Improved Collective.Templates And Published New Release

I get back to the Plone add-on collective.templates during the last two days and added especially a new improved form to directly contact a template project owner by email. This new form is linked from every project page yet.

There is also the former email form available, which is linked from the sidebar of the template center yet.

I updated the localization of the add-on and made a new release today. The release (version 1.1) is available from the cheeseshop (https://pypi.org): https://pypi.org/project/collective.templates/

You can download the source code of the project from Plone collective repository at: https://github.com/collective/collective.templates

TDF – True Thanks For Volunteer Work?

It’s not funny to read the blog post about the development of a new LibreOffice extensions and templates page. The post lacks of the whole picture about the development and history of the current LibreOffice extensions and templates site. It seemed as if there were no development over the years since the start of the site. But that’s not the case.

The site was first launched in summer 2011 during the first LibreOffice conference in Paris. This site (correctly two sites) was running on Plone 4 using the Plone add-on ‘Plone Software Center’ with the blobstorage addition. This site runs for some years up to the end of 2016.

In the meantime I worked on two new Plone add-ons for an update of the site. I adapted the structure of the new add-ons to the needs of the extension and template submitter from the few feedback I got over the years. I gave presentations about my work on LibreOffice conferences, but without attendance of The Document Foundation (TDF) core members (e.g. board, employees, staff). There were no real vested interest in this area of the project.

I finished my work on a first stable version of the new add-ons in 2016 and I could launch the new (renovated) LibreOffice extensions and templates with the support of a Plone service provider at the end of December 2016. The service provider created a highly scalable productive environment for the new site and migrated the content from the old site into the structure of the new one.

I worked further on the Plone add-ons for the extensions and templates site since then and made some further improvements following the few feedback I got from contributors to the site. I worked in parallel as admin of the site and content reviewer for new extensions and templates. This took a lot of my spare time.

I dropped this admin and review work in autumn 2018 because a member of TDF board criticized my work on the site in public without any preceding talk to me. This was a contempt of my volunteer work on the site and the endless spare time which I spent contributing to LibreOffice and The Document Foundation. In addition other board members didn’t support me and criticized the behavior of the board member in public. This showed me that TDF is not really connected to its Code of Conduct (https://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/code-of-conduct/). It’s more of a nice to have (written text) but not part of the TDF DNA. The project has no real supportive sustainable culture in communication style and behavior.

Although I dropped my admin and reviewer role on the LibreOffice extensions and templates site I worked on the code of the site further. I made some additions to the structure of the Plone add-ons following the feedback I got from contributors and updated the site’s buildout to Plone 5.1.

Because Python 2 got at the end of its live I worked in parallel on a migration of the Plone add-ons for the LibreOffice extensions and templates site to Python version 3. I finished this work some weeks ago and made Python 3 compatible releases of the add-ons. They were published on the Cheeseshop (https://pypi.org). Each add-on got also it’s own user documentation which I wrote during the development process.

I did also some work for Python 3 compatibility on the LibreOffice extensions and templates site buildout in a seperate branch. This work is making good progress and should be finished during the next weeks (depends on my available spare time). The site could run on Python 3 and Plone 5.2 then.

My current work is already publicly available on Github. I published it under the General Public License v. 2 (GPL-2).

The new post on TDF blog paints a different picture, as if the site and its code hasn’t changed and developed over the years. From my point of view this is a new threat on me and my countless volunteer work on LibreOffice and for TDF. I could not take the words of thank in the TDF blog post seriously. Seemed to be (necessary) flowers of speech.

Updated Extension Site Repository To Plone 5.1

I worked on an update of the source code for the LibreOffice extensions and templates website from Plone 5.0 to Plone 5.1 during last days. I finished this work today. The Plone buildout for the website points to Plone 5.1.6 yet.

I run tests against the new Plone version with data created with the currently used Plone version (5.0) and they succeeded all. The source code of the website is available at Github: https://github.com/tdf/extensions.libreoffice.org

The new Plone version 5.1 will be available at the LibreOffice extensions and templates website once the TDF infra team got time slot to checkout the Github repository and run buildout afterwards.

Created Buildout For TDF.Extensionuploadcenter On Plone 6.0 a1

I created a new buildout from the branch 6.0 of the Plone buildout.coredev (https://github.com/plone/buildout.coredev) today. The buildout itself worked out of the box and I could create a new Plone site from it. I ran the Plone 6.0 a1 using Python 3.6.

I added some further packages to this buildout to check if the Plone add-on tdf.extensionuploadcenter would be compatible with the upcomming Plone 6.0 (and Python 3). I had to do this step by step. I run tests against every Plone add-on which I added to the buildout. There were no issues with the command ‘./bin/test -m <name of the add-on>’. Once I incorporated all Plone add-ons I could fire up Plone with ‘./bin/instance fg’. I created a new Plone site and installed the Plone add-ons ‘tdf.extensionuploadcenter‘ and ‘cioppino.twothumbs’. I could create a new ‘Extension Center’ and add a first ‘Extension Project’ to it without issues. Seemed there are no issues to catapult the LibreOffice Extensions Center (Site) into the Python 3 and Plone 6 world.

Next Release Of Plone Add-on For LibreOffice Extensions Site

I fixed some smaller issues in the user documentation of the Plone add-on for the LibreOffice extensions website and updated the localization files of the add-on. I published this fixes and updates within a new release of the Plone add-on tdf.extensionuploadcenter on the Cheeseshop (PyPi.org) yesterday. It is release 0.46. You can get this release at: https://pypi.org/project/tdf.extensionuploadcenter/

The source code is available on my Github repository: https://github.com/andreasma/tdf.extensionuploadcenter

New Release Of Plone Add-On For LibreOffice Templates Site

I worked on the Plone add-on that drives the LibreOffice templates website during the last days. I fixed some smaller bugs, but more important I added the first version of the user documentation. This documentation describes in detail all modules / objects of the add-on and give some information about the messaging feature of the add-on.

I created a new release of this Plone add-on ‘tdf.templateuploadcenter’ and published it on the Cheeshop (PyPi.org) today. This release got the number 0.36 and is available at: https://pypi.org/project/tdf.templateuploadcenter/

The source code of the add-on is available on my Github repository:
https://github.com/andreasma/tdf.templateuploadcenter