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  <header>
    <title>Welcome to POI</title>
    <authors>
      <person id="AO" name="Andrew C. Oliver" email="acoliver@apache.org"/>
      <person id="GJS" name="Glen Stampoultzis" email="glens@apache.org"/>
    </authors>
  </header>

  <body>
   <section title="News">
    <section title="Translations">
        <p> 
            The POI documentation translation project has begun.  The first ones 
            to start are the <link href="trans/es/index.html">Spanish 
            (espaniol)</link> and <link href="http://www.terra-intl.com/jakarta/poi/">Japanese</link>, and 
            <link href="trans/de/index.html">German</link>
            translations.  Others are welcome.  Please feel 
            free to participate!
        </p>
    </section>
    <section title="Logo Contest">
        <p>
            Voting for the POI logo contest is now complete.  Thank you for your votes.
        </p>
<!--        <p>-->
<!--            <link href="http://vote.sparklit.com/poll.spark/640946">Click here</link> to see the current results.-->
<!--        </p>-->
     </section>
    </section>
    <section title="Purpose">
      <p>
      The POI project consists of APIs for manipulating various file formats
      based upon Microsoft's OLE 2 Compound Document format using pure Java.
      </p>
      <p>
      OLE 2 Compound Document Format based files include most Microsoft Office
      files such as XLS and DOC.
      </p>
      <p>
         As a general policy we try to collaborate as much as possible with other projects to
         provide this functionality.  Examples include: <link href="http://xml.apache.org/cocoon">Cocoon</link> for
         which you'll soon find generators and serializers for our projects;
         <link href="http://www.openoffice.org">Open Office.org</link> with whom we collaborate in documenting the
         XLS format; and <link href="http://jakarta.apache.org/lucene">Lucene</link> for which we'll soon have file
         format interpretors.  When practical, we donate components directly to those projects for POI-enabling them.
      </p>
      <section title="Why/when would I use POI?">
        <p>
 		We'll tackle this on a component level. POI refers to the whole project.
        </p>
        <p>
		So why should you use POIFS or HSSF?
        </p>
        <p>
		You'd use POIFS if you had a document written in OLE 2 Compound Document Format, probably written using
		MFC, that you needed to read in Java. Alternatively, you'd use POI to write OLE 2 Compound Document Format
		if you needed to inter-operate with software running on the Windows platform. We are not just bragging when
		we say that POIFS is the most complete and correct port of this file format to date!
        </p>
        <p>
		You'd use HSSF if you needed to read or write an XLS (Excel) file using Java. You can also read and modify
		spreadsheets using this API, although right now writing is more mature.
        </p>
      </section>

      <section title="What does POI stand for?">
        <p>
		POI stands for Poor Obfuscation Implementation. Why would we name our project such a derogatory name? Well,
		Microsoft's OLE 2 Compound Document Format is a poorly conceived thing. It is essentially an archive structured
		much like the old DOS FAT filesystem. Redmond chose, instead of using tar, gzip, zip or arc, to invent their own
		archive format that does not provide any standard encryption or compression, is not very appendable and is prone
		to fragmentation.
        </p>
      <p>
		Poi is also a Hawaiian delicacy that <link href="http://www.m-w.com">Merriam Webster's dictionary</link> defines as:
		"A Hawaiian food of taro root cooked, pounded, and kneaded to a paste and often allowed to ferment." This seemed
		strangely descriptive of the file format.
        </p>
      <p>
		So if you like acronyms, then POI is an acronym.  If you hate them, then we just used the name of the food for our
		project.  If you wish to signify your love or hate for acronyms, use POI or Poi to refer to the project respectively.
      </p>
      </section>

    </section>


    <section title="Components To Date">
        <section title="Overview">
	     <p>A common misconception is that POI writes Excel files.  POI is the name of the project.  POI contains several
             components, one of which, HSSF, writes Excel files.  The following are components of the entire POI project
             and a brief summary of their purpose.</p>
        </section>
        <section title="POIFS (POI Filesystem)">
             <p>POIFS is the oldest and most stable part of the project.  It is our port of the OLE 2 Compound Document Format to
             pure Java.  It supports both read and write functionality.  All of our components ultimately rely on it by
             definition.  Please see <link href="./poifs/index.html">the POIFS project page</link> for more information.</p>
        </section>
        <section title="HSSF (Horrible Spreadsheet Format)">
             <p>HSSF is our port of the Microsoft Excel 97(-2002) file format (BIFF8) to pure Java.  It supports read and write
             capability.  Please see <link href="./hssf/index.html">the HSSF project page</link> for more information.</p>
        </section>
        <section title="HDF (Horrible Document Format)">
             <p>HDF is our port of the Microsoft Word 97 file format to pure Java.  It supports read and write capability.
             Please see <link href="./hdf/index.html">the HDF project page for more information</link>.  This component is
             in the early stages of design.  Jump in!</p>
        </section>
        <section title="HPSF (Horrible Property Set Format)">
	<p>HPSF is our port of the OLE 2 property set format to pure
	  Java. Property sets are mostly use to store a document's properties
	  (title, author, date of last modification etc.), but they can be used
	  for application-specific purposes as well. Currently HPSF supports
	  read functionality only. Please see <link
	    href="./hpsf/index.html">the HPSF project page</link> for more
	  information.</p>
        </section>

     </section>

    <section title="What happened to the HSSF Serializer?">
	<p>The HSSF Serializer, which was part of our 1.0 release and last builds on
        <link href="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/poi">Sourceforge</link>, has been donated to the
        <link href="http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/">Cocoon</link> project, and is available starting from version
        2.0.2.</p>
    </section>

    <section title="Contributing ">
        <p>
		So you'd like to contribute to the project? Great! We need enthusiastic, hard-working, talented folks to help
		us on the project in several areas. The first is bug reports and feature requests! The second is documentation -
		we'll be at your every beck and call if you've got a critique or you'd like to contribute or otherwise improve
		the documentation. We could especially use some help documenting the HSSF file format! Last, but not least, we
		could use some binary crunching Java coders to chew through the convolution that characterizes Microsoft's file
		formats and help us port new ones to a superior Java platform!
        </p>
        <p>So if you're motivated, ready, and have the time, join the mail lists and we'll be happy to help you get started on the
           project!
        </p>


    </section>
  </body>
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    <legal>
      Copyright (c) @year@ The Apache Software Foundation All rights reserved.
      $Revision$ $Date$
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