Bug-Report

Hi LibreOffice Team.

Sorry for a bug report this way, but at the moment I don't have the means to do 
it via bugzilla - but and I thought you might still like to get the feedback.

I just installed Libre 4.0 on a Windows 7 professional system, English, that 
has been running 3.6.4 for some while (exclusively using Writer via noa-libre 
from another application).

***********************************************************************

(a) Class annoying bug:
The installer of 4.0 removed the 3.6 installation; and if I don't err without 
asking nor with any options to (un)check.

(Standard installer for Windows from main page on website found by Firefox, 
probably German version of LibreOffice.)

This may be fine within a major version number, but if it also changes 
installation directories, it's not so fine any more. Other things might point 
to the old version, and that means into Nirvana right afterwards. I would also 
have liked to have both versions in parallel, especially, as they use two 
different directory trees.

***********************************************************************

(b) Class show-stopper, plus really serious problem:
As a normal user, starting Writer 4.0, and opening the document that I wanted 
to try 4.0 with - a file with ca. 100+ form elements, plus some macro code, 
that was made with OpenOffice 2.9x and early 3.x (before the Apache/Libre 
story) and worked fine - would, after some 1:30 min:sec, completely crash the 
system.

I mean: Bluescreen. Crash. Boom. Bang. No fun.

OK, I you may ask: What kind of "operating system" should let itself get 
crashed like that by an application, started by a user? Your point. So maybe I 
wasn't exactly using an "operating system" at that moment.

But on the other hand: In the world of Microsoft Windows, it was years ago that 
I had the impression, that installing an Office Suite - actually the one from 
Microsoft, back then, would introduce changes so deeply inside the "system" 
that the whole machine could become less stable. Actually, this was so much the 
case that I still am reluctant to install a rather modern MS Office on modern 
Windows systems - even though that much concern may not be warranted any more 
for their products.

Now, Open/LibreOffice should definitely *not* step in *these* shoes!

And if my memory does not betray me, I have never experienced such a thing with 
OpenOffice (and I belong to the people who actually *bought* licenses of 
StarOffice when they were still expensive) - just until I tried Apache 3.4.1 a 
few weeks ago on this same machine.

I learnt that their online updater might have a flaw. Still, I immediately 
deinstalled it again, because, in their case, on the first attempt, the 
installer would crash, and on the second attempt, opening that said file with 
their Writer would crash the system.

Now, the same macroscopic appearance when I opened the file with your Libre 4.0 
writer. I de-installed it - and I'm just re-installing 3.6.5, to replace the 
3.6.4 I had before.

I won't continue testing 4.0 at this point, because I don't trust an "operating 
system" that gets crashed by user applications sufficiently to deliberately 
provoke such crashes...

I still am confident that this crash *would* be reproducible. The fact that it 
looked like back then in Apache 3.4.1, and the expectation that you do exchange 
code would underly that assumption.

BTW, I did install only the Writer, Calc, Draw, Math components, NOT the 
online-updater, fast-start, and from the extensions, only the PDF-Importer, 
none of the others. (For Apache 3.4.1, I had installed all components IIRC, but 
actually, I don't want to use them).

***********************************************************************

(c) For all versions of LibreOffice I ever tried, including at least, but 
possibly not limited to 3.3.4, 3.5.6, 3.6.2, 3.6.4, 4.0:

Said Writer document with the many form elements and code takes some 1:45 ... 
5:30, maybe even more, on fast i5 or i7 systems to open. And is very slow to 
use.
(Normal documents are opened in maybe 1..10 seconds on the same system, even 
when the office program is not in memory yet.)

The same document worked flawlessly - i.e.: fast - on OpenOffice 2.95, 3.x and 
it still opened similarly fast in the first ApacheOpenOffice versions (from 
where I switched to Libre when their development processes seemed stalled, and 
Libre showed a nice layout plus earned preference after I reviewed your 
histories).

It would be very kind, if you could also review what might take so utterly long 
when a file with some 100 form elements (radiobuttons, checkboxes, plain text 
entry boxes) and macros is opened/redrawn. I am very sure that something must 
have gone wrong in Libre very early with this respect.

Here, if you like, I can provide stripped down version of my document at least, 
if you need it - given a few days time. I'm sad I cannot spend much time in 
tracking the issue down myself, have too many open ones (or would have done it 
already over the last months).

And mind you: The difference between Libre, and the preceding OpenOffice is not 
something like +10%, but... maybe: 10..50 *times* slower.

The same behaviour remains if I re-save the writer form with the same, or 
several different file formats,
but that measurement point may actually not be too meaningfull, because...

***********************************************************************

(d) Not important too me, but certainly a large area of possible improvement:
In my tests, for that specific form: What LibreOffice 3.6.x even will have 
before writing in most alternative formats, and show after re-opening, will not 
have much resemblance with each other. Actually, many elements would be 
missing, dysfunctional, or the layout severely hamperd.

So you might wish to check how form elements pass thru writing/re-reading an 
*.odt file in(to) various other file formats.

Maybe improvements for (c) and (d) could be found at the same time. :-)

***********************************************************************

(e) On another system, Libre 4.0 would break the functionality of a noa-libre 
based other application that would work with 3.6.4.
So, Libre 4.0 could not be used as a 3.6.4 replacement, even if it wouldn't 
have crashed my test system.

Actually, the interface could be configured and recognized (which means that 
some elements of the interface would work), but when a document should be 
opened, the resulting frame would stay empty (at least for the few times I 
tested, for the duration I wanted to wait).

I'll be looking for possible noa-libre updates and their integration into my 
app before elaborating any further on this.

***********************************************************************

Still, thank you very much for your continued work. And - your website looks 
impressively professionally made.

Just one point: Please don't let "marketing" get the lead on the website. Why 
not place some link to a simple feedback form (w/o registration) on the first 
page?

Sorry again for this large e-mail-only problem feedback, and for combining 4 
issues. You're welcome to contact me if you have additional questions. My 
resources are extremely limited, but I would try to reply, and as I said, 
prepare a test document file *if* you indicate you can actually use that for 
anything.

Thank you for your work, and for your mere reading this input of mine!

Good luck + Kind regards, Joerg

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Dr. med. Jörg M. Sigle                              +41-76-276-8694
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