Libreoffice borked

stalebrim

AlucardNoir Feel free to figure out what's wrong with it and send a PR 😀

dbarron

I assumed you wanted a solution not a months long triage. My mistake.

TraceyC

This appears to be at least partly caused by an upstream bug with LibreOffice. I was able to duplicate the ownership problem on KDE Neon (based on Ubuntu). It is not specific to Solus.

However, when I launch, say, Writer, I do see it in the task manager. That's a difference that can be fixed in the Budgie project.

If you'd like to see these two bugs fixed, there are two parts

For the root ownership of the desktop shortcut:
Finding an existing bug (or filing one) with the LibreOffice project. I did a bit of searching but didnt' find anything related. You may have better luck.
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/buglist.cgi
For the problem with the icon not being in the Budgie task manager:
Working with the Solus folks to help them fix the problem with the application not showing up in the task manager. You've already taken the first step by posting here, and getting information. The next step is opening a bug on the Budgie bug tracker here:
https://github.com/solus-project/budgie-desktop/issues

Good luck 🙂

Justin

TraceyC Thank you for that investigatory work. The fact that this has been confirmed as an issue on another OS and desktop means it is not Solus specific, @AlucardNoir please report upstream to LibreOffice.

AlucardNoir

Justin @TraceyC Done. Also I can't help but notice that the icon task list seems to somewhat work after today's update. Though if any of LO's components are opened from the LO icon and not their respective icons, the icon in the icon task list seems to stay that of LO and doesn't change to that of Writer/Calc/Draw etc.

@dbaron I'm not comfortable with bash and my dad is... well he can barely use the Windows GUI. I'm trying to get him to move to Linux because I'm lazy and don't want to waste time keeping his PC up to date and, more importantly, secure. Having to brush up on my lacking bash skills to write a script just so I can circumvent a problem that shouldn't be there sounds like more work then it's will save - in the short term. Did I mention I'm lazy?

dbarron

#!/bin/bash
libreoffice

Not all that difficult is it ? Then you can associate any icon you like with it, I think.

JoshStrobl

The issue with LibreOffice desktop files being owned as root is the result of LibreOffice actually having a build system which installs the desktop files into the completely incorrect location, which is /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg, then symlinking to /usr/share/applications/. As a result, the desktop file on the desktop is a symlink to that xdg directory, which is owned by root. The correct procedures would be:

File a bug upstream to have the LO desktop files be installed into the correct directory instead of symlinking
Updating our package until upstream fixes it to move the contents and potentially reverse the direction of the symlink in the event LO relies on those desktop files being in that xdg directory.

Either way, it isn't actually an issue with Budgie, nor an issue with Nautilus (which provides the desktop icons view). It is solely an issue with LibreOffice, just as how Budgie has to work around LibreOffice issues like its splash screen, it modifying its window ID, etc.

AlucardNoir

JoshStrobl Thank you for the reply. Since you seem to know exactly what the problem is do you think you could comment here: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124853 to actually let them know what the problem is. Also, since the problem seems to be as to were the program is installed... is there actually any change they will change that? I can't imagine this is that new of a problem.

SOLUSfiddler

JoshStrobl
Thanks for clarifying!
It relaxes me to a great extent as I am the one who posted the LO bug about open LO windows disappearing ("LibreOffice/Budgie panel bug") and now I have the feeling those LO problems might be checked and solved at some point!

SOLUSfiddler

kyrios

JoshStrobl Updating our package until upstream fixes it to move the contents and potentially reverse the direction of the symlink in the event LO relies on those desktop files being in that xdg directory.

I'll do this next time I update LO.

Fatih19

You can have a great painting software, a feature packed image and vector manipulation software, and Natron. But not an office suite tho, that exceeds the power of the open source community. /s
Can you drag the libreoffice to a panel or dock instead as a temporary solution?

JoshStrobl

Fatih19 Can you drag the libreoffice to a panel or dock instead as a temporary solution?

My suggestion would be to launch the respective LibreOffice app, e.g. Writer, and pin it to the panel. Is it ideal? No. But it isn't realistic for us as a downstream to fix literally everything that's an issue in third-party software.

AlucardNoir

Fatih19 Now yes, yesterday NO. Yesterday, before the latest sync, the icons were missing from the icon task view that's used to both imitate the new win start menu and for Budgies inbuilt dock functionality.

@JoshStrobl This is deviating from the Lo discussion but, do you think a right click menu might ever become available in the budgie menu? something that might give us the ability to pin icons to the panel without having to open the program first? And yes, I know this will just make Budgie just a little bit more like windows... but you are right after all, it shouldn't be up to you to fix upstream mistakes... Also, technically, if you are correct, @Justin was wrong, LO does not install the same as any other application.

Justin

AlucardNoir We install it correctly. So no, I'm not incorrect. LibreOffice doesn't adhere to the standard location for .desktop files.

Staudey

See my answers here
As others have already mentioned it's a bug with how LibreOffice handles its desktop files. If you want to have them on the desktop, as a workaround just copy them from /usr/lib/libreoffice/share/xdg

downhill

I use Openbox and Tint2 under Solus, so I'm not very familiar with desktop files. However, is it possible to create a shortcut on the desktop to the actual program/executable for each LibreOffice programs, or can you only use desktop files for such purposes?

Justin

downhill Most DEs use .desktop files for shortcuts so yes.

kyrios

The libreoffice shortcuts (.desktop files) should be working now.