Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
On 11/09/2011 09:45 AM, Stephan Bergmann wrote: So, I think I will just introduce a new LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency after all. http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=8a993919377f0b602b7db88d1de6696b21a11cbf does that, see https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Extension_Development for details. Developers of products derived from LO beware: The value of the LO reference version (against which the actual values in such extension dependencies are compared) is taken from the /org.openoffice.Setup/Product/ooSetupVersionAboutBox configuration item (as that, unlike ooSetupVersion, contains all of major, minor, micro), which in turn obtains its value from the ABOUTBOXPRODUCTVERSION variable defined in instsetoo_native/util/openoffice.lst. If you change that value to no longer match the value for the underlying LO reference version, you need to adapt the code in desktop/deployment/misc/dp_dependencies.cxx accordingly. Stephan ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
Hi,
I am responding to the first message in this thread because it seems
to be relevant to Java-based extensions.
At 09:59 4-11-2011, Stephan Bergmann wrote:
Hi all,
As already mentioned briefly in my talk at LOCon, we need to make up
our mind how to handle LO extension dependencies.
Each .oxt extension can carry any number of dependencies, specifying
conditions that need to be met by the hosting LO installation for
the extension to be successfully deployable (see
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Dependencies).
This page links to
http://openoffice.org/extensions/description/2006, which returns an
ERROR 404, so even if an extension developer wanted to document more
detailed dependencies, they would not know what syntax or elements to
use in their description.xml file.
I was confronted with this problem just today because a new
Java-based extension cannot be installed on some Ubuntu systems even
though it installs without problems on Windows and some other Ubuntu systems.
The extension manager displayed the following error dialog:
(com.sun.star.deployment.DeploymentException) { { Message = An error
occurred while enabling: accessodf-addon.jar, Context =
(com.sun.star.uno.XInterface) @a403870 }, Cause = (any) {
(com.sun.star.registry.CannotRegisterImplementationException) {{
Message = , Context = (com.sun.star.uno.XInterface)} @0 } } } }
It turns out that this issue can be solved with
sudo apt-get install libreoffice-java-common
So I thought about how to document that dependency in
description.xml, but I couldn't ... (And libreoffice-java-common or
openoffice.org-java-common may be rather broad.)
Best regards,
Christophe
The mechanism was designed to allow for any number of fine-grained
dependency specifications (this extension requires availability of
com.sun.star.whatever.Service), but only a coarse-grained
OpenOffice.org-minimal-version ever got defined (and also a
maximal-version one). After all, it is hard (or at least tedious)
for extension developers to come up with a precise list of features
they depend on, which would be needed to specify a precise list of
fine-grained dependencies. A single minimal-version dependency
appeared so much easier to use.
The OpenOffice.org-minimal-version dependency worked fine as long as
OOo was the de-facto standard, with derivatives tracking OOo
development rather closely and producing new versions in sync with
upstream OOo. The minimal-version dependency's version value was to
be interpreted as the version of the underlying OOo reference
version, so even if a derivative used a different versioning scheme
everything worked out. An extension developed for one product could
also be deployed in a different one (at least in theory; of course
there are always minor glitches that spoil the picture).
Now, LO and OOo (now AOOo) are no longer in such close relation. LO
is heading towards its version 3.5 already while AOOo did not yet
publish its version 3.4, and new features are routinely added to LO
that are unlikely to be included into AOOo. This leads to the following items:
** How shall LO handle the OpenOffice.org-minimal-version dependency?
Strictly speaking, LO 3.4/3.5 should still check against an
OpenOffice.org-minimal-version value of 3.3, as that's the latest
available (A)OOo version. However, for LO 3.4, this check has
(probably accidentally) been changed to 3.4 (and with the current
code towards LO 3.5 it has yet again changed to 3.5). I would
argue to leave it at 3.4 for both LO 3.4 and LO 3.5. (For one, it
can obviously no longer be changed back to 3.3 for LO 3.4, and
changing it back to 3.3 for LO 3.5 would probably cause more
confusion than its worth. For another, semantically the check will
likely be more-or-less correct, matching the features an AOOo 3.4
will presumably come out with.) If no one objects, I will adapt LO
3.5 so that it still checks for 3.4, not 3.5.
In the future, when AOOo releases new versions after AOOo 3.4, we
would need to check whether it semantically makes sense for LO to
bump its OpenOffice.org-minimal-version check (i.e., whether the
features of that new AOOo version are also available in LO).
** How to specify dependencies for newly introduced LO features?
One option would be to add an additional LibreOffice-minimal-version
dependency. Another option would be to actually make use of
fine-grained dependencies and introduce them as needed (i.e.,
whenever an extension developer wants to make use of a new LO
feature, a corresponding dependency would have to be added).
The former has as pro its ease of use. The latter has as pro that
it shows a way out of the problems caused by
OpenOffice.org-minimal-version and for an opportunity of continued
sharing of extensions across products: If each extension only lists
the features it requires, regardless of any product's version
numbers, it
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
On 11/15/2011 01:39 PM, Christophe Strobbe wrote:
At 09:59 4-11-2011, Stephan Bergmann wrote:
Each .oxt extension can carry any number of dependencies, specifying
conditions that need to be met by the hosting LO installation for the
extension to be successfully deployable (see
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Dependencies).
This page links to http://openoffice.org/extensions/description/2006,
which returns an ERROR 404, so even if an extension developer wanted to
document more detailed dependencies, they would not know what syntax or
elements to use in their description.xml file.
http://openoffice.org/extensions/description/2006; is only used as an
XML namespace name on that page. URLs used as XML namespace names are
not generally expected to be dereferencable (and are often not). (That
the wiki software used for that page displays that string as a browsable
link appears to be an unfortunate mis-feature.)
The general syntax for dependencies within description.xml is described
on that page, in the second-last paragraph (that also contains the
mis-links). For the description of individual dependencies, follow the
link to
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Description_of_XML_Elements#Element_.2Fdescription.2Fdependencies
labelled XML description for description.xml in the See also section
at the bottom of the page. (And for the description of individual
dependencies relative to LO instead of OOo,
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Extension_Development
is the new starting point.)
I was confronted with this problem just today because a new Java-based
extension cannot be installed on some Ubuntu systems even though it
installs without problems on Windows and some other Ubuntu systems.
The extension manager displayed the following error dialog:
(com.sun.star.deployment.DeploymentException) { { Message = An error
occurred while enabling: accessodf-addon.jar, Context =
(com.sun.star.uno.XInterface) @a403870 }, Cause = (any) {
(com.sun.star.registry.CannotRegisterImplementationException) {{ Message
= , Context = (com.sun.star.uno.XInterface)} @0 } } } }
It turns out that this issue can be solved with
sudo apt-get install libreoffice-java-common
So I thought about how to document that dependency in description.xml,
but I couldn't ... (And libreoffice-java-common or
openoffice.org-java-common may be rather broad.)
Yes, extension dependencies are currently only able to express
dependencies on a complete LO installation. Dependencies that are not
fulfilled because only a subset of LO functionality is installed are not
supported. (And note that what those available subsets are is typically
also specific to each LO distribution, even if the optional module
structure in scp2 sets some common ground.)
Stephan
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Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
Hi Stephan, Thanks for the additional guidance. At 15:48 15-11-2011, Stephan Bergmann wrote: On 11/15/2011 01:39 PM, Christophe Strobbe wrote: At 09:59 4-11-2011, Stephan Bergmann wrote: Each .oxt extension can carry any number of dependencies, specifying conditions that need to be met by the hosting LO installation for the extension to be successfully deployable (see http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Dependencies). This page links to http://openoffice.org/extensions/description/2006, which returns an ERROR 404, so even if an extension developer wanted to document more detailed dependencies, they would not know what syntax or elements to use in their description.xml file. http://openoffice.org/extensions/description/2006; is only used as an XML namespace name on that page. URLs used as XML namespace names are not generally expected to be dereferencable (and are often not). (That the wiki software used for that page displays that string as a browsable link appears to be an unfortunate mis-feature.) Ah, yes. I was hoping to find some information on the Others item in the list of child elements at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Description_of_XML_Elements#Element_.2Fdescription.2Fdependencies. My hope got the better of my XML knowledge :-( The general syntax for dependencies within description.xml is described on that page, in the second-last paragraph (that also contains the mis-links). For the description of individual dependencies, follow the link to http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Description_of_XML_Elements#Element_.2Fdescription.2Fdependencies labelled XML description for description.xml in the See also section at the bottom of the page. (And for the description of individual dependencies relative to LO instead of OOo, https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Extension_Development is the new starting point.) I was confronted with this problem just today because a new Java-based extension cannot be installed on some Ubuntu systems even though it installs without problems on Windows and some other Ubuntu systems. The extension manager displayed the following error dialog: (...) It turns out that this issue can be solved with sudo apt-get install libreoffice-java-common So I thought about how to document that dependency in description.xml, but I couldn't ... (And libreoffice-java-common or openoffice.org-java-common may be rather broad.) Yes, extension dependencies are currently only able to express dependencies on a complete LO installation. Dependencies that are not fulfilled because only a subset of LO functionality is installed are not supported. (And note that what those available subsets are is typically also specific to each LO distribution, even if the optional module structure in scp2 sets some common ground.) OK. I have put a warning about sudo apt-get install libreoffice-java-common on the extension's download page. The error caused by the missing dependency was fairly serious; it caused my Ubuntu-inside-VirtualBox installation to completely freeze in some cases. Best regards, Christophe -- Christophe Strobbe K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD Research Group on Document Architectures Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442 B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee BELGIUM tel: +32 16 32 85 51 http://www.docarch.be/ Twitter: @RabelaisA11y --- Open source for accessibility: results from the AEGIS project www.aegis-project.eu --- Please don't invite me to Facebook, Quechup or other social networks. You may have agreed to their privacy policy, but I haven't. ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
On 11/15/2011 04:53 PM, Christophe Strobbe wrote: Ah, yes. I was hoping to find some information on the Others item in the list of child elements at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Extensions/Description_of_XML_Elements#Element_.2Fdescription.2Fdependencies. My hope got the better of my XML knowledge :-( How the information about dependencies is organized in the DevGuide is indeed not very user friendly... OK. I have put a warning about sudo apt-get install libreoffice-java-common on the extension's download page. The error caused by the missing dependency was fairly serious; it caused my Ubuntu-inside-VirtualBox installation to completely freeze in some cases. So it froze up when it displayed that inscrutable (com.sun.star.deployment.DeploymentException) ... dialog? Stephan ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
Hi Stephan, At 17:18 15-11-2011, Stephan Bergmann wrote: On 11/15/2011 04:53 PM, Christophe Strobbe wrote: (...) OK. I have put a warning about sudo apt-get install libreoffice-java-common on the extension's download page. The error caused by the missing dependency was fairly serious; it caused my Ubuntu-inside-VirtualBox installation to completely freeze in some cases. So it froze up when it displayed that inscrutable (com.sun.star.deployment.DeploymentException) ... dialog? Actually, the first times I tried to install the extension, I got an empty error dialog (I assumed it was an error dialog), and the system froze. More recently, I tried a more recent version of the extension, and this time I got the error dialog with the puzzling DeploymentException. I opened a command line and did ps -ax and killed one of the processes (I can't remember which one). However, this only worked because I had not wasted time copying the text in a text editor - which is what I did the first time. Apparently, it was important to kill the process that spawned the error dialog before it froze up the complete OS. This all happened in LibreOffice 3.3.4 [OOO330m19 (Build:401)] on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) inside VirtualBox. Best regards, Christophe -- Christophe Strobbe K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD Research Group on Document Architectures Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442 B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee BELGIUM tel: +32 16 32 85 51 http://www.docarch.be/ Twitter: @RabelaisA11y --- Open source for accessibility: results from the AEGIS project www.aegis-project.eu --- Please don't invite me to Facebook, Quechup or other social networks. You may have agreed to their privacy policy, but I haven't. ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
On 11/15/2011 05:33 PM, Christophe Strobbe wrote: Actually, the first times I tried to install the extension, I got an empty error dialog (I assumed it was an error dialog), and the system froze. More recently, I tried a more recent version of the extension, and this time I got the error dialog with the puzzling DeploymentException. I opened a command line and did ps -ax and killed one of the processes (I can't remember which one). However, this only worked because I had not wasted time copying the text in a text editor - which is what I did the first time. Apparently, it was important to kill the process that spawned the error dialog before it froze up the complete OS. This all happened in LibreOffice 3.3.4 [OOO330m19 (Build:401)] on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) inside VirtualBox. Cannot reproduce this with current master-towards-3.5 build on Fedora 15 x86_64: Built the active.oxt from desktop/test/deployment/active (that contains a Java component that needs active Java registration during extension deployment) and removed ure/share/java/ridl.jar from the LO installation set. Both soffice active.oxt and unopkg gui active.oxt display an error dialog but do not freeze. Stephan ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
Hi Stephan, So, I think I will just introduce a new LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency after all. I hand this subject in my mind for some time. Simply because I provide some extensions that now have a OpenOffice.org-minimal-version value and I was wondering how long that will last. a. I agree with your analyses that a simple solution is sufficient. b. Will it be necessary with the new LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency to have separate extensions for LibreOffice and OpenOffice or will that be optional? Cheers, -- - Cor - http://nl.libreoffice.org ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
On 11/10/2011 12:24 PM, Cor Nouws wrote: b. Will it be necessary with the new LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency to have separate extensions for LibreOffice and OpenOffice or will that be optional? As long as a given extension works fine with both LO and OOo, there's no need to add a LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency to the extension at all. An already existing OpenOffice.org-minimal-version (if one is needed at all) will still suffice. And when the extension uses features only available in LO (and thus needs a LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency), that extension will not work in OOo anyway. ;) Stephan ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
On 11/04/2011 01:33 PM, Eike Rathke wrote: On Friday, 2011-11-04 13:02:02 +0100, Thorsten Behrens wrote: I'd tend to give the fine-grained dependencies a try. That won't work in practice, unless those can be (semi-)automatically generated. Experience shows that all programmers are lazy, and seldomly go extra miles. Seconded, but some do, if it's achievable without a hyper-duper incomprehensible framework.. Would it be possible to have both, a simple version dependency, and if fine grained dependencies are present use those as well? Not sure if that's not starting to become overengineered, then. The past has shown that most extension writers (even including core developers from inside HH that would have benefited from short and direct communication channels) are rather happy with quick and dirty dependencies (in some cases, it even looks like they are simply copied over from some other extension blueprint), so---if both a coarse grained and fine grained dependencies were available---would probably only bother to use the coarse grained, anyway. Its true that this past experience looks counter to my enthusiasm to give the fine-grained dependencies a try---maybe I was too enthusiastic indeed. Its also true that some mechanism to mechanically compute fine-grained dependencies for a given extension would be helpful, but I'm not sure the work is worth it. (But volunteers are surely welcome!) The good thing about those dependencies is that we could in principle wait until some extension developer expresses demand for one, either fine or coarse grained, and only then implement it. Again in practice, however, that's not how it has turned out to work. Extension developers make use of the dependencies they find available and rarely bother to ask for additional ones. (And I don't blame them; this is surely tedious stuff where everybody is happy taking the easy way out.) So, I think I will just introduce a new LibreOffice-minimal-version dependency after all. Stephan ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
Stephan Bergmann wrote: As already mentioned briefly in my talk at LOCon, we need to make up our mind how to handle LO extension dependencies. Skipping most of this - I'd tend to give the fine-grained dependencies a try. That won't work in practice, unless those can be (semi-)automatically generated. Experience shows that all programmers are lazy, and seldomly go extra miles. Having a simple version string, and some volunteers testing uploaded extensions on the extension repo sounds much more workable - and useful in practice, since no syntactic compatibility one could come up with would ensure semantic equality... Cheers, -- Thorsten pgp8m7dzjiqVo.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
Hi, On Friday, 2011-11-04 13:02:02 +0100, Thorsten Behrens wrote: I'd tend to give the fine-grained dependencies a try. That won't work in practice, unless those can be (semi-)automatically generated. Experience shows that all programmers are lazy, and seldomly go extra miles. Seconded, but some do, if it's achievable without a hyper-duper incomprehensible framework.. Would it be possible to have both, a simple version dependency, and if fine grained dependencies are present use those as well? Eike -- LibreOffice Calc developer. Number formatter stricken i18n transpositionizer. GnuPG key 0x293C05FD : 997A 4C60 CE41 0149 0DB3 9E96 2F1A D073 293C 05FD pgpnxb0QokUGv.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
Re: [Libreoffice] Extension dependencies
At 13:02 4-11-2011, Thorsten Behrens wrote: Stephan Bergmann wrote: As already mentioned briefly in my talk at LOCon, we need to make up our mind how to handle LO extension dependencies. Skipping most of this - I'd tend to give the fine-grained dependencies a try. That won't work in practice, unless those can be (semi-)automatically generated. Experience shows that all programmers are lazy, and seldomly go extra miles. And all generalisations are true ;-) Even those who would be willing to use fine-grained metadata for dependencies would benefit from an automated check on these data. It is easy to modify the source code in the extension and then to forget to update the dependency metadata. Best regards, Christophe Having a simple version string, and some volunteers testing uploaded extensions on the extension repo sounds much more workable - and useful in practice, since no syntactic compatibility one could come up with would ensure semantic equality... Cheers, -- Thorsten -- Christophe Strobbe K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD Research Group on Document Architectures Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 bus 2442 B-3001 Leuven-Heverlee BELGIUM tel: +32 16 32 85 51 http://www.docarch.be/ Twitter: @RabelaisA11y --- Open source for accessibility: results from the AEGIS project www.aegis-project.eu --- Please don't invite me to Facebook, Quechup or other social networks. You may have agreed to their privacy policy, but I haven't. ___ LibreOffice mailing list LibreOffice@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice
