OpenOffice.org

Who Contributes the Most to LibreOffice?

Susan Linton — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Cedric Bosdonnat has been tracking contributions to LibreOffice since its announced fork from OpenOffice.org. He uses Git Data Miner to gleen results from the main branch of LibreOffice Git repositories. Git Data Miner is more commonly known as the tool used by Jonathan Corbet in his periodic kernel code reports.

Bosdonnat began tracking line contributions in the middle of September 2010 with the original 14 contributions being made by Oracle. Oracle actually contributes code to OpenOffice.org, and then LibreOffice merges those changes, thus resulting in Oracle's contributions to the new fork. These 112 contributions have continued throughout development, but are dwarfed by the contributions of new developers.

New contributors are those that have signed on to help with LibreOffice since the fork, either with code or translations. These contributions make up well over half of the total new changes found in LibreOffice as of mid-February. Weekly contributions in this area have averaged between 20 and 30 with a total number of 517 line contributions.

Those who worked on OpenOffice.org previously and are not employeed by any other major contributor are classified as known contributors. While their number of contributions have been fewer, they averaged approximately five per week since the fork. This totals 90 contributions in the 22 weeks of development.

Novell has been credited with a large portion of the contributions made to LibreOffice. When looking through changelogs the name Novell is seen over and over again. They were significant contributors to OpenOffice.org and many of their patches are used in LibreOffice to this day. Novell developers averaged in the neighborhood of 10 contributions per week for a total of 205 since the fork.

Red Hat, who also contributed to OpenOffice.org, has chipped in as well. With usually two contributions per week, Red Hat developers have provided 39 patches since the fork.

The newest known name to join the contributors list is Canonical. They contributed the Human theme and a later fix, but more Ubuntu integration code is likely. Björn Michaelsen contributed 2 patches in the last few weeks so far.

Bosdonnat says there are 133 new coders and 55 localizers since the fork. There seemed to be a slight dip at the end of last year according the graph and Bosdonnat attributes that to the festivities of the holiday season.

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5 Myths About OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice

Bruce Byfield — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Most free software accumulates myths. Most people only know about it second hand (if at all), but few are slowed by the fact that they don't know what they are talking about.

As a large desktop application that is also cross-platform, OpenOffice.org (or should I say LibreOffice?) seems to have attracted more myths than most. Here are the top five that I have kept stumbling across in eight years of advocacy:

OpenOffice.org Can't Be Any Good Because It's Free

Most free software has faced this myth at one time or other. And, to be honest, sometimes it's true, in that some free software compares unfavorably with its proprietary counterparts.

But in OpenOffice.org's case, the myth is far too sweeping.

In the main office applications, the only place where OpenOffice.org lags behind MSO is in the presentation software; Impress remains less able to handle should than PowerPoint. Other software does not come bundled with OpenOffice.org, but often you can download free software to make up the difference -- for instance, you can use Mozilla Thunderbird rather than Outlook.

Overall, in almost every instance where you would use MSO for professional purposes, you can easily substitute OpenOffice.org. I know, because -- unlike most of OpenOffice.org's detractors -- I've used it professionally, even when I was a lone user interacting with an office full of MSO users. Once I learned the software, I never had any difficulties.

PriceChirp.com Widget

OpenOffice.org Is Immature Code

"I'd like to use OpenOffice.org," I often hear, "But I need software I can rely on, so I have to stick with with Microsoft Office."

To anyone like me, who can quote chapter and verse about the instability of MSO, or point out what has been broken for over a decade in it, this comment makes me burst out in a fit of giggles. And this reaction isn't anti-Windows or anti-proprietary prejudice; the information is widely known among power users. If I used Windows or proprietary software, I wouldn't be using MSO.

But, my initial reaction aside, this rationale irks me, because the idea that OpenOffice.org code is new simply isn't true. StarDivision, the office suite that is OpenOffice.org's ultimate answer, released its first component -- the word processor -- twenty-five years ago. Within another four years, the word processor had been joined by the rest of the suite.

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OpenOffice.org Draw: Objects and Their Problems

Bruce Byfield — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

OpenOffice.org Draw is all about objects -- items inserted into a document, each of which can be edited independently. In fact, whether you insert a picture from a file or create an object selected from the primitives (basic shapes) in the Drawing toolbar, everything in Draw is a frame. Even text in Draw is an object, and behaves differently from ordinary text in Writer. For this reason, knowing the basics of objects is essential for all work in Draw. Learning more than the basics, however, can be next to impossible because of several ongoing problems.

Fortunately, the basics are straight forward enough:

All objects are contained within a frame that allows you to edit and manipulate them. If you select a primitive from the Drawing toolbar and add it to the current document, or if you click an existing object, you will see the frame: a black line around the object with eight handles for moving or reshaping the object, three down each side and one in the middle of the top and bottom.

Handles can be one of three colors. When the object is newly added, the handles are cyan. This color can be useful in picking out the new objects in a crowded document, so that you can immediately modify it by right-clicking or by changing its object style in the Styles and Formatting floating window.

When the handles are cyan, you can also manipulate the selected object. If you click in the center of the object, the object moves without changing shape. But if you drag on a handle, instead of moving, the object is reshaped in the direction that you are dragging. For instance, click on the top center handle of a square and drag it upwards, and the square becomes a rectangle.

However, if you press the Shift key while dragging on a handle, the object changes size without changing dimensions. Using this keystroke, you can create a square or a circle (instead of a rectangle or ellipse) when you add a primitive.

If an object is older, the handles are green when you click anywhere in its middle. You can then use the handles in the same way as when they are cyan.

When the handles are red, you can rotate the object. You can change the handles of any object to red by selecting Modify -> Rotate. In addition, if an object is three dimensional, you can change the color by clicking any handle; a second click returns the color to green.

To rotate an object, click any handle to make it the center of the rotation. You will probably find rotating to get the exact results you want to be a matter of trial and error, so keep the Undo button in mind.

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OpenOffice.org: Interactions Between Programs

Bruce Byfield — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Some people insist that OpenOffice.org should be called an office application instead of an office suite. The distinction that they are trying to make is that the programs in OpenOffice.org share a common code base, instead of being separate programs that are simply bundled together, the way that Microsoft Office's are.

This distinction means that the complete OpenOffice.org is much smaller than any version of MS Office (and that you don't save nearly the space you expect by installing only the components you actually use). It also means that many dialogs are identical in different programs, which makes them easier to learn. And, most important of all, it means that the separate programs can easily interact with one another.

Writer and Impress

One of the features of Writer that hardly anyone knows about are those that transform existing content. You can find them in the File -> Send sub-menu. From there, you can create a master document made of multiple files, copy the entire document to the clipboard, create an AutoAbstract and, send the current file either as an email, or as an attachment in Open Document, MS Word, or PDF format.

When you create an outline, either manually or by clicking Create AutoAbstract, you can create the outline of a slide show in Impress with either Outline to Presentation or AutoAbstract to Presentation. These choices, which produce similar results, are ideal when you want to write an article, and immediately produce a slide show based on the article. Fittingly enough, the new slide show opens in Outline view, but the Normal view is only a click of the tab away.

By selecting either of these menu items, you create a new slide show, with a new slide for every Heading 1 style in the Writer document. Any Heading 2 styles become top-level bullet points on the slide, and any other Headings become sub-bullet points. Probably, you'll want to confine yourself to five or six Heading 2 or lower paragraphs in the Writer Outline, so that they will fit on the slide.

These choices depend on your use of at least one Heading style, and are grayed out if none are in the current document -- making them one more example of how OpenOffice.org encourages the use of styles if you want to take full advantage of its features.

Embedding Files

Calc, Draw, and Impress -- the other main OpenOffice.org programs -- lack Writer's options for transforming documents, although all have similar options for sending as email.

However, in all four of the main programs, you can embed another OpenOffice.org file by selecting Insert -> Object -> OLE Object. I am told that you are not using true OLE technology under GNU/Linux, which does not support it, but the results are much the same as though you were.

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OpenOffice.org: Sun PDF Import Extension

Bruce Byfield — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

The Sun PDF Import Extension is one of the most popular OpenOffice.org extensions ever created. For the last two years, it has been near the top of the list of most popular downloads on the OpenOffice.org Extensions site -- and no wonder, considering that it is a free replacement for Adobe Acrobat, which is currently priced at $449US. However, the extension does have some quirks and limitations that you have to learn to work around.

The first quirk you have to overcome is obtaining it. To start with, you need to be running OpenOffice.org 3.0 or higher.

That is probably not a problem for most users, but finding a usable copy of the extension may be. When you click the Get it! button on the extensions site, the link takes you to a page about Oracle Open Office, the successor to Sun Microsystems's Star Office. This page mentions the PDF Import Extension, but provides no downloads.

To download the extension, you need to be alert when your browser switches to the page that thanks you for downloading, and choose a manual download before you can get the file.

Even then, to judge from the comments on the extensions page (and my own experience), you may have trouble using the extension after you install it from Tools -> Extension Manager. The easiest way to get the extension is to check your distribution's repository to see if it is included as a package, as in Debian.

You will know if you have succeeded in installing if you try to open an PDF file and it displays in Draw.

By contrast, if you get a few characters of gibberish, you need to keep searching for another way of getting the extension. You might be able to find an alternative download site with an earlier version that you can use. Don't worry if the version number is far below the 1.01 release mentioned on the extension page; the version numbers took a huge, unwarranted leap, and (so far as I can tell) a .4x version will not be much different in functionality from the 1.01 release.

Using the extension

Once you have the Sun PDF Import Extension installed, you need to know its limitations. Unfortunately, it's a mixture of good and bad news.

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OpenOffice.org Resource Files

Bruce Byfield — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Most users interact with OpenOffice.org on the desktop. But what if you need to do a selective restore on the files that store custom gradients or colors? Troubleshoot why an extension won't install? Share resources with other users? For these kinds of tasks, you need to know a bit about where OpenOffice.org stores its files, and what you can do with them.

OpenOffice.org's file structure is simple, but it is deceptive. What you see on the desktop (for instance, when you choose a template to base a new file upon) may not be an actual directory, but a virtual one. Just as when you upload photos, the contents of all memory cards in your camera display together instead of separately, so OpenOffice.org displays many of its resources in a single view on the desktop.

Usually, the directories that make up this single view come from your personal files in /home/~/.openoffice.org/3/user, and from public resources installed with OpenOffice.org, most of which are in /usr/lib/openoffice/basis3.2/share. The numbers in the path differ with the OpenOffice.org versions, and the public resources may be installed elsewhere in some distributions, but you can find which are being used in your system by looking at Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org -> Paths.

If you choose, you can also edit the path to resources for the current account, adding other directories as you choose. However, the order does matter -- you'll notice that the default paths are set to look at your local resources first.

The content of local directories

The resources in your home directory are divided into sub-directories. Many of these directories store binary files, so you shouldn't try to edit them. However, knowing what belongs where can be useful if you ever need to recover from a corrupt file, or want to share with others.

Some of the sub-directories contain resources for the basic running of OpenOffice.org, such as /database (the default bibliography database), /LastSession (autorecovery after crashes), psprint (printing) and /wordbook (the default dictionary). Mostly, you should have no reason to interact with these directories. However, if you try to edit or view them and run into trouble, you can restore the contents automatically by logging out of the account then logging back in and re-starting OpenOffice.org.

Other folders, such as /store and /temp, are no longer used, and are probably kept for unlikely possibility that you will need them for backward compatibility if you are working with legacy formats. Others may have been added when you installed an extension, which is what Writer Tools does.

If you ignore these directories, the ones that store resources you might want to be aware of are:

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PDF Export in OpenOffice.org

Bruce Byfield — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:23:02 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Originally, PDF export in OpenOffice.org was limited to three levels of quality, whose exact differences were obscure to most users. But that was many releases ago. The latest versions of OpenOffice.org provide, for no cost, most of the features available in Acrobat Standard for $299 -- to say nothing of a few features that even Acrobat Pro Extended does not include even at $699. The problem for many people is knowing what options they might want, especially since the wording of the dialog window is sloppy in a couple of places.

For some reason, OpenOffice.org has two Export items listed in the File menu: plain Export and Export to PDF. Which you choose is irrelevant: if you choose PDF as the format in Export, the same PDF Options dialog window opens as when you choose Export to PDF.

The dialog window is divided into five tabs: General, Initial View, User Interface, Links, and Security. Generally, the defaults are reasonable selections, so, if you prefer, the most you have to choose is the range of pages to print. However, the options are worth understanding for those occasions when you need more control over the PDF creation process.

The General Tab

The General tab contains settings that determine the general structure of the PDF document that you are creating.

In the first section of the tab, you set which pages of the original document will be included in the PDF. The default is All, but you can also export the pages currently selected in the original, or designate a range of pages. In setting a range, you can include single page numbers, a range of pages separated by a hyphen (for example, 7-10), or a list of single pages or ranges, with each item separated by a semi-colon (for example, 1; 7-10.

If you want to minimize the size of the PDF file, you can reduce space by your selections in the Image section of the tab. You can reduce the size of JPEG images by selecting an image quality expressed as a percentage, or a general resolution for all images, expressed in dots per inch.

However, be aware that there is a trade off when you reduce image quality. The lower the JPEG setting, the more "noise" that is introduced into the displayed image. If the PDF will be printed by users, then you want a resolution of at least 200dpi, if not 300. If you are not willing to make these trade offs, then use the Lossless setting.

The General tab also contains a number of other unorganized settings. For instance, you can choose whether you want the PDF to include bookmarks, comments (notes), or blank pages from the original.

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The Small Picture: More OpenOffice.org Extensions

Bruce Byfield — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:10:11 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Every few weeks, I like to browse the OpenOffice.org Extensions site to see what is available, and what people are using.

New extensions that are both useful and well-designed seem to be getting few and far between. However, if you search patiently, you can still find extensions worth trying.

Below, in no particular order, are the extensions that I have explored in the past couple of months. None radically transform the office suite, and some work better than others, but all of them show some aspect of what can be done or needs to be done to make OpenOffice.org more efficient or convenient.

Last Session

One of my most frequently used Firefox extensions is Session Manager, which allows you to save and open groups of tabs. Last Session is the OpenOffice.org equivalent of Session Manager, and, as someone who regularly works with multiple documents open, I have found it just as essential.

Last Session (not to be confused with Last Session Multi, a Windows-only variant by the same developer) installs two buttons -- one labeled "S" for "Saved" and one "L" for "Load" in the Standard Toolbar. As you exit, you can press the S button to save your current session. then, when you start OpenOffice.org again, you can press the L button to reload all the files you had opened the last time you were in the program. Last Session will open windows from all OpenOffice.org applications.

Unlike Session Manager or Last Session Multi, Last Session lacks the ability to store multiple sessions. It also does not open in OpenOffice.org's initial menu, requiring you to open at least one file before you can load the rest. Still, within these limitations, Last Session is an extension well worth having.

Magenta Anonymous

You can easily forget the fact that OpenOffice.org uses personal data about you. If you fill out Tools -> Options -> User Data, adding your online and real life information, OpenOffice.org will access this information and automatically identify you as the creator of the file in File -> Property or when you edit a collaborative document.

However, if a document is posted on-line or passed along to someone else, you might prefer to guard whatever's left of your privacy these days and not have your name associated with a document -- especially one that's no longer in your control.

That's where Magenta Anonymous comes it. This extension adds a Remove User Information item to the File menu that you can press to remove your name from a document.

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