Kategorie: Freie Software

Search Implementation On A Website – Difficult?

If you run a new website there is most often a small amount of content at its start. But later the content is growing and users may get an issue to find the content they are looking for. That’s the time when a good build in live search is needed latest.

But it would be the best solution to have such live search already implemented before you go live with your website. And if you expect your website to grow fast you need a very capable live search.

I created such a website together with a service provider for the LibreOffice extensions and templates repository. The site is build on Plone with some add-ons. The Plone Content Management System (CMS/DMS) already provides a build in fast live search. The search is already running by default. There is no need for another implementation of a live search or search function except possibly very big or special environments. But for such cases there are add-ons available in the Plone add-on repository to get e.g. Apache Solr integrated within your Plone installation.

New AddOn Releases For The LibreOffice Extensions And Templates Website

I worked on improvements of the Plone addons for the LibreOffice extensions and templates website during last time. I finished this work yet with two new releases of the addons. There is one of them for the extensions part of the site and another one for the templates part. The new feature of both addons is mail form to get in contact with the author of an extension or a template and give the author some feedback. The mail forms are protected with a recaptcha.

The releases are available on the ‚cheesehop‘ (https://pypi.org):
– https://pypi.org/project/tdf.extensionuploadcenter
– https://pypi.org/project/tdf.templateuploadcenter/

This releases would be probably the last ones, because The Document Foundation want to change the environment for the extensions and templates website to another software.

I already explained in different contextes that I had to limit my volunteer engagement for The Document Foundation in my spare time to give other topics more room (e.g. family and sport). I stated that my contributions include only the maintenance of the current LibreOffice extensions and templates website running on Plone. My work on the website stopped already in October 2018 for communication issues. I did some work on the addons, that I developed for The Document Foundation, since then. But with the decision of The Document Foundation to drop the current LibreOffice extensions and templates website soon, I see no need to further develop the addons within the current setting. I’ll rethink if and how to proceed (most probably in another environment etc.).

Anerkennung der zwei Projekte (Staaten)?

Es ist interessant zu lesen, dass für ein (oder mehrere?) Community-Mitglied(er) eines Forks eines Open Source Projekts ein Essential die Anerkennung des Vorhandenseins von zwei Projekten ist. Dies erinnert mich an die Geschichte meines Heimatlandes, Deutschland. Da hat der eine deutsche Staat auch die Anerkennung der Koexistenz von zwei Staaten als Bedingung für gute Beziehungen als notwendig angesehen. Heute gibt es keine zwei Staaten in Deutschland mehr, sondern nur der eine ist dem anderen beigetreten. Mal sehen, ob jemand bzw. wer den Mumm in der zweiten Community hat, diese Lösung auch im Open Source Bereich der von LibreOffice und Apache OpenOffice voranzutreiben.

Ich hoffe nur, dass der Prozess nicht die gleiche Zeitspanne braucht wie zum Start des Vereinigungsprozesses der beiden deutschen Staaten (also mehr als 40 Jahre). Dann wird es eher einen Bundesstaat Europa, in Vielfalt vereint, geben, als ein gemeinsames  Projekt und eine Community der beiden Projekte. Die Europäer hatten vor 60 Jahren mehr Willen und Mut, eine gemeinsame Zukunft zu gestalten.

Worked On An Author Contact Form

I worked on a new  mail form to send feedback to an author of a project. The email address of the project author (contact) is not public visible, thus it has to be added to the mail template by the new mail form module. The user of the website has only to fill in the name of the project into a field. The rest is done by a Plone portal_catalog search.

The new mail form includes also a recaptcha validation to protect the site against robot spam. The code for the mail form is published on github.com:
https://github.com/tdf/tdf.templateuploadcenter inside the account of The Document Foundation (TDF). I’ll add some further additions and publish a new release of the Plone addon during the next days. If the new release should be used on the LibreOffice templates website a member of the TDF infra team would need to run an update on the TDF server.

The Document Foundation – No Review Of LibreOffice Extensions

I saw today that someone has published extensions on the LibreOffice extensions website that had been submitted to the review queue. But after a quick look on this newly published LibreOffice extensions it was clear that they never had been reviewed by The Document Foundation or a volunteer of the project. It seemed only an administrator of the website pushed a button without any look on the content he published.

Because the LibreOffice extensions website runs on ressource of The Document Foundation and is under the control of the foundation such a ‚workflow‘ is very dangerous for this entity. I wouldn’t expect such an behavior from an entity that declares itself one of the biggest and best world wide open source projects.

Plone And Single Sign On / LDAP

It’s always a shame if people present at a tech conference without the necessary knowledge on the background. The LibreOffice extensions and templates website had never a single sign on solution, because there were no such solution within the LibreOffice available. This situation persists when the LibreOffice extensions and templates website was migrated to the current infrastructure with a rework. Thus the migration of the user of the site was also done without e.g. a migration to a LDAP solution.

The Document Foundation staff member, which presented about the future of the LibreOffice extensions site at the FOSDEM in Brussels, seemed to have no knowledge about this situation and also not about available solutions for LDAP integration for Plone (the Content Management System the current website run on). This illuminated the carefullness, the presenter dedicated to evaluate the current situation and the future of the LibreOffice extensions repository.

Maybe the time has been much better spent to improve the communication style inside The Document Foundation and for the review of already for publication submitted LibreOffice extension projects?

And about the LDAP integration of Plone: a bit of Googleing would have been of great help 😉

Wasting Donation Ressources Because Of Inability To Communicate Appropriate?

The LibreOffice project created a website for extensions and templates more than seven years ago. The site was created and driven by volunteers. There are currently a lot of LibreOffice extensions and templates published on this site and maybe there are some of them waiting in review pipeline for a go.

But about half a year ago the deputy chairman of The Documentation Foundation (TDF), Björn, described this volunteer work on a public mailing list of the The Document Foundation as poor work. He never got in contact with the voluteers that drove the site before. Thus the voluteers were not amused and in consequence stopped their work on the site and their contribution to TDF immediately.

The deputy chairman may not have forseen this volunteer reaction, but he was not able to real appologize for his offense. He thought that he has done everything right in the end.

The current LibreOffice extensions and templates website is unmaintained for this reason for about half a year. Because the deputy chairman (and maybe other members of the board of directors of The Document Foundation) are not able to realize the bad communication style and real appologize for it in public, TDF lost long time contributors. And to coat that, they came up with the concept to create a complete new framework for the LibreOffice extensions and templates website. The reason behind this was not that the current site could not been improved, but only the inability to communicate appropriate with volunteers.

Because of this reason TDF will spend a lot of ressources funded by donation money from people aroud the world. It seemed that not everyone involved or responsible for this task have an oversee of the complete expenses (maybe here the membership committee etc. has a duty to jump in). And there are some other issues with the designated new platform, that are beyond the technical issues especially of the migration.

And it’s nice to get messages in private that people share my view about bad communication style etc., but didn’t speak up in public. This is very disappointing. Such a behavior will not help The Document Foundation to improve the project. It needs more self-confident people in the project which have no issue to discuss issues transparent (not only in the back room). If a project is not able to develop in such direction it will lose its attractivity (or never get such attractivity) and will languish.

Published A New Addon Release For LibreOffice Extensions Site

I added some further improvements of the Plone addon which drives the current LibreOffice templates website. I improved the edit dialog of the templates release and linked release module. I added some more explanation and splitted the dialog into more register. I think the dialog is a bit more clearly arranged now. I published the new release of the addon as usual in the ‚cheesehop‚: https://pypi.org/project/tdf.templateuploadcenter/

I tagged the release with the number 0.24. The release is published under the General Public License. The users of the LibreOffice templates website will benefit from the features of the new release as soon as a member of The Document Foundation infrastructure team take the time to run buildout and update the website.

The Next Plone Addon Release For The LibreOffice Extensions Site

I finished further improvements of the Plone addon which drives the current LibreOffice extensions website. I improved the edit dialog of the extensions release and linked release module with some explanation and splitted the dialog into register, thus it is more clearly arranged yet. I published the new release in the ‚cheesehop‚: https://pypi.org/project/tdf.extensionuploadcenter/

The release has the number 0.30. Let’s see, if a member of the infrastructure team of The Document Foundation takes the opportunity to update the current LibreOffice extensions website with the new Plone addon release.

Further Improvements On The Plone Addons

I made some more improvements especially on the dialogs of the Plone addons that drives the current LibreOffice extensions and templates website. There are some steps to go to finish my work. My goal is to improve especially the edit dialogs thus it is more easy an fast for contributors to submit there projects and releases / files.

But I had to ensure too, that all necessary information / data will be submitted. It’s something of a balance act.