https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56289
--- Comment #5 from Marc Weber <[email protected]> --- >> "It has always been that way" This is not helpful to make new users like me (even if they are programmers!) understand how to run scripts. >> and then save the script and copy it to the Scripts subdirectory in either >> your LO user >> configuration directory or, for the case of a multi-user install, to the >> Scripts >> subdirectory of the main installation (with the correct permissions) Great - another thing you just have to know. Why not rename the directory "My Macros" to "$HOME/.libreoffice/...". Instantly you'll try to put .py files there then. No more need to lookup documentation at all. You have to learn a lot: 2a - connect via tcp/ip (which looked like a straight forward way to me - but I failed because I couldn't get the current document 2b - run within OO - then only XSCRIPTCONTEXT is available - which is that helpful because it has ".getDocument" I failed at 2a, I failed at 2b. I then started to use the Java way (which is horrible verbose). And then you still have to understand how to find and lookup the api - which is easy easy enough once you get it. This page can be found very easily: http://api.libreoffice.org/ Then the next thing I did was following "examples" -> "python". Its hard to understand because the page has all kind of content (python/C++/..) and then you find a complicated sample you may not be interested in - without any advice how to actually make it work. Eg there is a README: http://api.libreoffice.org/examples/python/toolpanel/readme but it does not tell you "how it should be installed". That's again the "it has always been that way" thing - either you know or you don't. Maybe this is only a "documentation" bug - but a very searious one - which has taken a lot of my time - that much that I got the feeling I would have been done in 10min using Microsoft Excel - but looking this information up (and still failing) took many hours. And that in turn causes a feeling in me that using OpenOffice for business would be a wrong choice - and I don't want to feel that way. How should it be? Don't gray the buttons, make people click them even if the action is only a message box: "This feature is not available yet. see wiki page http://.... to understand how to write and use python scripts automating libreoffice work" And the user experience will turn from "Damn - I should try other tools. This just looks so incomplete" to "hey, thanks. I know what to do to get my job done now." Maybe the page exists telling me how to use python. api.libreoffice.org looks very official to me - and didn't tell me in reasonable time. If it was me failing to click on the best link - tell me what page to open, please. That's why I think this is a serious bug preventing users from doing useful things with open source software. I agree that if you try hard enough you may find appropriate sources of knowledge. The official page should be the one telling you, though. Even searching for libre office and wiki doesn't show up something useful in time. So which is the best way to improve this? Does libreoffice already has a wiki which could be pointed to on api.libreoffice.org to make people learn about how to get started? Questions like "How does idl compare with Java API, are they all the same exactly?" should be answered on a wiki. Even if you know a bit of all: C++/Java/python you don't know how which way to get started. I hope that this message helps you understand what is hard for people who don't know yet how to use OO macros. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
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