There is a client platform that's already present on nearly every user's desktop, one which provides an amazing amount of power and flexibility in its user interface options, and provides a familiar user-interactive style that undergoes intensive study with every release. Ted Neward introduces the Microsoft Office platform as a rich client technology with examples of Excel - Java integration in this latest InfoQ article:
Rich Office Client Applications.
In the article, Ted goes into depth showing how to begin programming with Smart Tags:
Rich Office Client Applications.
In the article, Ted goes into depth showing how to begin programming with Smart Tags:
A smart tag is that purple dotted line that appears under a word in Word, or the purple right triangle that appears in a cell in Excel, and the little "i" button that shows up when the mouse hovers over it, allowing you to click and drop some kind of context menu related to that word. For example, in Word when I type in a phone number, like 916-555-1212, the drop down menu contains "Add to Contacts", allowing me to add this phone number to Outlook's address book. See Figure 1, below, for what it looked like in Word as I typed this paragraph:See also other content on InfoQ as part of our Java + .NET Integration Featured Topic.Essentially, a smart tag works by recognizing certain text within the document, and when recognized, makes the icon and drop-down menu available.
