Office IO layer

[apjanke]

Write an Office file interoperability layer that uses Apache POI or another Java or C library, for reading and writing Excel and other Office files without needing Office itself. Should be portable across all 3 OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux).

Probably make it in two layers: one, an object model that's close to what POI presents (with a layer on the Java side for block operations for efficiency), and two, a higher-level convenience layer.

Excel is the primary target. Word and PowerPoint are secondary priorities. The other Office applications are not targets.

[apjanke]

I'm going to call this "Office IO" instead of "Office Interop", because "Interop" is already used by the .NET stuff to talk about scripting/automating an actual Excel or other Office application process, and that's intentionally not the mechanism we're using. Don't want to be confusing.

[apjanke]

Added an "office-io" Label for this whole feature area.