Florians Mind

Kotlin SI-GUI – Incompatible changes

Florian Reisinger — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 06:01:04 +0000

Hi,

From now on you need the newest updater JAR. I hate that this happened… Updater download

Bottom line: The main application is no longer a ZIP, which needs to be extracted. From now one it is a JAR file, which can be started by a double click…. Therefore the updater procedure had to be changed.

I am sorry for this change, but I am quite sure that should not happen too often ( I do not want to say “should not happen again”, but I would not know a reason to change that again…)

Kotlin SI-GUI – A quick update

Florian Reisinger — Thu, 03 May 2018 05:41:19 +0000

It’s about time for a quick update

Firstly, as the initial issues are resolved there won’t be any updates for the traditional SI-GUI anymore (I may add a hint to the new version after some time)

Regarding my questions in Kotlin re-implementaion of SI-GUI:

Changing the root folder should not be needed, therefore I hid it. It was not easy as either one used this feature a lot or not at all….
Default folders in Java are very difficult. I tried to guess the Desktop folder – but that honestly is not more than a guess…. For downloading and installing temp folders are used. This will work, however, this might be unexpected. Have a look at the options
Hardcoding anything is a bad idea. Therefore the current implementation fetches the list of available languages from here. 6.0.4.1 at the moment. So new helppack languages are sadly only included, if they are found here. I hope that this a good limitation.
The Bootstrap.ini file will always be modified
Linux version IS possible, but not supported at the moment
There is a early version of an Android build: CLICK ME

There are 2 things I want to task about in the rest of this post, the desktop UI and the Linux support.

I made an update to the desktop UI (and speed improvements on certain operations). Please give it a try DOWNLOAD. I do not know if the new color scheme causes eye cancer….

Linux support

I do not have a Linux VM at the moment. Therefore I cannot test / validate if what I wrote is correct (and besides of that I would have extreme problems to troubleshoot everything.

There does exist an instruction here. I hope I find a volunteer, which helps me out and creates a script which does the following:

Defines 2-4 variables: 1-3 files (MAIN, HP, SDK) and the target folder
- For the script one of those files e.g. only MAIN would be enough as the rest is just copy and paste
Implement the instructions, so that the file(s) will be installed in the folder. The target folder should be created if it does not exist yet.
If possible absolute paths should be used
Temporary files should be deleted afterwards
If possible there should be a short console output (“Starting installation”, “Extracting files”,”Cleanup”,”Done!” or similar), so that the user gets an idea about the process
LibreOffice should be installed in a way that the “program” folder within LibreOffice is a direct child of the defined install location in the first step

That’s about what’s missing for Linux support. Startup / downloading files should work by now. Especially Linux users: Please keep in mind that the desktop app uses JavaFX, which is bundled in Oracle JDKs, but has to be installed seperatly for openjdk. (Soon that will be also true for Oracle JDKs…). “OpenJfx” should be the package name you are looking for,

PS: The icons are temporary, Andreas Kainz might create a better looking icon soon.

Please say hello to the new SI-GUI

Florian Reisinger — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:23:31 +0000

Hello everyone,

With this post the original C# version is being deprecated. In this post “Kotlin SI-GUI” (Separate Installation GUI in Kotlin) will be introduced.

For Windows the basic functionality should work.

This excludes:

Bering able to start *.exe files
A good error message when trying to parallel install *.exe files
Window icons are missing ATM

Without further ado I present the new GUI (which not necessarily means that it is better looking)

Biggest features compared to the old version:

List of thinderboxes does not need to be maintained
Downloads are grouped by architecture
- In a future Linux version:
  - DEB 32
  - DEB 64
  - RPM 32
  - RPM 64

Additionally after clicking “start download” you get a nice Window where you can select which files you want to download. I chose “bo” as my helppack language and a 64 bit build.

Settings is also improved.

The list of helppack languages is not hard coded either (looking at /latest build from archive BTW).

Download types for Windows are: EXE, 32-bit and 64-bit. If you are only interested in a subset of these types, you can choose it. This will be considered for the next update.

And by the way, shortcuts can not only be created on the desktop By default the download and installation folder are temporary locations, the desktop folder is only guessed. So please review these settings!

Some minor functionalities are still missing, but it is pretty usable for testing MSI builds.

You can download Kotlin SI GUI here. (You download an updater app. This updater app will download the latest version of Kotlin SI-GUI. The current version of the updater does not display the download progress, so please be patient on first installation). Java 8 required!

If you have feedback regarding the UI, please comment!

Kotlin re-implementaion of SI-GUI

Florian Reisinger — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:19:54 +0000

Hi,

Just a few questions I would be interested to hear am answer.

How often do you change the root folder for your parallel installations? (How often do you change the folder right beneath the “should subfolders be created automatically”?)
What should be the default folder for the above option? (Empty not allowed)
Do you need a list of available helppack languages? Would it be acceptable to connect to the internet for fetching the possible helppack language or do you prepare it hardcore.
Do you need the option not to touch bootstrap.ini file?
Would you like to have a Linux version?
Do you want an Android version (parallel installation does not work on Android, it c only be used to download APKs and offer them to be installed)
Yes duplicate.. please don’t answer! Would you be using it on Linux as well?

Thank you for your feedback! Repository of the re-implementaion!

SI-GUI statistics

Florian Reisinger — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 09:41:46 +0000

Hi,

I have not talked mich about SI-GUI statistics lately so here some numbers

Since logging every action (this can be turned off)…

6990 parallel installation have been started (and 6022 of them finished successfully)
6327 downloads have been started with 4833 fining their way in the download statistics [if someone has problem downloading LibreOffice, please tell me]
Most people use English (4338), French (1669), Spanish (1251) and German (1327)

There have been SI-GUI version with bugs in reporting, which could hint to the numbers are not 100% accurate (to low and not to high BTW)

I hope it is still useful for the 33 people, which used this tool in the last week. Do you think it will stay relevant when auto updating nightly builds are implemented?

Yours,

Florian

OOXML – Bug to bug compatibility needed to Word

Florian Reisinger — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 07:37:11 +0000

As you know I often publish things how good Microsoft office adheres to it’s own standard. It should be known that LibreOffice needs to produce non-conform OOXML (docx,xlsx etc.) files to be able to open files created with Microsoft Word. This time linking to the commit message of one of our developers as a proof … Continue reading →

LibreOffice can open XLSX files Excel cannot

Florian Reisinger — Thu, 18 May 2017 07:54:21 +0000

Just a quick heads up. I just created and saved an Excel file using Excel 2016, which cannot be opened again with it. Glad our swiss army knife LibreOffice can

It’s funny to see Excel can open the ODS I created using LibreOffice (as source I used the XLSX file) better than it’s “native” format….

Here is a short “proof” video: https://youtu.be/bM7UOkqQTqw

SI-GUI usage statistc + Github

Florian Reisinger — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 09:12:06 +0000

Just 2 small hints:

A new usage statistic is available here.

And anyone with a GitHub account can change the list, which is used for the “Update list of versions” feature.

Yours,

Florian

OOXML Strict and MS Office 2010

Florian Reisinger — Sun, 01 May 2016 08:36:58 +0000

One of the benefits of being a student is getting Office 365. I also have Office 2010 so that leaves me with bot Office 2010 and 2016.

Recently I tried to save a Excel file in OOXML Strict and confront my 2010 edition Excel with it.

This file has been created with a newer version of MS Excel – For opening this file you need a converter. Would you like to download it from Office.com?

The hilarious thing is the following image:

Source: https://blogs.office.com/2012/08/13/new-file-format-options-in-the-new-office/

So my Office 2010 should be able to open the Strict OOXml without problems (with this some month old file it actually does). But why is Microsoft frightening the enduser? The best thing is the linked page (from the dialog in the first picture) “Support for Office 2003 has ended“. If you need the converter, it can be found here. UPDATE:Removed link as it broke my Office 2016!!!!

And finally the sentence you were waiting for: Waaait, Office 2010 can open the OOXML strict standard, but not the file saved with Office 2016 with “OOXML strict”. So the “OOXML strict” is not Standard (or there is a biiig bug in Office 2010, which prevents interoperability)…..

2015 im Rückblick

Florian Reisinger — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 06:42:31 +0000

Die WordPress.com-Statistik-Elfen haben einen Jahresbericht 2015 für dieses Blog erstellt.

Hier ist ein Auszug:

Ein New York City U-Bahnzug fasst 1.200 Menschen. Dieses Blog wurde in 2015 etwa 5.400 mal besucht. Um die gleiche Anzahl von Personen mit einem New York City U-Bahnzug zu befördern wären etwa 5 Fahrten nötig.

Klicke hier um den vollständigen Bericht zu sehen.

Original SI-GUI has new master locations

Florian Reisinger — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 07:39:17 +0000

Hi,

Just updated the master urls. Hit the “Update List of versions” button to get it and start testing

Java SI GUI Snapshot 4

Florian Reisinger — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 08:25:58 +0000

You can grab the pre-release from here: GITHUB

If you don’t want to miss the best deal in 2015, put one of smartphones in your bucket list. World Mode LTE, Octa core CPU, 3GB RAM etc. Check out Elephone here: www.elephone.hk

Florian Reisinger — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 19:11:25 +0000

If you don’t want to miss the best deal in 2015, put one of smartphones in your bucket list. World Mode LTE, Octa core CPU, 3GB RAM etc. Check out Elephone here: www.elephone.hk.

Florian Reisinger — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 08:14:02 +0000

Hi,

Just seconds ago I finished the download tab. sorry, that it is in Germann but I guess you see the progress

Java SI GUI UI

Florian Reisinger — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 17:59:15 +0000

Hi,

Started to develop the UI today That is todays work. First part is to have all the settings I need and a UI for that, then download, then manager and then installer. Hope you like it

PS: The UI (should theoretically [REFERENCE] be style-able via CSS). Hope it does not look to awful yet

Todays work

P8000 review

Florian Reisinger — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 19:33:31 +0000

Hi,

I made a live-blog for this event: https://www.24liveblog.com/live/1296841

I want to try this service, so I keep monitoring this site from now on

PS: I bought the phone from: http://www.elephone.cc/elephone-p8000.html

Java SI-GUI -> Downloading works

Florian Reisinger — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 07:33:51 +0000

Hi,

Just a small update: Downloading works now –> PASTEBIN (Do not worry, this is not the final UI )

I am still thinking whether to code the UI in JavaFX or Swing. Anyway, I am thinking of a tabbed UI

“Download” –> Downloading
“Install” –> Installation
“Manage” –> Create shortcuts & delete installations (on Windows a “Try to fix problems” (which installs the MS C++ redistributables shipped with the current version). I think IN VERY FUTURE VERSIONS Jay’s cleanup script would be nice to implement
“Settings” –> Obvious I guess

This should simplify everything a bit

Survey – Help improve SI-GUI

Florian Reisinger — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 08:03:27 +0000

Hi,

Today some polls. Keep in mind you can choose every download from the archive, every Thinderbox and stable/testing/pre-release builds. So not totally the current situation, but close to

As someone said, that SI-GUI has too much options, please answer which of those you want to have included.

I put a description in the brackets, which is an automatic behavior most of the time or something gets explained in more detail

Thanks for giving me some insight

SI GUI Java – Archive Downloads

Florian Reisinger — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:13:06 +0000

Hi,

So this time all the available daily and archive dowloads (on page 2, there are 707!)

First step towards a better download detection

Florian Reisinger — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 09:00:47 +0000

As you can see, Java SI-GUI will be able to detect all active thinderboxes automatically.

*active -> Having a downloadable file in the “current” folder. Just a small step, but progress [Detection needs under 1 second]

I am not inactive ;) — SI GUI v5

Florian Reisinger — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 12:57:38 +0000

Hi,

Today I released v5 of SI-GUI. It adds support for 64-bit Windows builds (watch out, they are extreamly rare )

BTW: SI-GUI won’t get new features any more. I keep it to bugfixing as… well… It basically was my first program and it looks like that ;). If I had time I would really like to look into a Java version of SI-GUI…. But apparently no time…. Or not enough

If it is really wanted I could invest some time in late Septemebr / October.

Anyone interested on a redesigned SI-GUI or are you ok with this one?

SI GUI is ready for the Bugzilla migration

Florian Reisinger — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 09:37:29 +0000

Hi,

So, version 4.4.0.7 is ready for our bugzilla migration. Now this project uses TDF.io – The url shortener of the TDF for all URLs, so I am going to change the URL leading to bugzilla on the day, or no later then one day after the migration.

BTW: The URL is http://tdf.io/siguibug.

Thanks for using SI-GUI

2014 im Rückblick

Florian Reisinger — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:05:57 +0000

Sorry for the German. This is automatically generated by wordpress.com. Sorry for publishing only 9 posts in 2014…

Die WordPress.com-Statistik-Elfen haben einen Jahresbericht 2014 für dieses Blog erstellt.

Hier ist ein Auszug:

Die Konzerthalle im Sydney Opernhaus fasst 2.700 Personen. Dieses Blog wurde in 2014 etwa 9.200 mal besucht. Wenn es ein Konzert im Sydney Opernhaus wäre, würde es etwa 3 ausverkaufte Aufführungen benötigen um so viele Besucher zu haben, wie dieses Blog.

Klicke hier um den vollständigen Bericht zu sehen.

SI GUI got SI GUI

Florian Reisinger — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 15:57:48 +0000

Hello everyone,

I am neither dead not did I abandon LibreOffice :). I simply lacking time. Anyway SI-GUI just got SI-GUI. So “LibreOffice Server Install GUI” (which I guess was against 3rd party tools branding guideline) got “Separate Install GUI” (Thanks for the name BTW ). It has the same bugs (and maybe due to the name change a bit more).

I admit I try to monetize SI GUI a bit, in the sidebar of my blog you can find links to my Amazon wish list or a direct link to gift cards. On the download page as well as on the sidebar there is a “paypal donate” button. Feel free to use them (Paypal has a quite high fee). This software will ever be free and I will continue to support it in the future, no matter if you use them or not.

Thanks for not closing the page up to now, here is one last thing. Close before Christmas I collected the stats for SI-GUI again: LINK

This blog post and the changes @ SI-GUI have been planned to go live before Christmas, but thanks to university I did not find time.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORLD ABOUT THIS

I managed to get the update working, but it installs as a “new” program. So please manually uninstall

“Seperate Install GUI” (Spelling error – Sorry)
“Server Install GUI” (After updating to “Separate Install GUI”)
And any version which has a ([NUMBER]) in it (like “Server Install GUI (2)”)

It does not harm, if you keep using this, but they won’t get updated. So “Separate Install GUI” (as seen in the following screenshot) is the “future” version of SI-GUI

I am looking forward to see your comments. I will publlish the changes to git after publishing this post

SI GUI – Now with SDK + Naming

Florian Reisinger — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 07:40:05 +0000

Hi all

So right before LibreOffice Conference I finished SI-GUI’s LibreOffice SDK support. You are now able to download the SDK and install it via the GUI.

Speaking of GUI, here it is:

Another thing where I need your help is the following:

Current icon

The name was always bad and it is time to find a better one, although this will break some links…. And with a name, we need 1 icon (I attached the current). So if you have an idea and an icon, that would be perfect. [This icon is available in 256×256,128×128,48×48,32×32,16×16]

I am happily looking forward to hear your ideas. Enjoy SI-GUI

BTW: Tell me if you are using it and whether you like it or not

SI-GUI hotfix release

Florian Reisinger — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 09:19:29 +0000

This is a hotfix release for the 4.3 has a problem saving your settings. What cannot be done in this version:

Abort downloads
Guess the name for shortcuts [You have to enter/ copy paste it manually]

Please do NOT report those. I try to fix them tomorrow!

I am sorry for the inconveniences! But with this build you should be able to continue doing an awesome job!

PS: As you see in this build, SDK integration in SI-GUI is on its way

Paypal donate button

Florian Reisinger — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:56:05 +0000

Hi,

I added a donate button today :). If you would like to give me a tip, feel free, but be sure this will never be a must. You do not get stuff done quicker by me of you donate. I will not push this to TDF-blog as those who search for the donate option will find it, and those who don’t should not be bothered [I do not push this on social media as well]

Yours,

Florian

Assertion errors – not only for devs

Florian Reisinger — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:19:05 +0000

Hi,

So one difficult topic now. In his post I will throw around with things like precondition and code, but I really try to keep it simple.

So, let us first introduce the example. A “Linked-List”. What you need to know (just valid for this tiny example):

No element –> NULL
“->” is the link between elements
No element is an element
A list starts at “head”, so head is just the link to the first element

Let’s have an example. These are valid lists

head->null
head->1->2->3->null

The length of 1) is ZERO, of 2) THREE. That is most of the coding skills you need

So, what are errors? You find them in LibreOffice as well as in all other software. It does not behave as expected, maybe resulting in a crash. That is quite obvious. You can have invalid or simply unexpected input. As you can see in the above example, we do not expect to add the element “null” at position 1 [between 1 and 2] Would result in head->1->null->2->3->null (again sorry to all developers, I need easy examples). So we are not allowed to add the element “null”, as this would result in changing the length of the list from 3 to 1, by adding one element. 3+1=1 okay, I guess that should not be like that…. So the code is a little bit inspired by Java, so sorry for the overhead


public void addElement(int position /*A number from -2147483648 to +214483647*/, IntElement e /*Also a number like in our example, but it can have a link to a different IntElement*/){
assert e != null && LENGTH_OF_LIST >= 0;
if(head == null) //If we have an empty list
INSERTFRONT //We do not need to much detail here
assert LENGTH_OF_LIST == 1; //== means equals
return; //Exit the function here
}
int oLength = LENGTH_OF_LIST;
assert position >= 0 AND position <= LENGTH_OF_LIST;
INSERT_MIDDLE_LAST //Insert at the rest of the list
assert LENGTH_OF_LIST == oLength +1; // If adding succeeded the new length must be 1 greater than the old one
}

You can see some line start with “assert”. This are developer’s magic little helpers.

A function in mathematics and informatics has 3 conditions:

Precondition –> How should the input should look like
Post-condition –> How should the output / result of the function should look like
Invariance–> What should be valid at the beginning and the end

Invariance

What should be at the beginning and at the end? The length must be >=0.

Precondition

The inserted element must not be NULL and the length of the list must be positive (So this includes the invariance as well)

Post-Condition

If the list is empty –> Length is 1 (this includes the invariance)
If the list is not empty the new length must be by one greater than the old length. (this includes the invariance as well)

So, did you get the need? You can assure yourself that the input and output of a function (and if you want steps inside) are correct. So you cannot get any unexpected result, if assertions are enabled. Assertions are disabled by default, because they slow down a bit, but in LibreOffice Daily build from tinderbox 39 (downloadable @ SI-GUI atm) assertions are enabled.

So finally, an example (I only realized they were enabled because of this message:

So at line 1291 of winlayout.cxx an assertion failed (while testing bug # 77248) That’s a starting point for devs. The error might be near there So yes, it makes sence to have assertions enabled and more to write them. If you write down how the output and the input should look like, everyone knows. You are turning implicit to explicit knowledge. And you will save hours to search for the place, where the error did occur. So please, and this is not limited to LibreOffice, have assertions enabled during testing!

And if you see such a dialog and remember the steps you did to come there, check if such a bug exists and comment with the exact version, or create a new bug. The exact version is needed, because this is the only way, that devs know on which version of the file they can find the failing assertion.

SI-GUI stats

Florian Reisinger — Sat, 31 May 2014 11:44:39 +0000

Hi,

So right after the bug-hunting session (ok, I am a bit late ) I pulled the statistics today, and I want to share with you 3 things [Statistic is available here]

It was global

Well, as far as I can tell from the SI-GUIstats it was a global success – with France as top nation, congrats Sophie and all the french QA team.

4.3 a1 is #2

I do not know why you downloaded 4.1.5.3 so often, but as of today alpha 1 of our next release is one of the most downloaded versions since we make the statistic

So, what do tester test? It’s great to see so many of you testing master and the test builds. This helps us to bring out a good “Fresh” branch (lb => latest branch). It is great to see you on the “Stable” branch as well (“ob” => Older branch) to catch anything there as well.

Yes, we do release some versions

Thanks for testing so many versions and helppacks :). You know, we always tell QA is not difficult so if you are on Windows, feel free to use SI-GUI, and please share your stats. It’s nice to see your product is used

DOCX is not pure XML

Florian Reisinger — Wed, 28 May 2014 13:02:00 +0000

Hi,

So one more bashing post against OOXML from a TDF member? I see it more as a reflection as I had to create a non-binary (do not say anything about binary formats to save important data) for a homework from my university. And I realized that I made the very same mistake, it is just easier to explain…..

Anyway I start with bashing The example I took is from here.










shapetype>











4, 15, 2, 10, 6, 15, 6, 4
False
3
3

So, do you find the mistake? What is not XML? It’s this line:

4, 15, 2, 10, 6, 15, 6, 4

So please keep that code fragment in mind…. I will continue with the story of my program. It is a sudoku program. (Wikipedia for Sudoku). What I want to achieve: A sudoku (for me, you can skip this it is not necessary) consists out of x boxes, where x is the total # of numbers. Each box of a sudoku has a height h and a width w. x = w*h. w and h naturally have to be natural numbers starting from inclusive 2. This also means you have to store the width and height, as you will need them (A box can have 12 numbers and a height of either 3 ,4 or 6). The following shows the final XML file for a sudoku,

 

33
6 0 0 0 1 0 5 0 0 
8 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 
0 0 0 0 6 0 0 2 0 
0 3 0 1 0 8 0 9 0 
1 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 4 
0 5 0 2 0 3 0 1 0 
0 7 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 
0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 6 
0 0 4 0 5 0 0 0 9

So, do you see the parallel between this file (or a row-element of it) and the docx file? Although it should not be too difficult to get a sudoku out of this, it is no real XML…. Why? Because a row in fact is application encoded. So

1 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 4

should in a perfect world be

I am quite sure, that you realized it in the sudoku context, that it should not be a big problem, but

 4, 15, 2, 10, 6, 15, 6, 4

And this could be 4 points x1,y1,x2,y2,x3,y3,x4,y4, but this would be a rect but no anchor. (As I really do not know what it is, but just want to give you an idea how tricky it could be ( means a “Test” property…): , , , .

Just before the end please have a look at this line

21600r21600,l21600,xe">

coordsize=”21600,21600″: Ok, let us just hope it is pixel or distance from some corner of the page….

But you cannot tell me, that this is not application encoded….. Do you have a clue what it should be? I guess it is a curve (You see the coordsize here again)

path="m,l,21600r21600,l21600,xe">

I have written two articles about Microsoft office, you may find the first here. As always your thoughts are very much appreciated