Insert a comment with custom presets

    From The Document Foundation Wiki
    < Macros‎ | Writer


    Description

    This tutorial covers how to write a macro for Writer that inserts a custom comment at the cursor position (in order to for example preset the Author and/or Date fields).

    We use com.sun.star.text.XTextViewCursor[1] and com.sun.star.text.textfield.Annotation services[2] as well as the com.sun.star.util.DateTime structure[3] to obtain a time-stamp from the time of execution.

    Code

    The following macro, which could for instance be linked with a keyboard shortcut, inserts a custom comment at the current cursor position:

    Option Explicit
    
    Sub InsertComment
        '''Insert a comment at position of cursor'''
    
        Dim oCurs As Object ' com.sun.star.text.text.XTextViewCursor
        Dim oAnnot As Object ' com.sun.star.text.textfield.Annotation
        Dim oDateTime As New com.sun.star.util.DateTime
    
        oCurs = ThisComponent.CurrentController.getViewCursor()
        oAnnot = ThisComponent.createInstance( _
            "com.sun.star.text.textfield.Annotation")
    
        With oDateTime ' com.sun.star.util.DateTime
            .Minutes = 20
            .Hours = 12
            .Day = 20
            .Month = 12
            .Year = 2012
        End With
       
        With oAnnot ' com.sun.star.text.textfield.Annotation
            .Author = "Author of the comment"
            .Content = "Content of the comment"
            .DateTimeValue = oDateTime
        End With
    
        oAnnot.attach(oCurs.Start) ' Insert at cursor start
    
    End Sub ' InsertComment

    Using Python:

    # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
    from __future__ import unicode_literals
    
    import uno
    
    def InsertComment():
        """Insert a comment at position of cursor
        
        curs    com.sun.star.text.text.XTextViewCursor
        annot   com.sun.star.text.textfield.Annotation
        """
        dt = uno.createUnoStruct("com.sun.star.util.DateTime")
    
        thisComponent = XSCRIPTCONTEXT.getDocument()
        curs = thisComponent.CurrentController.getViewCursor()
        annot = thisComponent.createInstance(
            "com.sun.star.text.textfield.Annotation")
    
        dt.Minutes = 20
        dt.Hours = 12
        dt.Day = 20
        dt.Month = 12
        dt.Year = 2012
    
        annot.Author = "Author of the Comment"
        annot.Content = 'Content of the comment'
        annot.DateTimeValue = dt
    
        annot.attach(curs.Start)  # Insert at cursor start

    Time-stamp calculation is not performed in these examples.

    Notes