[GSOC] LibreOffice appliances idea

[Rasmus Jonsson]

I found this idea on the "Ideas without a mentor" page on the
Wiki. I found it really interesting and would love to work on it. I do
have a Pi and will try to experiment with this idea. I do realise
that the idea is at least two years old.

Questions for Matus:

When you say "when connected/ disconnected to/ from LAN", are you
envisioning a system where the Pi operator would plug in an Ethernet
cable, visit the URL on the screen (accessible only on the local
network), upload a file, and then pull out the cable? What about WiFi?
Could there be a solution for both?

Since you mention a Python's httplib, I'm assuming you're not
envisioning this functionality as being part of the main LibreOffice
program (HTTP server, file upload, detect network connection, cycle
through presentations), but rather as a separate project which executes
LibreOffice and controls it remotely. This is how I believe it should/
would be done.

There is already a binary package available for Raspbian, and as far as
I can tell there is already some functionality in LO/ Impress for
remote control over TCP, although it is apparently only available in
experimental mode so would require more work:

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/tree/sd/README_REMOTE
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/tree/sd/source/ui/
remotecontrol/Server.cxx

Using this already-existing interface one could get all the requested
features, it seems. Perhaps there are some other ways of controlling
LibreOffice/ Impress externally that I don't know about.

As for uploading files, I think you're suggesting a simple website
with file uploads for the "shop slide display", for the "conference
display server" some slightly more complex playlist manager would
be needed (add, remove, sort pdfs/odfs). All through a website
interface?

I would love to discuss this in more detail with you, if you are still
interested and still available to mentor. Perhaps someone else would
be interested in mentoring for this project? My nick on IRC is cbilt,
I also sent a presentation to the mailing list earlier.