Bug 915344 – app-office/libreoffice-7.5.6.2 delimited text files ('csv', 'tsv', etc.) are opened as text documents if Writer is the active window

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM

[Description turtle 2023-10-07 19:27:37 UTC]

Created attachment 872278 [details, diff]
patch for 7.5.6.2

In libreoffice delimited text files ('csv', 'tsv', etc.) are opened as text documents if Writer is the active window.
And text files are opened as spreadsheets if calc is the active window.

This bug is a years old bug in libreoffice  https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89683
and was closed for a long time as 'wont fix'.

I have a working patch that fixes this annoying issue and am proposing to include the patch in Gentoo's app-office/libreoffice ebuilds.

I describe how to test the patch here
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-8804051.html#8804051

[Comment 1 Andreas Sturmlechner 2023-10-07 19:30:20 UTC]

Propose it upstream instead, please, and it will automatically come to Gentoo.

[Comment 2 turtle 2023-10-09 02:53:51 UTC]

(In reply to Andreas Sturmlechner from comment #1)
> Propose it upstream instead, please, and it will automatically come to
> Gentoo.

I reopened bug 89683 they closed bug ~2016 as a wont fix.
Prior to version 3.6.0 this behavior did not exist.
upstream rationale is that that is what MS word does so they want to mimic that behavior.
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89683#c17 

However that is useless from the perspective of a Gentoo Linux user whom may frequently open .txt and .csv files.

Their rationale is most of their users are on windows so they want to closely follow their expectations. Including this annoying behavior.
I think most Gentoo users would expect a .txt file to be opened with writer and a .csv file to be opened with calc.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Comment 3 Sam James 2023-10-09 02:56:25 UTC]

The problem is, deviating from upstream behaviour isn't something we're generally keen on unless there's a good reason for it.

This is especially confusing if someone tries to get support upstream, or if they're comparing behaviour on Gentoo with another distro (maybe they're trying to give instructions to someone on Debian, who knows).

[Comment 4 Andreas Sturmlechner 2024-04-21 09:33:20 UTC]

Exactly. This is for upstream to decide, not us.