[Fwd: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice deployment and enterprise-wide settings]

[Stephan Bergmann]

>> De: eric.ficheux <bureautiquelibre at nantesmetropole.fr>
>>
>> I'm currently working on a LibreOffice deployment for 5K users and I want to
>> give the users access to corporate document templates + a few custom tweaks
>> like keyboard shortcuts, macro security level and so on.
>>
>> The only way we found to do it is through the registrymodifications.xcu file
>> in the user profile.
>>
>> It is a 2 step process:
>> 1: LibreOffice is downloaded and installed to the computers (with admin
>> profile)
>> 2:  After reboot, the user profile is removed and the
>> registrymodifications.xcu file is put in place before LibreOffice is started
>> (we do this after a reboot so the current user profile is updated, we can't
>> do it at step 1 because it runs under admin profile and we can't easily find
>> the current user profile)
>>
>> The process isn't very elegant, it looks more like a hack than industrial
>> deployment:
>>
>> The .xcu file contains a lot of things, the only way I found to build a
>> custom one is to apply the settings "by hand" first and then find the lines
>> added in the .xcu file to build a "clean" one with only the lines required.
>> Keeping only  our settings seems OK but we lose all user configuration in
>> the process
>> It also requires a reboot which some users don't do often to avoid wasting
>> time with slow machines.
>>
>>
>> Is there a best way to apply a company-wide configuration that wouldn't
>> require reboot and would keep individual user settings?

The recommended way to do this is to create a LibreOffice extension 
(.oxt file, see documentation linked off 
<https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Extension_Development>) 
that contains an .xcu file with all the relevant settings.  (That way, 
if you want, you can even finalize certain settings so that the users 
cannot override them---not easily from the UI at least, that is.)

There are various options how to deploy that extension (bundled, shared, 
or per user).  If you had a central installation of LibreOffice (shared 
via NFS or SMB, say), the best option would probably be to deploy it as 
a shared extension into the shared installation.  But as you describe 
that you individually install LibreOffice onto each machine, you could 
either afterwards (under the admin profile) deploy it as a shared 
extension (via "unopkg --shared", or from LibreOffice's "Tools - 
Extension Manager..."), or even fake it as a bundled extension, by 
unpacking the .oxt file into the shared/extensions directory of the 
LibreOffice installation, which might be easier to automate.

I'm not sure about the reboot part of your mail---I don't see why you 
need a reboot with the process you describe.

Feel free to come back with any further questions,
Stephan