[Libreoffice-ux-advise] File Format Defaults Multiple FDO's

[Joel Madero]

I agree that it was limited for types and your ideas both sound promising.
I've included UX mailing list for input because I think ultimately it would
be really nice to be able to easily and quickly change file associations
for LO. I lean more towards a separate set of options that lists every file
type we support with a check box next to it. The only issue I see is that
if you "uncheck" the file type, what software takes over as primary
software? Would it default automatically back to MS or just be
unassociated?

As for super bug, fair enough, I'm going to put a comment in each of the
bugs saying that it's an ongonig process to fix this and say "these bugs
are similar and may be of interest to you" and list the other FDO bugs so
that those users can keep up with the comments.

Hopefully some UX people will get involved soon and put in some input.


Thanks,
Joel

PS. To Gerald, this is even trickier as it's actually MS's bug, not
LibreOffice, if in fact it is a bug. From my remembering my last MS Office
install (which was quite some time ago), on install it asked if I wanted
OpenOffice files to be opened by MS Office, if you have these selected,
then it's kind of "user error" if something goes wrong. Maybe someone with
MS Office can do a test install and verify this or verify that it's a bug
on their side and we can discuss if there's anything we can do about it --
we all know how receptive MS is to suggestions ;)

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 12:12 PM, Andras Timar <timar74 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Joel,
>
> 2012/7/3 Joel Madero <jmadero.dev at gmail.com>:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > This seems to be one of the most consistent complaints from users as I'm
> > going through the bug list. The issue is three fold (or more).
> >
> > 1. Defaults "hijack" everything -- vs. defaulting to allow users to
> select
> >
> > 2. No check to see if Microsoft Office is installed and thus some prompt
> to
> > see if we want to "replace" it
> >
> > 3. Changing defaults once installed very difficult (or not possible?).
> >
> > 4. Other file associations outside of Microsoft are also "hijacked" --
> see
> > bug on txt files
> >
> > Here are just a few of the FDO's that I came across:
> >
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39791
> >
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44462
> >
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43519
> >
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38310
> >
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=47483
> >
> >
> > Each one deals with the same issue in a different manner -- ie. file
> > associations and defaults.
> >
> >
> > I personally like the mock up done in
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44462
> >
> >
> > I have a few questions, I know that one of these bugs is assigned but not
> > sure about current status.
> >
> >
> > I have a couple suggestions and wanted feedback:
> >
> >
> > 1. Most annoying bug? I think it qualifies with at least 5 different
> people
> > complaining about it with multiple comments on many of them
> >
> > 2. Can I make a bug that takes every complaint into account and then mark
> > these all as dupes of the one I make?
>
> Thanks for your bug triage work. File association is a difficult topic
> and after fixing obvious bugs, I need ux input about how to do things
> the best. I'm currently debugging the "hijack" issue. It happens in
>
> http://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/setup_native/source/win32/customactions/reg4allmsdoc/reg4allmsi.cxx
> .
> These functions were designed so that they detect Microsoft Office and
> do not take over their files, the only problem is that these functions
> do not work correctly under certain circumstances.
>
> After install user have several possibilities to change file
> associations, e.g. repair MS Office install, right click on file and
> change associations, regedit, etc. I know that none of these are easy
> for an ordinary user.
>
> As for other file types than MS Office, it is hard to define a good
> default, many file types that LibreOffice can open are not associated.
> We need to collect them all, this is the pre-requisite of the planned
> file association application.
>
> I have some problems with the mockup in fdo#44462. First is that it
> lists only a few file types. There are many more. Maybe we need a
> separate panel for it. Or instead of file extensions, we could use
> bigger categories (e.g. ODF, MS Office Binary, MS Office OpenXML,
> etc.) Please note that within LibreOffice we can handle only per user
> settings, because we cannot elevate the rights of soffice.bin process.
> Even if it is running from an administrator account, it runs with
> normal user privileges (at least on Vista and higher). But maybe it is
> even better. It is possible that one user prefers LibreOffice, other
> prefers something else on the same computer. Alternatively a
> standalone application can be developed, that can set file
> associations for all users.
>
> I don't think it makes sense to open a super-bug for file
> associations. I'm currently working on it, and I regularly monitor
> Windows Installer bugs. As long as a bug classified as a Windows
> Installer bug, I'll see it, and fix it some day.
>
> Thanks,
> Andras
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/attachments/20120703/c0ebaedc/attachment.html>