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Author: Mike Saunders

LibreOffice community at Czech free software events

Stanislav Horáček writes:

Like every year, we would like to say few words about our impressions and experiences from our Czech free and open source software (FOSS) conferences in autumn. As in the last year, we participate with our LibreOffice booth at LinuxDays in Prague (me and Zdeněk Crhonek), and at OpenAlt in Brno (Petr Valach and Zdeněk Crhonek).

We appreciated supporting words from LibreOffice users, as well as their questions and critical remarks – it was good opportunity to realise that LibreOffice is a really complex piece of software, and some ways of using it can be unpredictable 🙂 Some notes from the events:

  • LibreOffice Online is better known than at previous events, but still some people are surprised that there is this version, so there is interest in how to install it and get it working. We noticed a demand for an online service with LibreOffice as paid alternative to Google Docs for small companies.
  • Other quite hot topics were macros and (missing) automatic updates in Windows.
  • Examples of special questions: using a stylus and handwriting recognition in LibreOffice; a version for the Librem device; embedding LibreOffice in another application; creating business cards with pictures; saving values of Solver settings in Calc; filtering by colours in Calc…
  • At LinuxDays, I had a talk about a new Czech spellcheck dictionary (which also uses Wikidata as a source), available as a LibreOffice extension.

Thanks to organizers of both events for this opportunity and to The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice, for the support! We can really recommend these types of events, as you get feedback from both end users of our software, and developers/enthusiasts of another communities. Don’t hesitate to attend if there is a similar event in your country 🙂

TDF says: huge thanks to Stanislav, Zdeněk and Petr for all their great work! Native language communities are essential building blocks of the LibreOffice project, helping to share knowledge, spread the word and make LibreOffice even better for everyone. And everyone is welcome to join and help out!

Refreshing LibreOffice’s “Frequently Asked Questions” pages

Ilmari Lauhakangas (aka Buovjaga) writes:

A year ago we started migrating our wiki translations to the standard translation management system used across the known wikiverse. The system allows for proper tracking of translation status, and offers a user experience familiar to LibreOffice translators.

By the end of summer 2019, we had enough experience with the new system to be able to define best practices and give instructions to translators. Right at this moment one of our Czech contributor heroes, Zdeněk Crhonek (aka Raal), expressed interest in offering FAQ translation tasks through a volunteer platform called Um sem um tam. Zdeněk took it upon himself to migrate each FAQ article to the new system while creating the tasks.

In addition to the migration effort, the FAQ pages were checked for accuracy and many changes were made to bring them up to date. All of this work resulted in unprecedented activity in The Document Foundation wiki as can be seen in this chart:

Big thanks to Zdeněk Crhonek, Czech translator Petr Kuběj and the original French creators of the FAQ articles!

Translators are invited to update the FAQ translations as well as to confirm that the source text corresponds to the current LibreOffice interface. If you have questions regarding the migration process in general, please contact Ilmari Lauhakangas.

LibreOffice localisation sprint (and other events) in Albania

The Albanian LibreOffice community has been super active in recent years, organising the LibreOffice Conference 2018 in Tirana, and regularly contributing with translation and marketing efforts. Sidorela Uku reports from a recent localisation sprint at Open Labs Hackerspace:

This was the first event I organized for LibreOffice, in collaboration with a friend of mine, Marcela Korreshi (our new contributor). The presentation included an introduction to LibreOffice and how people can contribute to the project in in various ways, while the second part was focused on translations. (In addition, I talked about whatcanidoforlibreoffice.org.)

We had 14 people participating at the event, and as far as I can see from the translations, there are around 460 strings translated to review – and around 200 strings translated and reviewed.

Meanwhile, some more events are coming up in Tirana:

  • On 20 November, for Design & UI
  • On 23 November, for Marketing & Advocacy
  • And on 26 November, another event for Localization

You don’t have to register for the events, and they are free to attend – full details on this wiki page (Albanian language).

TDF would like to say thanks to the Albanian community for their help and contributions!

Month of LibreOffice, November 2019: Half way through!

Two weeks ago, we kicked off a new Month of LibreOffice, crediting contributions all across the project. Participants can claim a cool sticker pack, and have a chance to win a mug too!

So, how’s it looking so far? Here’s how many sticker packs have been awarded:

200 – click to see if you’re on the list

We’re doing our best to track all contributions from the LibreOffice community, so if you’ve done something in the project but your name (or username) isn’t there yet, let us know. Or if you haven’t joined in yet, but want a sticker pack – and indeed, a chance to win a mug – then here’s how you can help out:

You can be a…

  • Handy Helper, answering questions from users: over on Ask LibreOffice there are many users looking for help with the office suite. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim your shiny stickers.
  • First Responder, helping to confirm new bug reports: go to our Bugzilla page and look for new bugs. If you can recreate one, add a comment like “CONFIRMED on Windows 10 and LibreOffice 6.3.3”. (Make sure you’re using the latest version of LibreOffice!)
  • Drum Beater, spreading the word: tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter or Mastodon! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and at the end of the month you can claim a sticker. (We have a maximum of 100 stickers for this category, in case the whole internet starts tweeting/tooting!)
  • Globetrotter, translating the user interface: LibreOffice is available in a wide range of languages, but its interface translations need to be kept up-to-date. Or maybe you want to translate the suite to a whole new language? Get involved here.
  • Code Cruncher, contributing source code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started. Once you’ve submitted a patch, if it gets merged we’ll send you a sticker!
  • Docs Doctor, writing documentation: Another way to earn a badge is to help the LibreOffice documentation team. Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.

Keep an eye on our Mastodon and Twitter accounts for more updates over the next two weeks!

New version of LibreOffice Impress Remote for Android

We often talk about the desktop version of LibreOffice on this blog, but our community is working on mobile tools as well. For instance, the LibreOffice Impress Remote lets you interact with your slideshow presentation from your Android device – including slide previews, speaker notes, and more.

At the weekend, we released an update for the Impress Remote (version 2.4.0), with various bugfixes and updates:

  • Fix missing slide previews
  • Ongoing fixes for Bluetooth discovery
  • Fix pointer feature
  • Fix timer for certain Android versions
  • Updated translations

Note that there’s an additional permission required for the app in this release, coarse location, but it’s solely for Bluetooth discovery. The app doesn’t make any use of it – it’s just a prerequisite for doing discovery and listing nearby devices.

Additional notes: if you don’t get the proper slide count on the initial connection attempt, pause and resume should fix it. In addition, discovery of WiFi clients relies on Avahi being enabled on Linux (for Linux). If you don’t run Avahi (but still have the ports open, at least for your local network), you can manually enter the machine’s IP.

Download the new version here

(Note: an update for the iOS app will also follow.)

If you want more improvements or new features in the Impress Remote, give us a hand! We’re a volunteer-driven, community open source project, so we really appreciate all help to make the software even better. You can assist by reporting bugs, testing new releases, or helping with the code (if you have some development experience). See here to get started!

What about LibreOffice for Android?

We have the LibreOffice Viewer for Android, so you can view your documents on-the-go. Editing is an experimental feature at present, and to improve it and make it ready for full-time use, our community would appreciate some help! As mentioned, we’re a volunteer-driven open source project, so if you want the Android app to keep improving, help our community or consider funding a certified developer to work on it. That way, everyone benefits – thanks!

Event report: Google Summer of Code presentation in Ankara, Turkey

The Google Summer of Code – aka GSoC – is a global programme focused on bringing more student developers into free and open source software development. In 2019, LibreOffice was once again a participating project, and we describe the results here.

Meanwhile, Muhammet Kara from the Turkish LibreOffice community gave a presentation about GSoC on November 8 at YILDIZ Amphitheater M2, Hacettepe University (Beytepe Campus), Ankara – here’s what he had to say:

There were around 40 attendees, mostly from the Computer Science department. The best part was that they were very excited, and asked many questions – and the event took almost two hours instead of the planned 40 minutes. Many of them seemed ‘sold’ at the idea of spending the next summer (or at least one summer, sometime) working on LibreOffice or another free/libre open source software (FLOSS) project, through GSoC.

I also tried to share my adventure as a FLOSS enthusiast, from a volunteer translator to a professional developer working as part of Collabora’s LibreOffice development team. And I am glad to say that they seemed inspired of the story. 🙂

This is an after-event tweet by Hacettepe University ACM Student Chapter, with photos. Oh, and be prepared to hear more from around here regarding LibreOffice/FLOSS activities in the upcoming days. We have more activities in the planning, and hope to share soon. 😉

Thanks to Muhammet and all the participants for their work! Everyone is welcome to join our community and help to improve LibreOffice – see what you can do to make a difference.

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