[jboss-jira] [JBoss JIRA] (DROOLS-1836) Guided Decision Tables should use XLS as the save file format

Guided Decision Tables should use XLS as the save file format ------------------------------------------------------------- Key: DROOLS-1836 URL: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/DROOLS-1836 Project: Drools Issue Type: Feature Request Components: Guided Decision Table Editor Reporter: Toni Rikkola Assignee: Toni Rikkola Priority: Major Labels: drools-tools We can already export the Guided Decision Tables to XLS, this Jira will first determinate what is needed for importing XLS to the current Guided dtable model. h2. Visual differences * XLS colored cells, the colors usually have a meaning * XLS Font sizes, types, text color and bold/italic/overlined * XLS Cell allows the user to set text aligment * XLS lets the user to change cell size h2. Differences in functional specification * The Drools XLS format allows the user to add Guided rules to more than one Excel tab, each tab can have a different kind of table * GDST requires each pattern to have a variable name, XLS does not * GDST requires each column to have a title, XLS does not * GDST stores the value type * GDST does not support the XLS forall template * GDST has "inner enums" that can be set for columns * GDST file contains authoring history * XLS does not support generic DRL fracments * XLS does not support otherwise * XLS does not support Workitems * XLS does not support any Guvnor Enums or DSL * XLS allows more than one $variable to be used for a single column. For example $param1, $param2 for method($param1,$param2) * XLS allows the DRL functions to be declared inside the XLS file * XLS can contain XLS formulas h2. Some random thoughts * If we go full XLS, then we lose the information about the value type that is set into each cell, but then again, maybe this is not that big of a loss since the information can be regained from the DMO. * To get the XLS formulas and styles to work we need to write our own GWT Excel * GDST file contains authoring history, in XLS form this would be openly editable. Then again, you can text edit the file anyway you want to if you git checkout the GDST XML file * A XLS file can also be a rule template or anything else than a dtable. File ending like dtable.xls or gdst.xls would of course fix this. * ^ The Guided rule templates might have to move to XLS too. Just to keep things simple, but the XLS templates are made out of two files DRL+XLS * There is a need for some kind of migration tool or we keep allow the user to open .gdst and save .xml. This means we need to keep the codes for the old model in our workbench codebase forever and ever.