[dev] Making the ODF Toolkit up-to-date

Hi,

I wanted to use ODF Toolkit to add ODF support to a library project. I have some pain with its 
current state, so I thought it might be worth fixing those.

- to make ODF Toolkit fully compatible with „recent“ Java versions (i.e., Java 11+), module 
descriptors are needed (not just automatic module names)

- the current code relies heavily on the flawed and outdated old date and time classes, these 
should be replaced by the classes under java.time (of course while keeping the interface compatible 
for users who still use the old classes)

- important features are missing, for me that’s mainly proper support for merged cells

- if possible, the required Java version should be raised to Java 17 to be able to write more 
concise code

- probably many dependencies have to be updated to more recent versions, alone to avoid conflicts 
with applications using newer major versions of the same dependencies (but I have not really looked 
into the dependencies yet)

Before putting too much work into this, what are the chances for each of above points to be 
accepted into the code base?

About me: I have been a developer for more than 25 years, switched to almost exclusively using Java 
in 2008. I am a Committer to Apache POI and rather regular contributor to other Apache projects, 
currently mainly PDFBox. Also author of a bunch of my own OSS projects (one of which is the reason 
to step up here) and one of the maintainers of a widely used Gradle plugin.

Cheers,
Axel


-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: dev+unsubscribe@odftoolkit.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.odftoolkit.org/dev/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy