The new OOo Canvas Framework ============================ The new OpenOffice.org canvas framework is the successor of the system GUI and graphics backend VCL. Basic functionality is available, supplying just as much features as necessary to provide a VCL-equivalent feature set (except proper BiDi/CTL support). For migration purposes, the new canvas and VCL will be shipped with OpenOffice.org for quite some time, allowing a step-by-step adaptation of the applications. Therefore, the canvas and VCL must somehow interoperate, since new code, using the canvas, typically is embedded in a VCL-based environment (for example, the OOo windows are still provided by VCL. To render into such a window via the canvas, a canvas must be constructable from a VCL window). Thus, essentially two new methods are provided at VCL's window, namely Window::GetCanvas() and Window::GetFullScreenCanvas(). Apart from that small link, canvas and VCL are completely separated. The canvas framework currently consists of the following two new CVS modules, /gsl/canvas and /gsl/cppcanvas. Additionally, a new generic graphics tooling is used (but not exclusively by the canvas, Armin's recent drawing layer fixups also make use of it), which resides in /graphics/basegfx. From these modules, six libraries are currently delivered, namely vclcanvas.uno.dll, javacanvas.jar, directxcanvas.uno.dll, canvastools680mi.dll, cppcanvas680mi.dll, and basegfx680mi.dll. The new OOo slideshow engine ============================ The new OpenOffice.org slideshow engine will replace the current Impress-embedded presentation framework with a fully independent UNO component, and it will be based on the new canvas. In its current state, it is able to provide a basic set of functionality, enabling the playback of simple presentations. It furthermore provides features like double-buffering, hardware-accelerated alpha-blending (currently not on all platforms) and anti-aliased rendering of all primitives. In a second step, this new slideshow engine will then be integrated with Impress model enhancements and extended PowerPoint import/export filters, to implement nearly all of PowerPoint's set of effects. The new slideshow engine is currently not accessible from the office UI, but included in the installations sets. Thus, other developers can start to use the new functionality, and base their own implementations on top of that. For the records, the respective UNO implementation of the slideshow resides in the slideshow.uno.dll library.