Automating OO From .NET

This was an interesting experience, I am a lot more comfortable developing in visual studio but for OO Netbeans has been much easier.

Here is the source:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.lang;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.uno;
using Microsoft.Win32;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using unoidl.com.sun.star.frame;


namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class TestOO
{
public int run()
{
InitOpenOfficeEnvironment();
unoidl.com.sun.star.uno.XComponentContext localContent = uno.util.Bootstrap.bootstrap();
unoidl.com.sun.star.lang.XMultiServiceFactory multiServiceFactory = (unoidl.com.sun.star.lang.XMultiServiceFactory)localContent.getServiceManager();
XComponentLoader componentLoader = (XComponentLoader)multiServiceFactory.createInstance("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop");
XComponent xComponent = componentLoader.loadComponentFromURL("private:factory/swriter", "_blank", 0, new unoidl.com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue[0]);

((unoidl.com.sun.star.text.XTextDocument)xComponent).getText().setString("Automating OO");


return 0;
}
private void InitOpenOfficeEnvironment()
{
string baseKey;
// OpenOffice being a 32 bit app, its registry location is different in a 64 bit OS
if (Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(IntPtr)) == 8)
baseKey = @"SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\OpenOffice.org\";
else
baseKey = @"SOFTWARE\OpenOffice.org\";

// Get the URE directory
string key = baseKey + @"LayerDev\URE\1";
RegistryKey reg = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(key);
if (reg == null) reg = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(key);
string urePath = @"C:\Program Files\OOo-dev 3\URE\bin";
reg.Close();
urePath = Path.Combine(urePath, "bin");

// Get the UNO Path
key = baseKey + @"UNO\InstallPath";
reg = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(key);
if (reg == null) reg = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(key);
string unoPath = @"C:\Program Files\OOo-dev 3\program";
//reg.Close();

string path;
path = string.Format("{0};{1}", System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PATH"), urePath);
System.Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", path);
System.Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("UNO_PATH", unoPath);
}

}

This is a console app that when runs opens an instance of open office writer and prints "Automating OO".

The InitOpenOfficeEnvironment() method was code that I found here: http://blog.nkadesign.com/2008/net-working-with-openoffice-3/ and it sets up the path and uno_path environment variables so that open office can run. You could also set your paths manually but this allows for distribution. I had a lot of trouble getting the path from the registry as the code was originally for the openoffice 3 and not oo3 dev.

The next part of the code uses the factory style of programming to allow for easier development. It instantiates an openoffice writer and sets the text.