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Author: Mike Saunders

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.

Community Member Monday: Celia Palacios

Today we’re talking to Celia Palacios, who has recently become a member of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice:

To start, tell us a bit about yourself!

I am a Mexican old-guard user of Linux since 2001. I studied Electronic Engineering, and I have been working in thatfield since 1989. I learnt all sorts of Linux stuff because I love to learn by myself. In addition, I love to read historical detective novels, lots of science fiction, and go to the movies with my husband.

I love philosophy, symbolism and many alternative ideas about everything. I also like to have long, friendly debates about everybody’s presumptions (or assumptions?). I try to be open-minded, specially in this times when everyone’s getting polarized Mexico about our President. I used to be an athletic gal, but now I am a total coach-potato! Thanks, Netflix!

Why did you decide to become a member of TDF?

Because LibreOffice is one the leaders in free/libre software, and it is a real example of a community with many faces and one heart. And also because people in the Spanish LibreOffice Telegram channel are so intelligent, bright, open and charming: many of them working truly to help others. That moved me deeply.

What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?

I am helping the Spanish documentation team. I have an idea of asking university students to help us finish the first-steps guides. If we succeed, we will have an updated introductory guide, which is really needed in Spanish.

Anything else you plan to do in the future?

It is too early to answer that without saying “in the regular places”. But it is in my plans to update every module’s guide in Spanish. And also some advanced guides/tutorials, with practical cases, for Calc and Base, specially to equal the outcomes that Microsoft Excel’s Power Business Intelligence is achieving.

Thanks to Celia for all her help and input! If you’re reading this and also want to join our friendly community, see here to get started (or visit the Spanish page). And if you’re already active in the LibreOffice project, consider becoming a member, so you can vote for TDF’s Board of Directors and help to make other important decisions:

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Four more videos from the auditorium at LibreOffice Conference 2019

We’ve uploaded some more videos from our recent LibreOffice Conference 2019 in Almeria, Spain! First up, “Databases in LibreOffice” with Tamás Bunth:

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Next, “Scripting LibreOffice Python macros” with Alain Romedenne:

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“Custom Widget Themes” with Tomaž Vajngerl:

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And the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) panel:

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Starting today: The Month of LibreOffice, November 2019 – get cool swag!

Thanks to our worldwide community of developers and supporters, every release of LibreOffice includes new features, bugfixes, compatibility boosts, translations, and other improvements. This month, we want to say a big thanks to everyone who helps out – and encourage more people to join our friendly community as well! So how are we going to do this?

Well, everyone who contributes can claim an awesome sticker pack at the end of the month:

And even better, we’ll also choose 10 contributors at random to receive an exclusive glass LibreOffice mug – there aren’t many of these in the wild:

How to take part

So, let’s get started! There are many ways you can help out – and you don’t need to be a developer. For instance, 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.

So there’s plenty to do! As the contributions come in, we’ll be updating this page every day with usernames. So dive in, get involved and help make LibreOffice better for millions of people around the world – and enjoy your sticker as thanks from us. We’ll be posting regular updates on this blog and our Mastodon and Twitter accounts over the next four weeks!

LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2019: The results

This year, LibreOffice was once again a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) a global programme focused on bringing more student developers into free and open source software development. We ran six projects – and all were finished successfully. Both students and mentors enjoyed the time, and here we present some of the achievements, which should make their way into LibreOffice 6.4 in early February!

Generating QR Codes in LibreOffice – by Shubham Goyal

The ability to print and display hyperlinks as quick response (QR) codes has been requested for many years (bug 62168), and eventually Shubham Goyal implemented this feature. You can insert a QR code at the current cursor position or the table cell per Insert > Object > QR Code… or edit the inserted object with the context menu. Learn more in the final report.

NotebookBar improvements – by Sumit Chauhan

LibreOffice introduced the optional NotebookBar user interface in version 6.2. Now, thanks to Sumit, users can customise the NotebookBar by changing the visibility of buttons, as shown here:

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Users will be able to access this dialog from the menu: Tools > Customize, then go to the NotebookBar tab. Sumit explains some of the technical work behind this on his blog.

Another project Sumit worked on is extension support, which allows users to add extensions in the NotebookBar. There is an extension tab in all the NotebookBar interfaces where the added extension will be available (technical details here).

LibreOffice for Android (Online) – by Kaishu Sahu

In the last few years, LibreOffice for Android was lagging behind development of LibreOffice Online, because all the new features had to be re-implemented in Java. This year, a new approach to the LibreOffice Android app took place, reusing the Online work directly in the app. Kaishu Sahu’s code was important part of this effort – he has implemented features like inserting images, slideshows, save as, printing, sharing a document, dimming when inactive, and more.

Implement Chart Styles – by Gagandeep Singh

Previously, all chart formatting was directly applied. Chart styles allow users to quickly apply the same formatting presets to different charts and therefore make it easier to change them.

Wrapping up

Many thanks to all students who spent their summer time improving LibreOffice. You are awesome! And special thanks also to the mentors who always put some much love and energy into these tasks. That‘s what makes LibreOffice rock.

Now we are looking forward to next year’s GsoC. If you are interested, why not prepare early? Learn more at out wiki page where some ideas are listed.

LibreOffice monthly recap: October 2019

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more!

  • We kicked off the month by interviewing Ilmari Lauhakangas, aka Buovjaga, who has joined the TDF team in Development Marketing. Ilmari is a long-time member of the LibreOffice community, and has been especially active in the QA project.

  • Then we announced the LibreOffice 10/20 Logo Community Contest. The year 2020 will be the 20th anniversary of the free office suite (OpenOffice.org was announced on July 19, 2000) and the 10th anniversary of LibreOffice (announced on September 28, 2010). So to celebrate, we want a special logo for presentations, events and swag – and you can help out! See the blog post for more details…

  • Meanwhile, throughout the month we edited and uploaded more presentation videos from the LibreOffice Conference 2019 in Almeria, Spain. Check out the playlist below – use the button at the top to switch between videos. There are currently 44 presentations to explore, and some more to come! (For better audio, use headphones.)

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  • On October 12, The Document Foundation supported the International Day Against DRM 2019. Digital Restrictions Management is the practice of imposing technological restrictions that control what users can do with digital media – and “Defective by Design” is a broad-based anti-DRM campaign that is targeting Big Media, unhelpful manufacturers and DRM distributors.

  • Later in the month, we had the first Bug Hunting Session for LibreOffice 6.4 (which is due to be released in February 2020). All LibreOffice users with some technical knowledge are invited to join future Bug Hunting Sessions, report any issues they find, and help to make LibreOffice 6.4 a rock-solid release!

  • Also coming up in February next year is FOSDEM, the biggest European meetup of free and open source software developers. We announced the Open Document Editors DevRoom Call for Papers, so if you want to talk about topics such as code, extensions, localization, QA, UX, tools and adoption-related cases, submit a talk (deadline is Saturday, November 30, 2019).

  • On October 17, we announced LibreOffice 6.2.8, the last version in the LibreOffice 6.2 family. All users of LibreOffice 6.2.x versions should update immediately for enhanced security, and be prepared to upgrade to LibreOffice 6.3.4 as soon as it becomes available in December.

  • If you’re a macOS users and have updated to the latest macOS release (10.5, aka Catalina), and you’re having issues running LibreOffice, check out our help page. Typical messages are “macOS cannot verify the developer of LibreOffice.app”, or “LibreOffice.app was blocked from use because it is not from an identified developer” – we show you how to fix them and have LibreOffice running smoothly as usual!

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Keep in touch – follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Mastodon. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join us and help to make LibreOffice even better!

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