LO Community ex Vanilla and user expectations, impact and other points.

[Alexander Thurgood]

Le 22/04/2021 à 11:25, Michael Meeks a écrit :

Hi Michael,


> 
> 	This is a fairly fundamental limitation of the app-store I'm afraid;
> and it is regrettable indeed.
>> However, this version now points directly to the LibreOffice website,
>> and I feel that user expectations are being somewhat misled, due to the
>> missing functionality.


Yes, I understand that, although it was also my understanding that it
is/was still possible to provide a complete JDK into the app that could
then be accepted into the AppStore. I also understand that that might
require significant effort from Collabora to do so, and that perhaps
from a business point of view, it is not a route that it wishes to go down.

Additionally, from a wider project view, it might also set a precedent
with regard to other OSes for which LO doesn't bundle the JDK (for a
number of equally valid reasons).

> 
> 	Is there somewhere better we can point ? for example, if you could
> control that landing page (which is easy) where would you have it land?
> Can we make a better page that doesn't confuse people and explains how
> they can download the TDF version and an OpenJDK to get better 'Base'
> support?
> 

My suggestion would be to have it point to a Collabora page, after all
it is a Collabora product, which page would direct the user to the
LibreOffice project as the source for any questions, documentation, etc,
and additionally, should the user feel so inclined in order to obtain
the missing functionality, to the download site of the TDF release.

Personally, I would find it helpful if the pros/cons of each were
identified on such a page. That way, the user makes their choice in full
knowledge.

For example, the AppStore blurb text doesn't mention that LO Vanilla
includes multiple language support - this is a huge positive for many
people compared to the TDF downloads which require separate langpack
installations and their associated issues.

On the negative side, of course, the absence of any Java functionality,
but also what that entails in terms of functional limitation. The
current note in brackets at the end of the AppStore text is somewhat
light on the implications of the lack of Java, stating that it only
affects usage of the HSQLDB embedded engine, when in reality the extent
is far greater.

The landing page pointed to by the banner could explain those
differences in more detail, e.g. :

- no Java-based database connectivity whatsoever, so no JDBC connections
to any DB engine reliant on JDBC drivers - considering the broad range
of JDBC drivers available, this is by far one of the most common ways of
connecting to a backend database engine ;

- no database reporting engine (jfreereport) ;

- no beanshell or Javascript support

- no Java extension support (e.g. LanguageTool)


Are these suggestions of any use ?

Alex