM which deploys the correct JARs; and second, to have Eclipse WTP deploy the web service to it (rather than talking in Axis 1 terms).  See notes in the wiki.

The Word 2007 client will follow next week, at which point you’ll be able to set up both client and server in your development environment, and collaborate on some documents!

The release 7 days ago of the GNU Affero General Public License v3  was perfectly timed, because I wanted to use a GPL-like license for the plutext server code, but without the SAAS loophole.

And so a few days behind  Fabrizio’s announcement, you can actually see the license on our code