Welcome Dan Williams, new LibreOffice Developer focusing on UI/UX
The Document Foundation is the small non-profit entity behind LibreOffice. It oversees the project and community, and is now expanding with new developer roles. So let’s say hello to Dan Williams, who joins the team to work on design and user interface (UI) improvements, with an initial focus on macOS:
Tell us a bit about yourself!
I’m from the USA, have lived on both US coasts at various times, and now live back in the “midwest” where I grew up.
I was previously a software engineer, team lead, and manager at Red Hat for more than 20 years. In that time I’ve worked on a large variety of projects, from local networking to cloud networking to desktop software. I spent two years helping build the One Laptop Per Child software stack which was an eye-opening experience from a UI and design perspective. I believe passionately in free and open-source software; all the code I’ve written so far in my career is open-source.
Oddly enough, I’m not new to the LibreOffice community; I was an OpenOffice contributor and co-founded the NeoOffice port to Mac OS X (now called macOS). That led to being hired by Red Hat to package and improve OpenOffice for Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, where I helped start the 64-bit port and realize the Native Widget Framework that’s still used in LibreOffice today. I eventually handed my Red Hat OpenOffice duties over to Caolán McNamara (now at Collabora) and moved on to networking. I still recognize quite a few of our community members who I worked with before!
Outside of office software I’m the maintainer of the ModemManager WWAN software stack and I seem to have developed a hobby of collecting LTE and 5G base stations. I enjoy playing with hardware (especially if it runs Linux), baking and cooking, building large structures out of wood, and occasionally brewing beer in my basement.
What’s your new role at TDF, and what will you be working on?
A significant part of my new role will echo my early OpenOffice contributions: Mac! I’ll convert the last bits of Carbon API into modern Cocoa ones. This old code involves some pretty core functionality like popup menus and key modifier detection so it’s going to be tricky but we need to do it. Nobody knows how much longer Apple’s going to support HIToolbox but I’d like to be prepared. I’m also going to improve general Mac usability and experience; I’ve been using LibreOffice on macOS since the beginning so I’m familiar with its rough edges.
But the Mac isn’t the only platform so I’ll be driving user interface improvements and fixing annoying bugs everywhere else too, regardless of platform or visual backend. I also look forward to working with the LibreOffice Design community to try out new ideas and see what sticks.
I enjoy the challenge of working throughout the entire codebase, from the depths of VCL/SAL up to the UI logic and layout in the applications at the top. I’m also a big believer in automated testing and continuous integration (CI) and I hope to improve our reliability and reduce regressions. It’s often a pain to write tests for a small bug fix or any other change, but I think they’re necessary for a healthy project.
How can all users of LibreOffice help out?
What are the most annoying interface and interaction bugs, for the Mac or otherwise? Make sure they’re in Bugzilla! I need help prioritizing issues – so here’s your chance to get your favorite bug looked at.
If you’re interested in LibreOffice’s user interface and visual identity, join the Design team.
Do you have Cocoa experience on the Mac and a bit of extra time? Help me out with bugs! I’d be happy to get you started.