GoOOCon2008

From the 10th to 13th April I was in Prague, Czech Republic for GoOOCon, an OpenOffice.org conference hosted by Novell.

I done a presentation about the Buildbot system in OpenOffice.org. I didn't have time to prepare new slides, due to my move to London, so I just recycled my slides from ooocon2007.

It was nice to see a bit of another country and to meet up with some of the OpenOffice.org developers in real life.

OOO: Possible fix for the command timed out error on Leopard

With a change in the way that X11 works on Leopard, the X11 version of OpenOffice.org has been giving an error message on startup saying "command timed out". With previous versions of Mac OS X, OpenOffice.org had to make sure that X11 was running first be trying to start OpenOffice.org.

The following change should work for 2.4, 2.3.1, 2.3, and possibly earlier versions. Open the file OpenOffice.org 2.4.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt in "Script Editor". (You will need to control+click the application icon and choose "Show Package Contents".)

Then replace the code block "on openSoffice(aFile)"...."end openSoffice" with the following:

on openSoffice(aFile)
 if (atLeastOSXVersion(10, 5, 0)) then
  -- if we have leopard, we don't need to manually start the X server first
  set theCmd to "sh " & (quoted form of (POSIX path of getOOProgramPath() & "soffice")) & " "
  do shell script theCmd & aFile & shellTerminator()
 else
  set theDisplay to startXServer()
  if (theDisplay is equal to "error") then
   return
  end if
  set theEnv to "DISPLAY=" & theDisplay & " ; export DISPLAY; "
  set theCmd to "sh " & (quoted form of (POSIX path of getOOProgramPath() & "soffice")) & " "
  do shell script theEnv & theCmd & aFile & shellTerminator()
  -- logEvent("open CMD: " & theEnv & theCmd & aFile)
 end if
end openSoffice

Please comment on how this works for you.

OpenOffice.org 2.4 on Mac OS X [Update: now available]

The release of OpenOffice.org 2.4 (X11 version) is a little behind the other platforms due to a lack of resources in the QA process, as many of the resources have been placed on the upcoming aqua version. It will be another few days to week before they are available on the mirrors and the Mac Port download pages will be updated at that point.

Until then the new smart download pages will continue to give the link to the 2.4.0 build which isn't yet available.

UPDATE: OpenOffice.org X11 2.4.0 for both Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 PPC and Intel are now available from the Mac Porting Download pages.

New OpenOffice.org Aqua Development Release

Head over to the OpenOffice.org Mac Porting web site for the latest development build.

This is the most stable build of OpenOffice.org running natively on Mac OS X that I have seen. I haven't yet had a crash with my basic usage. Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 is required.

The improvements include:

• Printing now uses an aqua native print dialog
  
• Various bugs, crashes, performance, and cosmetic improvements
  
• The native file picker should work now (though there are 2 unlabeled checkboxes)
  
• The QuickStarter is now supported on Mac OS X
  
• Copy and Paste now works in the Hyperlink dialog
  
• Icons are no longer shown in the menus by default on Mac OS X
  
• Extentions can now be installed through the GUI
  
• Improved scrolling when using a scroll wheel
  
• Real version number is shown in the Mac OS X Finder's Get Info Window.
  
• The recent items list in the Apple menu is now populated
  
• Faster loading and saving of files
  
• New Start Centre
  

The downloads are on the extended mirror network, and BitTorrent. Please don'tdirectly link to any of the mirrors, please link to the OpenOffice.org Aqua download page instead.

OpenOffice.org 2.4 (X11), is currently in testing. OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be Aqua only.

Full News Release

OpenOffice.org Aqua Download Page

Sorting Tables in a MediaWiki

I've noticed that a number of tables in the Wikipedia are sortable. Further research found that it is implemented through client side javascript, when a table has the class="sortable". It is available in MediaWiki 1.9 or later.

See the MediaWiki help on sortable tables.

I have found adding the sorting to the OpenOffice.org Mac OS X Porting Roadmap really useful as you can now sort the table and easily see what is a high priority or already fixed. I wouldn't recommend it for full bug tracking. 

The next feature I'd like to see is row level editing of tables in the wiki, as I hate having to try and find the one or two rows in the table that I want to change.

If you would like to help the port by implementing one of the items on the road map, why not contact the MacPort team? Drop a mail to the mailing list mac@porting.openoffice.org (first subscribe by sending a mail to mac-subscribe@porting.openoffice.org. Or say drop by on IRC server irc.freenode.net on the channel #ooo_macport.

iLife Browser in Leopard's open dialogs

In Leopard, if the developer allows certain types of file to be opened, then you get a free iLife browser in the file open dialog. This applies to OpenOffice.org aqua on Leopard too. As the X11 version of OpenOffice.org doesn't have a native filepicker, this won't be available there.

Find a screenshot below.

 

Those who have played with the latest OpenOffice.org aqua builds, you will find that you get an open dialog like the above one, without any way to select any files. This is a known bug. You simply cancel and open the dialog again to workaround the issue, until the fix is found and integrated.

Mac OS X OpenOffice.org file naming scheme

Bruce has mentioned that he didn't understand the files on the good-day server in a comment to a prior blog post.

I'll try to make this as simple as possible for end users to understand using the following example:

OOo_SRC680_m237_MacOSXIntel_AQUA_install_en-US.dmg

This can be broken down into several smaller chunks _ is used as a separator:

OOo is the short product name. Other options are BrOo (the Brazilian localisation of OpenOffice.org due to

SRC680 is the code line, this changes with every major release. All release candidates are done on a different code line. For example OpenOffice.org 2.3.x used OOG680.

m237 is the milestone. OpenOffice.org code base has a new milestone every few weeks (sometimes a milestone will have only a few days between but this is rare). This number increases after several new code change have been integrated into the trunk of the code line. Internally within OpenOffice.org this is a MWS or Master WorkSpace.*

MacOSXIntel tells you the Operating System and the Platform that this build is for. Another option relevant to mac users is MacOSXPPC or MacOSXPowerPC. The name is changing/has changed to come in line with other platforms.

AQUA states that this is an AQUA build. The other option is X11. This option is only there during the transition from X11 to Aqua. It will be soon be the case that this parameter won't be included when Aqua is default.

install is there to say that this is an application and not a language pack, SDK or URE. The SDK and URE are generally only needed by developers. Language packs are currently not available for Mac OS X.

en-US this is the language that is to be installed.

* In OpenOffice.org we use a trunk and branch method. Think of a tree growing. Any new code is created in a branch (internally called a CWS), which is merged back into the trunk when it is ready. Think of the milestones being the rings you see when you cut a tree down. However we are producing these rings (milestones) far more frequently than a tree in nature.

OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X Leopard

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was launched by Apple Inc. about one month ago.

OpenOffice.org, with the exception of the Java features will work on Leopard. If you require the Java features of OpenOffice.org on Leopard, you require to use milestone m237 or later. 

The problem essentially boils down to the way that OpenOffice.org detects Java, and the fact that "Apple Computer Inc." is NOT the same as "Apple Inc.". (There are a few other build issues too.)

Thanks should go to Florian, Philip and Eric Bachard for their work on this issue.

The past 2 months

It has been a couple of months now since I've properly written a blog post. So here is a longish catchup post.

I have been busy doing agency work mostly in staff restaurants as a Kitchen Porter. I've even bumped into the Lead of the Marketing Project in our home town, rather than having to go to some OpenOffice.org conference. I did spend 3 weeks commuting by train (a novelty for me), to Stirling to work as a caretaker. Unfortunately the work is rather dull, though there are bills to be paid. Hopefully I'll get around to updating my CV and sending it off to relevant people to hopefully get a degree related job.

Now back to 2 months ago.

I managed to get up and do my Buildbot presentation at ooocon2007 without any breakfast. The presentation has been really useful, as I have received some very useful feedback from developers on what they want from the system.

Code writers are interested in seeing if their code breaks on some other platform as early as possible. They want this to be reliable, and ideally the same configuration as the officially released builds.

The QA project are looking for install sets for testing new code that is about to be introduced into the main code line. Again they ideally want to have the same configuration as the officially released builds.

At the moment the source code statistics aren't interesting enough for developers to want them. Also the basics don't currently work well enough.

My presentation in PDF My presentation in ODF

I have finally got around to Geotagging my photos from this years OpenOffice.org conference in the past few days. As I have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5, I found that my previous geotagging solution (GPSPhotoLinker) has stopped working as a library has stopped working due to a perl version mismatch. So I have headed to the command line with a perl script. gpsPhoto.pl seems to do the trick, though it is a pain to get the command line right as it isn't as easy to just drag a load of photos from iPhoto. I'm not upgrading to iLife 08, as there is no GPS tagging support. Leopard's Preview has a feature that allows you to go to a Google map of where the photo was taken. However, what I really want it to tell iPhoto: look in this folder for GPS traces, and geo tag all these photos automatically.

For future reference (as I was in mainland Europe with daylight saving the offset from UTC is minus 2 hours):

./gpsPhoto.pl --gpsdir 2007-09 --timeoffset -7200 --maxtimediff 7200 --overwrite-geotagged --dir /Users/shaunmcdonald/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/Originals/2007/ooocon2007/

Photos from ooocon2007. I've also added the photos to Flickr with the ooocon2007 tag.

As many people have already seen. I am now the lead for the Mac Port of the OpenOffice.org. Eric Bachard made the announcement some time ago. I have posted my vision to the Mac porting mailing list. Due to time constraints as mentioned at the start of this blog post, I won't be spending as much time as Eric Bachard on the project. I'm sure Eric will do a great job as the lead of the Education project, which tries to get more students involved in the OpenOffice.org project.

I am currently moving broadband provider from VirginMedia to Be*. For the same price I'm getting about 4 times the speed, with a slightly greater dropout for the same £18 per month.

When I was working out in Stirling I cycled home, or part of the way home. I have managed to map and tag most of the National Cycle Network route 76 from Stirling to Kincardine/Grangemouth. The south of the Kincardine Bridge is rather difficult to map and cycle just now as there is a lot of major road works and changes to the road network happening there.

About a fortnight ago I cycle 73 miles from Edinburgh to Ayr along the A70. I left quite late just before midday, and took about 6 hours. With the winter setting in, the last hour was pitch black. I lazily took the train back home for £8.80 with my Young Person Railcard. (Rather than cycling back home.) I have mapped and tagged the A70 with my GPS trace for the OpenStreetMap project. My ride on MapMyRide.com. I probably won't cycle the A71 to Kilmarnock as it is a more dangerous road.

I have created a count down dashboard widget to State of the Map 2008. Download the SOTM countdown widget. 

Finally, I have partnered with Manager-Pro. To translate and distribute and English version of their software. All exported reports require the usage of OpenOffice.org. Either as the document reader as the exported documents are in the OpenOffice.org 1 format. If a user wants the reports in PDF, Word or Excel formats, OpenOffice.org requires to be installed for the file format translators within OpenOffice.org.

ooocon2007: Presentations

All the presentation slides for this years conference that have been submitted to ooocon2007@openoffice.org have been made available on the conference web pages. There is still about 12 presentations where the slides still have not been submitted for. Frank Peters has made a list of the missing presentations.

Can all presenters please send them to the above e-mail address so that they can be uploaded? 

If you didn't use any slides for your talk can you please also send a short message to the above e-mail address to say that. This will allow us to remove any links to non-existent presentations.

OOOCON2007 Presentations

If any presenters do not currently have their presentation available on the programme pages, then please send your presentation to ooocon2007@openoffice.org. We would like to have both an OpenDocument Impress presentation and a PDF generated from it.

If you would like to update your presentation, please send it to the above address, also stating that you would like to update the presentation.

Due to a limitation in the OpenOffice.org infrastructure, we can only receive e-mails less than 2MB in size. If your presentation is larger than this, please send a short mail, and we will help you get it online using a different method.

Programme Wednesday

Programme Thursday

Programme Friday

Who said Barcelona was going to be cold?

In fact it is rather roasting compared to Edinburgh.

The direct flight with ClickAir was pretty smooth, except for a short time when coming in to land at Barcelona, due to going through a cloud.

Seems that the rumours were true about the iPhone coming to the UK, as reported by Macworld UK. However at £35 per month, I'll give it a miss until I have some decent income. My current Pay As You Go Sony Ericsson still has plenty of life left in it. It currently takes me about 4 to 8 months to go through £35.

One thing that I found a pain, was the fact that Google suddenly decides to change the language to Spanish (or maybe even Catalan). I found a way around it! All I did was add ?hl=en_GB to the end of the Google URL. UK English not your language, just change en_GB to your own language code.

It has been great to see many of the contributors again from last year. Barcelona seems to be a city to easily get lost in. They too seem to have the tickets that allow you transfer for a period of time after the ticket is first validated. Why isn't that possible in Scotland?

OOOCON2007: Incoming Flight Just Arrived

The incoming flight for my flight was delayed by about 20 minutes. The passengers are now getting off, so I should be getting on my flight soon. Seem I'll be walking straight on. 

South of Edinburgh seems to be clear sky, whereas north is rather dark cloud. No fog here unlike Pavel.

Barcelona seems like it will be roasting compared to Edinburgh last night, which was down to 1°C.

Seems my mobile is cheaper than the wifi hotspots here.

Hopefully the iPhone will be able to be used as a Bluetooth modem when it is rumoured to come to the UK later today.

Petition to get Apple to support OpenDocument in iWork

Filip Molcan has just pointed out a new petition to get Apple to support the ISO standard 26300, otherwise known as OpenDocument in iWork 08. iWork 08 already supports the Open Office XML (OOXML) document format, which isn't yet an ISO standard. Wasn't Apple meant to be a supporter of open standards?

OpenOffice.org Aqua 2nd Preview Released

The second OpenOffice.org Aqua Preview is now available for download.

There are a number of new features and bug fixes in this release. There is one major known regression, that will be fixed in a future development build. This time we have not hacked the source to include the Mac OS X native file picker. Instead there is the OpenOffice.org file picker used.

For the record the new things in this version include:

• Printing now works, though it does not yet use an aqua print dialog
  
• PDF export now works
  
• Copy and Paste should now work fully
  
• OpenOffice.org no longer crashes after quiting
  
• Text and graphics are now drawn properly
  
• Windows and dialogs mostly now have an aqua theme
  
• Combo boxes now look a lot better
  
• Various bugs, crashes and performance improvements
  
• (QA only) testtool can be hacked to work properly
  

There are a number of things that do not work in this version. Please do not report anything in the following list, as reporting known issues, just wastes developers time. The known issues currently include:

• There is a black flash when opening new windows
  
• OpenOffice.org still has problems with Aqua's device resolution indepence
  
• There is no Aqua file picker in this release. This is a known regression, the Aqua file picker will be back in a future build
  
• Opening a document to open in OpenOffice.org from another application, such as the Finder, Mail or Safari, will mean that OpenOffice.org will open with a blank document. You need to open all documents from within OpenOffice.org
  
• The print dialog is not the same as one in other Mac OS X Applications
  
• Starting OpenOffice.org from a shared/remote folder does not work
  
• Impress will not recognise multiple monitors for presentations
  

The list on the aqua download page will be updated with more known issues as required.

Getting plain text logs from Colloquy

In the process of putting the log files of the Mac OS X porting meeting logs up on to the OpenOffice.org Wiki, I have been having a few problems. This has primarily been due to the location of new lines.

To day I asked on Colloquy's IRC channel, and found that there is a simple utility to get plain text logs from the XML Colloquy logs. It is located at the Colloquy extras page.

Stats for the OpenOffice.org download bouncer

Many of the OpenOffice.org national language teams will be happy with the following announcement.

There are now Download Statistics being produced for the downloads from the bouncer. The stats are generated once daily around 08:05 UTC. Inside the stats folder you will find a series of folders with dates as their name. Inside each of these, you will find a series of files that contain a few different breakdowns of the stats for each particular day. 

For example, 20070621/macos-alllangs.txt shows the number of downloads on the 21st of June 2007, broken down by download for each possible download. I find it strange that there has been 135 downloads for the Mac OS X PPC en-US version of 2.1.0, which is a very old build. The newer OpenOffice.org 2.2.0 for Mac OS X PPC en-US has less than 3 times more downloads. I'm wondering where the 2.1.0 build is linked from.

For a language example, 20070621/allos-de.txt shows a count of all the German downloads on the 21st of June 2007. The most popular German build on that day being Mac OS X Intel, with 102 downloads.

Thanks go to Michael Marineau from OSUOSL for setting up the script.

Please note that these are simply raw requests and and the script that produces them doesn't take into account builds that don't exist, but were requested for. Unfortunately there is no week, month or year view of the data at this time. 

The files do mention all version of OpenOffice.org from 2.1.0 up to and including 2.4.0. This has been done so that they will not need to be updated for each release.

OpenOffice.org Download Bouncer Stats

Spaces around colons

Today I discovered why it is that the French have been placing a space in front of colons (:), and it has been driving me mad. 

In English it is usually seen as being wrong to place a space before a colon. However according to Lars Aronsson on the lingu-dev mailing list, it is normal practice in French to place a space before the colon.

You learn something new every day.

UK Government gives response to OpenDocument online petition

The UK (Westminster) Government has given a response to the petition on a petition calling on the UK Government to use the OpenDocument format for the storage of documents.
Read the UK Government's response to the OpenDocument Petition

It seems that they are making no firm commitment to use the OpenDocument format, though are continually reviewing the format to store documents in, and converting them accordingly. They welcome the newer open standards, as it makes it easier to convert from one format to another.

OpenOffice.org Aqua's first in depth review

The first in depth review of OpenOffice.org Aqua that I have come across is by Greg Kefalas. This is a four part series starting today, so more information in the coming days. I'll add links to the other parts of the review as they become available.

Part one
Part two
Part three Many of the problems mentioned are already fixed, or will be fixed for the next developer preview. Also the new chart, which is coming in OpenOffice.org 2.3 will be there too.
Part four Some of the issues raised have already been fixed and will be in the next developer snapshot. Having separate application for Writer, Calc, Impress etc. takes a lot of work to redesign the way ooo works otherwise it would have been implemented by now. The first steps in the project is to simply use native controls and get the most important features of Mac OS X implemented. We will then make a stable release. Thereafter we will look into other things like Applescript and re-organising the menus of OpenOffice.org into palettes. However if someone with a special passion for implementing Applescript support into applications comes along today and that's all they want to do, we won't stop them, if they are following our coding guidelines.