Hi :) Sorry this doesn't answer the question either! Hopefully someone else can directly address your specific concerns.
The lab techs might not be aware that LibreOffice is OpenSource. it's fairly obvious imo but they just might not have had time to think about it. They might be more amenable to doing the updates, even mid-term, if they hear it's OpenSource and that it's just an update from one stable branch to another. Any release after x.x.4 in any branch is "stable branch" although the x.x.0 - x.x.2 of the same branch is not. It's a bit of a misleading term tbh but it is commonly used in many projects and helps people understand what is going on more quickly. Sometimes precision is less valuable than clarity. The x.x.0 - x.x.2 releases are more about adding new features and better compatibility with whichever version of MS Office is currently more widely used. Sometimes that adds unexpected odd results but that is smoothed-out by later releases in the same branch. So the lab-techs probably don't want the headache of having to thoroughly test newer versions of any software, especially mid-term, but if they have confidence in the stability then they might be much happier about it. That is what the term "stable branch" aims to help with. Most teams of lab techs have at least 1 person who really understands this concept of "stable branch" versus "exciting new features branch" and hopefully all of them know it or will quickly grasp the concept. Most OpenSource projects have some similar way of working. Even with proprietary software they are familiar with the idea that programs settle down after "Service Pack" 1 or 2 have been added. Regards from Tom :) On 22 October 2013 22:27, David Gast <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks to all who replied. Perhaps I was not clear. I am trying to find > out why the Modified Flag > would be set if I have made no changes. What objects can LibreOffice Calc > *silently* modify when starting > up that would cause the modified flag to be set? > > While I can copy the files to a computer at home and try different > versions, it would not actually be useful > for my purposes (perhaps someone on the list wants to know, however). If > some file opened without change > in another version of LibreOffice Calc, then it might mean that the file > was created in that version. That would > obviously be unacceptable if the exam was to be done in the lab using a > particular version. > > Unfortunately, the lab is public space (for many classes) and I do not > the authority to modify what the technicians call the "lab load" in > the middle of a semester. We will update to the latest version in early > January. > > Best regards, > > David Gast > ________________________________________ > From: David Gast [[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, October 21, 2013 12:33 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [libreoffice-users] Modified Flag Set / No Changes > > Hi > Perhaps you can help. > > My students submit examinations done in LibreOffice Calc to a web page. > I bundle them up and download them to a Windows XP box running > LO Version 3.6.4.3 (Build ID: 2ef5aff). In previous semesters, an older > version was used. There were no problems like this in previous semesters. > > This semester close to one third of the submitted examinations are > being modified when opened by me for grading. I confirmed by > > 1. Open file (usually from the Cygwin command line, but also from Recent > Documents) > 2. Immediately clicking the X close icon in the upper right hand corner. > 3. A message pops up asking whether I want to change, dismiss, or cancel. > > I typed nothing, yet if I cancel, and then do a save-as, the saved-as file > is different. > > I have two hypotheses. > > #1) > RANDBETWEEN() is used this year in some problems, perhaps it sometimes > causes this > problem. I cannot recreate that behavior, however. Further, Compare > document shows no > differences, nor does oodiff. > > #2) > Some students did work outside of class and the version they used is not > 100% compatible > with the version in the labs. My reasoning is that I found in one > submittal (I have not checked > all of them to this level of detail) that one of the fonts changed from > something like > "New Times Roman1" to "New Times Roman". (I used unzip and then a script > to split the > various files into lines so that diff produced useful output.) > > Any advice? Is it possible to determine what LO is changing? > > Best regards, > > David Gast > > > > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] > Problems? > http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > > -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
