afongen

Exciting news: Matt Sergeant has released the code for the AxKit OpenOffice Provider, which makes delivering OpenOffice SXW files to the web a snap.

You may already be familiar with AxKit, an XML application server for Apache written in Perl. The OpenOffice filter transforms OpenOffice files to the output format of your choice…say, XHTML. I’ve been eyeing it for some time now, but it was a commercial product so not easily available to me. (If we’d decided to use AxKit at work, it may have been an option, but we’re still quite a ways away from making that sort of decision.) Since Matt’s dissolved the company that sold the OpenOffice filter, he’s open sourced the code. I cannot wait to dig into this.

I’m curious, too, how I could incorporate it into something like Callisto CMS, a content management system built using AxKit. I’d also like to know out how easily it could be ported for use in Cocoon. I prefer to work with AxKit but have to be open to other options.

The Space Shuttle Columbia appears to have broken up on re-entry. Oh no. And I just now heard that the flag at the Kennedy Space Center has been lowered to half-staff. I guess that’s unofficial confirmation. NASA should hold a press conference in half an hour or so.