Today we’re at the Linux-InfoDay 2025 in Augsburg, southern Germany! If you’re in the area, pop by for a chat and grab some LibreOffice merchandise 
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Today we’re at the Linux-InfoDay 2025 in Augsburg, southern Germany! If you’re in the area, pop by for a chat and grab some LibreOffice merchandise
(This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.)
On January 31, LibreOffice 24.2 was officially released after six months of work. Developers at The Document Foundation, Collabora, allotropia, CIB, Red Hat, NISZ and other companies and organisations – along with volunteers – worked on many new features.
For instance, there were many improvements to the tabbed “NotebookBar” user interface, while styles support was added for comments. A new search field was added to the Functions sidebar deck in Calc, while in terms of accessibility, several significant improvements to the handling of mouse positions and the presentation of dialogue boxes via the Accessibility APIs were made, allowing screen readers to present them correctly. And regarding security, the “Sace with Password” dialogue box now has a password strength meter, which uses zxcvbn-c to determine the password strength.
TDF’s marketing and localisation community produced and translated a video (below) which demonstrated many of the new features in LibreOffice 24.2. This was linked to in the announcement, and embedded into various web news websites that covered the release. The video is also available on PeerTube.
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Later in the year, on August 22, TDF released LibreOffice 24.8. Based on the LibreOffice Technology platform for personal productivity on desktop, mobile and cloud, it provided a large number of interoperability improvements with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats.
In terms of features, this release added many improvements to the Navigator in Writer, including ding cross-references by drag-and-drop items, deleting footnotes and endnotes, and indicating images with broken links. In Calc, the functions FILTER, LET, RANDARRAY, SEQUENCE, SORT, SORTBY, UNIQUE, XLOOKUP and XMATCH were added, along with chart types “Pie-of-Pie” and “Bar-of-Pie” which break down a slice of a pie as a pie or bar sub-chart respectively (this also enables import of such charts from OOXML files created with Microsoft Office/365).
Many other features were added as well, and there were a large number of compatibility improvements. As with the previous release, TDF staff worked with the marketing ad localisation communities to make a video (also on PeerTube) to demonstrate some of the new features.
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We also released 14 minor updates …
As a LibreOffice user, you have certainly seen the LibreOffice splash screen. It is displayed when you open LibreOffice, it has a progress bar, and when loading the application is finished it goes away. Here we discuss a suggested improvement for this splash screen.
Currently, the splash screen is implemented by creating a custom widget with a custom painting mechanism that draws the splash image and also the progress bar and moves the progress indicator.
This has some drawbacks:
1. The splash screen does not always scale to the same size as the main LibreOffice Window.
2. The style of the progress bar is somehow different from other UI elements, looks mostly like gen interface.
3. It needs and uses a custom paint code.
4. It does not conform to the dark/light theme.
5. It is not easily localize-able. In fact, the only text is from the displayed image, in English. When you build from sources, the image file is instdir/program/intro.png.
LibreOffice splash screen bitmap
6. It is a separate binary (oosplash). You may run it with:
$ ./instdir/program/oosplash
LibreOffice dev splash screen
I have previously written about VCL weld mechanism, which is based on creating user interface files (.ui) and loading them inside the application.
The weld mechanism greatly reduces the complexity of creating user interfaces, and also improves other aspects of the user interface, including the consistency.
Most of the code for the current implementation resides in:
desktop/source/splash/splash.cxx.
The SplashScreenWindow class has an custom paint method, SplashScreenWindow::Paint(), which draws the bitmap, and also the progress. A new UI file is needed for this purpose, which should use GtkProgressBar, which will be considered a weld::ProgressBar. VCL then uses appropriate progress bar widget in different graphical plugins of VCL.
You may look into some dialogs like tip of the day to get some insight:
It would be interesting to avoid a separate binary, but it is fine to keep things as is, and just change to use .ui file.
The above issue is tdf#166128. If you would like to work on fixing it, you can just follow the Bugzilla link to see more information.
You may also use ideas from a minimal weld application here:
(This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.)
The mission of the Membership Committee is to administer membership applications and renewals following the criteria defined in the Foundation’s Statutes. Members of the MC are directly elected by community members every two years, and serve for a two-year term. The Board of Directors consists of five members and three deputies.
On July 15, Eliane Domingos – chairperson in the Board of Directors at TDF – announced the election for the next MC, and asked for nominations and self-nominations. On August 27, she then announced that the nomination phase had ended, and that voting would run from 3 – 9 September. Around this time there were also three live “town-hall” Q+A meetings with the candidates, so that community members could ask questions and discuss the responses. We made video recordings from the second and third meetings, and here they are (also available on PeerTube here and here):
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On September 12, Eliane announced the preliminary results, along with a “challenge” phase for people to check their votes and contest the results. And on September 27, TDF announced the final results, with full MC members being Gustavo Buzzatti Pacheco, Stéphane Guillou, Balázs Varga, Pranam Kumarbhai Lashkari and Jona Azizaj; and deputy members being Shinji Enoki, Andreas Mantke and Marco Marinello.
TDF would like to say thank you to all past and new members of the MC for their service to the community, and to all candidates for running. Congratulations to the newly elected MC members and their deputies.
The Document Foundation relies on its Advisory Board Members in order to receive advice and support. The Advisory Board’s primary function is to represent The Document Foundation’s supporters and to provide the Board of Directors with advice, guidance and proposals. Current members are Adfinis, allotropia software GmbH, Collabora, GNOME, CAGE Technologies Inc, City of Munich (Landeshaupstadt München), Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA), Software in the Public Interest (SPI), KDE e.V., and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
Throughout the year, TDF had regular …
Petr Valach from the Czech LibreOffice community tells us about feedback from the LibreOffice booth at this event…
InstallFest is a well‑established yet relatively small open‑source conference held annually in the Czech Republic, traditionally at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering building at Karlovo náměstí in Prague. Personally, I prefer these more intimate spaces over the larger venues like the Faculty of Information Technology, where the LinuxDays conference takes place. I highly appreciate the somewhat old‑fashioned and historical atmosphere that fills every corner of the faculty building. It reminds me of English universities and other institutions like museums, where the ambiance of past eras is still preserved. Some may find it irritating, but to me, such a place has far more character than modern buildings devoid of history.
Building E of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEL), or perhaps the shared building of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering (FJFI) on Trojanova Street, which I used to visit as a student – and even more so the main building of FJFI on Břehová Street, or the joint workplace of FJFI and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics (MFF) of Charles University on Karlova Street – all of these buildings naturally have their own history; and with even older buildings, history seems to radiate from them, evoking a sense of mystery and unattainability.
I’ve had this deep respect for historic landmarks since my school years, when I first encountered the epochal Jaroslav Foglar trilogy set in the mysterious world of Stínadla (The Mystery of the Puzzle, Stínadla in Revolt, The Secret of the Great Vont). These books have not lost their charm even after all these years (this year marks the 85th anniversary of The Mystery of the Puzzle), and that’s because you can actually touch the buildings described in them. That’s the true magic of Foglar’s stories – they’re part fiction, part grounded in reality, whether it’s the locations, characters, or structures, and that makes them more believable and realistic.
And even the InstallFest conference has something in common with them. After all, it takes place right in the area where Stínadla is set, and the building itself stands just a few hundred meters from the birthplace of Jaroslav Foglar. In the conference venue, you can even find a poster for a course titled Planning the Movement of 3D Objects in a Complex Environment, featuring the iconic hedgehog in a cage – hiding the epoch-making invention of fourteen-year-old Jan Tleskač: a flying bicycle! Coincidence? I don’t think so.
And now, on to the actual course of the conference.
Last year, InstallFest was saved by a new team led by Jan Langmaier. Once again, they did an excellent job – everything ran smoothly, without confusion or chaos. They deserve recognition for organizing and executing the conference in such a limited space.
This year saw an increase in the number of booth exhibitors …
zcfan doing a great job of better fan mgmt.
For this year’s LibreOffice Conference we had two location proposals: Luxembourg and Budapest. Members of The Document Foundation voted to choose the final location, and we can announce that Budapest is the winner.
Currently, the expected date for the conference is September 1 – 5, but this is still subject to change. We will confirm the final dates soon, then the fun begins: the call for papers, building up the schedule, planning social events and more…
Stay tuned to this blog for further details!
(Photo credit: JStolp on Pixabay)
Here is the description : "The range-based FOR statement is used to iterate over a range of numeric values. The iteration is performed in increasing order when used with TO clause and in decreasing order when used with DOWNTO clause"Syntax[<label> :] FOR <variable> = <initial value> {TO | DOWNTO} <final value> [BY <by value>] DO &
We are happy to announce the release of Jaybird 6.0.1 and Jaybird 5.0.7. Both releases provide a number of performance improvements to blob handling, and some bug fixes.We plan to offer more blob performance improvements in upcoming releases of Jaybird 5 and 6, for Firebird 5.0.3 and higher (see also New Article: Data access methods used in Firebird).
Writer has the concept of recording tracked changes or not: if recording, typing into a document or deleting content will create tracked changes of type insertion or deletion. So far this was a per-document setting, but now individual users can enable or disable this as they wish.
This work is primarily for Collabora Online, but the feature is available in desktop Writer as well.
When Alice keeps typing and Bob enables change tracking, then surprisingly the typed characters of Alice will form a tracked insertion, which is surprising, since that was not the case a second ago and Alice didn't do anything other than typing.
Giving users a choice if they enable recording for just this user or for all users fixes this problem.
Here is how the per-user (technically per-view) tracked changes recording looks like:
Per-view tracked changes recording
As you can see, the user on the left has recording turned on and this doesn't influence the user on the right, while this was not possible before.
If you would like to know a bit more about how this works, continue reading... :-)
As usual, the high-level problem was addressed by a series of small changes. Core side:
Online side:
You can get a development edition of Collabora Online 25.04 and try it out yourself right now: try the development edition. Collabora intends to continue supporting and contributing to LibreOffice, the code is merged so we expect all of this work will be available in TDF's next release too (25.8).
On March 26, we celebrated Document Freedom Day. Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice, gave an online talk about the importance of open standards and free software:
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Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…
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The Document Foundation (TDF) has received two different proposals for the organisation of the LibreOffice Conference 2025. TDF Members will receive an email asking them to cast a vote and decide which will be the final venue.
City: Budapest, the capital of Hungary and a former part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is well known for its stunning landscape, with the Danube River and surrounding hills, its Belle Époque architecture, and its vibrant atmosphere. The city offers numerous attractions, including the medieval Buda Castle district and its famous thermal spas. As a popular tourist destination, Budapest boasts a wide range of accommodations, cafés, parks, and a bustling nightlife with many pubs and entertainment venues. Additionally, Budapest serves as Hungary’s administrative, cultural, and educational centre, with a population of around one million. The city is home to numerous museums and academic institutions.
Entity: The LibreOffice Conference 2025 in Budapest would be co-organized by the FSF.hu Foundation and the ELTE University Faculty of Informatics. The FSF.hu Foundation, established nearly 25 years ago, was created to support the localization and promotion of FLOSS in Hungary. In addition to handling financial matters, FSF.hu has offered to issue visa invitation letters. A list of countries requiring a visa for travel to Hungary can be found on the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.
Dates: The expected date for the conference is September 1 – 5, 2025.
Venue: The conference venue will be located in the heart of Budapest, at ELTE University’s Faculty of Informatics, one of Hungary’s leading universities. The venue, near by the Danube River offers a spacious university campus with numerous large and small rooms, computer labs, and open spaces ideal for community gatherings, meeting the typical needs of a LibreOffice Conference.
The venue provides a reliable Wi-Fi connection suitable for a conference of this scale, and the auditoriums used for the event will be wheelchair accessible. Additionally, the university can provide personnel for video recording during the main conference days.
Team: The organizing team consists of experienced contributors from the local LibreOffice community, including Annabella Szép, Anikó Kelemenné Husi, Gábor Kelemen, András Tímár, Miklós Vajna, Balázs Varga, and Attila Szűcs. Each of them has extensive experience in developing, testing, or teaching LibreOffice. This dedicated team shares a deep commitment to the project, working together effectively as a well-coordinated group.
From ELTE Faculty of Informatics, Ágnes Erdősné Németh is responsible for managing the conference venue.
Gábor Kelemen, head of the organizing team, will oversee visa and sponsor relations.
After many years of collaboration and contributing to LibreOffice’s growth, we now hope to be awarded the opportunity to host the LibreOffice 2025 Conference in Budapest.
City: Belval is the new technology and University campus being developed next to Esch-sur-Alzette, the second largest city in Luxembourg, and is optimally positioned in Europe to provide visibility to LibreOffice and its community …
(Translated from the Spanish original.)
Juan C. Sanz writes:
The Firebird database is distinguished by its unique features within the LibreOffice Base compatible database ecosystem. Why do I consider Firebird to be special? Because it is the only database engine that supports all possible forms of connection in Base and also allows the creation of both embedded, external and server databases directly from LibreOffice, without having to use specific tools.
LibreOffice offers the following Firebird connection options:
Additionally, like other database servers, it is possible to establish a connection via JDBC or ODBC connectors. These connectors are available free of charge and as open source software on the official Firebird website.
Advantages of multiple connection options. Firebird offers several ways of connection that represent important advantages:
This option is especially easy and accessible for users with little database experience. Simply enable the experimental features of LibreOffice to start using it. It is ideal for learning basic database concepts and the Base tool.
The connection to the server via the internal driver provides a fast and easy way to configure connection. In any case, ODBC and JDBC connections also work without problems, although, as they require an intermediate connector, they are usually slower.
For all these reasons, I consider that Base and Firebird are an ideal combination.
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