Kategorie: Allgemein

Research On Issues With Online – Module Draw

I got some issues with running the Draw Module of the LibreOffice Online / Free Online Office. I run my Free Online Office version (master) using the latest master version of the LibreOffice core (build on the same machine by myself). I can start Draw with an odg-document. This odg-document contains besides graphics also text boxes. Once I load the example document in online it shows the boxes with the text inside (see screenshot below).

Free Online Office with LibreOffice core master

But once I clicked into the text box to edit the text, the textbox disappeared and I got a big grey area instead (see screenshot below).

Free Online Office with LibreOffice core master in edit mode

I first thought this might be an issue with the code of my Free Online Office code. But that wasn’t the case. I made an experiment. I run my online version using the LibreOffice core branch for Collabora 25.04 and opened the same example odg-document with it. The document loaded and I could view it’s content (see screenshot below).

Free Online Office with Collabora core 25.04

Then I clicked into the text box to edit the text and it happens that I could do this without any issues (see screenshot below).

Free Online Office with Collabora core 25.04 in edit mode

Thus there is no issue in my Free Online Office but in the core module of LibreOffice. There are commits / patches inside the Collabora 25.04 branch of core which didn’t made it’s master. Thus you can’t create a fully working online office using the LibreOffice core master. You have to use its fork from the branch Collabora 25.04.

This shows that the eco system companies didn’t submit all their code changes to the upstream project, in this case the LibreOffice core master branch. This is contrary to their promise that they fully support the LibreOffice project. If that would be the case they would contribute / commit their patches to the LibreOffice core master first and then adapt them to their product releases.

They have no issue to use the resources of the LibreOffice project (funded by donations) for their development work, patch review, localization, marketing etc. but apart from that cook their own soup. It’s also disturbing that they use for their developer marketing the public resources of another Open Source project (Jitsi) (funded by donations) instead of running their own videoconference server.

Research on Patches not in LibreOffice Master but in Branch

I made a research on patches which were commited to a branch of LibreOffice but didn’t made it upstream. Thus I made a diff of the patch titles in this branch and the LibreOffice core master. I evaluated the branch distro/co-24.04 (https://github.com/LibreOffice/core/tree/distro/collabora/co-24.04) against the current state of the LibreOffice main branch (master). Thus I got a list of more than 6900 patch titles, which were not committed to the main branch of the LibreOffice project. I created a new file (from the current state of today) with those patch titles from the branch, which didn’t made it to the master: https://amantke.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/title-of-patches-in-co-24-not-in-lo-master.txt

I have not researched yet why this patched didn’t make it to the upstream project. But it’s worth to get at least through those patches since Oktober 2020, when Collabora decided to fork LibreOffice Online and moved it away to Github. I already found out in the past that patches for the LibreOffice Kit (LOK) wasn’t committed to the master branch and it needs some reminder to fix that.

New Releases Of Collective.Addons And Collective.Templates

I added a feature to choose if the name and / or the contact e-mail address of an addon project should be published on the projects page during the last days. Today I created a release from this changes and published it on the Cheeseshop (https://pypi.org): https://pypi.org/project/collective.addons/

The source code of this Plone add-on is available on its Github repository:
https://github.com/collective/collective.addons

In addition I made a small bugfix release for the Plone add-on collective.templates and published it to on pypi.org:
https://pypi.org/project/collective.templates/
The source code of this add-on could be cloned from Github at:
https://github.com/collective/collective.templates.

Matrix-Synapse Install And Testing

I installed the Matrix-Synapse server on Debian Buster running inside a virtual maschine. I got Matrix-Synapse configured and running. I installed the ufw firewall and allowed ‚http‘, ‚https‘ and ‚8008/tcp‘.

I configured the Debian machine within its network settings from NAT to bridged network and I could reach the running Apache, running on that Debian. But it was not possible to reach the Matrix-Synapse server from the host system yet. I had to reconfigure ‚homeserver.yaml‘ and change the bind_addresses variable from ‚127.0.0.1‘ to the IP of the network bridge (the network address of the interface of the Debian box). After a restart of matrix-synapse I could connect via <IP-Address of the Debian box>:8008 (the ip address of the Debian box and port 8008). I could then connect with the Riot webclient from the host to the Matrix-Synapse server and a Riot client on the Debian box.

I was able to create rooms and invite into them. It was also possible to start phone calls. But there were currently no emoticon available in the chat application.

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.

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