Bundling extensions as blobs

[Herbert Duerr <hd...@apache.org>]

OpenOffice extensions are widely employed to extend its core 
functionality. Downloading and installing extensions is no problem for 
experienced users, but for novice users the extra steps required could 
appear as a gratuitous nuisance. So when creating install sets builders 
can serve their target audience better by bundling popular extensions 
such as galleries, templates, etc.

Some of these extensions are platform specific, some are language 
specific, some should be integrated directly into the core package and 
for some this would be not such a good idea.

So there are a lot of different use cases that need to be covered. It 
was already possible to bundle extensions as pre-registered and unzipped 
files by working in the scp2 module. This is not too convenient and due 
to legal concerns it is not possible in general.

On this note I extended the spectrum of possibilities by providing a 
configuration option named --with-bundled-extension-blobs. As the name 
suggests it allows to bundle extensions exactly as the same blobs which 
were approved for re-distribution. When OpenOffice is run they then get 
installed automatically.

E.g. if there are some cute galleries that are interesting for some 
audience you could bundle them by giving the configuration option
--with-bundled-extension-blobs="kitty-gallery.oxt puppy-gallery.oxt" and 
providing the corresponding files in the ext_sources directory.
When the resulting package gets installed these files will be copied 1:1 
into one of the programs shared directories from where they will be 
automatically picked up. Without requiring the user to do any bothersome 
steps they can then be directly used in OpenOffice.

I hope you find this useful,
Herbert

Re: Bundling extensions as blobs

[Andrea Pescetti <pe...@apache.org>]

On 02/03/2012 Herbert Duerr wrote:
> On this note I extended the spectrum of possibilities by providing a
> configuration option named --with-bundled-extension-blobs. As the name
> suggests it allows to bundle extensions exactly as the same blobs which
> were approved for re-distribution. When OpenOffice is run they then get
> installed automatically.

This is a very nice new feature. It also shows that OpenOffice is not 
focused on itself only, but is providing a friendlier interface for 
downstream distributors to package features.

Thanks for adding it,
   Andrea.

Re: Bundling extensions as blobs

[Andre Fischer <af...@a-w-f.de>]

Hi all,

if little furry animals are not your thing then you may be interested in 
this new feature:

I have extended Herberts support for bundled extensions.  The new file 
main/extensions.lst defines the a default set of extensions that is 
bundled with installation sets.  The installation language(s) is taken 
into account.  Extensions can be downloaded on demand.

The current set of extensions is this:

Independent of the language the two local extensions
    - Presentation Minimizer
    - Presenter Console


For any variant of english
     dict-en.oxt
     en_CA_2_0_0.oxt
     en_US.oxt
     dict-en-au-2008-12-15.oxt
     dict-en_ZA-2009.10.22.oxt
     dict-en-nz-2008-12-03.oxt

For german (de or de-DE)
     dict-de_DE-frami_2011-06-03


I chose the lanuage dependent extensions according to the wiki page 
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OOOUSERS/Bundled+Writing+Aids

If you would like to have extensions added for other languages as well 
then you can do one of two things:

-  Update the wiki page.  Be sure to include URLs.  Then tell me and I 
will edit main/extensions.lst accordingly.

-  Edit main/extensions.lst yourself.

Documentation can be found at
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Build_Bootstrapping#extensions.lst

Feel free to ask questions,

Andre


On 02.03.2012 17:23, Herbert Duerr wrote:
> OpenOffice extensions are widely employed to extend its core
> functionality. Downloading and installing extensions is no problem for
> experienced users, but for novice users the extra steps required could
> appear as a gratuitous nuisance. So when creating install sets builders
> can serve their target audience better by bundling popular extensions
> such as galleries, templates, etc.
>
> Some of these extensions are platform specific, some are language
> specific, some should be integrated directly into the core package and
> for some this would be not such a good idea.
>
> So there are a lot of different use cases that need to be covered. It
> was already possible to bundle extensions as pre-registered and unzipped
> files by working in the scp2 module. This is not too convenient and due
> to legal concerns it is not possible in general.
>
> On this note I extended the spectrum of possibilities by providing a
> configuration option named --with-bundled-extension-blobs. As the name
> suggests it allows to bundle extensions exactly as the same blobs which
> were approved for re-distribution. When OpenOffice is run they then get
> installed automatically.
>
> E.g. if there are some cute galleries that are interesting for some
> audience you could bundle them by giving the configuration option
> --with-bundled-extension-blobs="kitty-gallery.oxt puppy-gallery.oxt" and
> providing the corresponding files in the ext_sources directory.
> When the resulting package gets installed these files will be copied 1:1
> into one of the programs shared directories from where they will be
> automatically picked up. Without requiring the user to do any bothersome
> steps they can then be directly used in OpenOffice.
>
> I hope you find this useful,
> Herbert