https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88585

--- Comment #7 from MBB <[email protected]> ---
I have done some more research, covering the following topics

- Dictionary sync Work-around
– Found existing Dictionary in/export
– Demand for the sync feature in LO or other FOSS
– Third-party sync
- Third-party Spell check dictionaries
- Conclusion

Link to User Profile Wiki: 
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/UserProfile#User_profile_content

Dictionary sync work-around. 
On AskLibreOffice, a workaround is posted on how to change the storage location
of your dictionaries to a synced directory. 
On the internet, some hack attempts are available on how to use system-links to
do the same. 
As dictionaries are only written away when closing, it may lead to data loss
when using two connected LO programs at the same time. 
Doing this with the entire profile directories does sound like a recipe for
disaster. 
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/20232/sync-custom-dictionaries-across-many-computers/

Found existing Dictionary in/export
I found a macro script by Russ Phillips from 2004 for OO that is still
compatible (LO 5.0.1.2), and could be used as example. 
I think the licence allows for hosting on the plug-in page, and to rework it
into a macro. I am not sure if it allows to be used in the main code. 
It ADDS all words from a text file to a chosen dictionary, and can export
(REPLACE) a dictionary to a text file. So it can not be used to sync the
removal of words. 
On import, no double words are added. Words with different capitalisation are
added

Link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooomacros/files/Import_Export%20Dictionary%20Words/
Added macro and file as attachment. 

Licence from the file: 
“Licence Copyright (c) 2004 Russ Phillips
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sub license, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following conditions: 
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.” 


Is Syncing a much wanted feature in?

Is Syncing a much wanted feature for LibreOffice or other FOSS software?
Apparently not. 

A quick google on"LibreOffice export settings" and "LibreOffice synchronize
settings" gives a 200.000 hits, but only 3 or 4 on the first page seem
relevant. 

Similar searches on OpenOffice and Gimp gave even lower hits. 

A search of "OpenOffice export dictionary" gives 3 pages with more or less
relevant hits.
A search for ' Sync” on AskLibreOffice gives about 4 tot 5 hits. 


Third-party sync

Reversely; you could try to find a third-party tool that exports LO's settings,
and imports them elsewhere. Probably not going to be cross-platform.
For Windows you could modify SaveGameBackup, which is under GPL2
http://sourceforge.net/projects/savegamebackup/
(unfortunately it's homepage seems to have closed down in 2012, and you'll need
to use the Wayback Machine to read the forums :-(

For the end-user this sort of system it would be easy to have just one system
(FOSS) program to select all settings of all (FOSS?) programs to sync with only
one server. It could have plug ins/scripts for LO, AOO, Firefox, Gimp, Digikam,
etc. 
It would also make them independent from Google, Microsoft and Apple to choose
their own sync server.

However, it would probably need a lot of continued development to keep it
compatible with ALL updates on ALL platforms. 
So having LO handle it's own import/export/sync is probably more realistic. 

Third-party spell check dictionaries. 
Once it works it might be nice to add functionality to synchronize with custom
dictionaries from other programs. However this is more difficult as they may
need words that are not in that programs normal dictionaries but are in
LibreOffice standard dictionaries. Or reverse. 
For completeness, I have looked up some dictionary locations
Firefox: %AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxx.default\persdict.dat (plain
text)
MS Word: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Proof\custom.dic (txt)
or \Uproof\custom.dic
Opera (old?) profile\dictionaries\en.oow     - Do not use notepad (unix/mac End
of Line problems) 


Conclusion
Dispite the lack of demand for it so far, it does feel as a feature that will
be needed to integrate the desktop versions with the Android and Cloud profiles
of users. 
It could also encourage the exchange of Custom dictionaries for specialized
fields. 
It would also guaranty independence from sharing your sync settings from
proprietary vendors as Microsoft and Google from accessing your settings,
although settings are not all that secret. 

The best way still seems to re-use the Mozilla/Firefox sync, as it overlaps
with some already re-used code and has an independent free server. 
It might be written in a way to allow syncing of both LO and FF, and in the
future plug ins for other (FOSS) programs. 
(Such multi-foss sync server program for it can be hosted by the Document
Foundation or by Mozilla, )

The lowest barrier of implementing would be using files stored on existing file
sync servers  (dropbox et) accessible by the OS or by LO's new Sync Storage
interface. 

Further studies for commercialization by LO providers or third parties to host
specialized sync servers can be done.

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