[Solved] Different Behaviour Windows vs. Linux

[Mohawk]

This is OOo 4.1.2 on Win7/64 vs. OOo 4.1.10 on Linux Mint 20.2, so it's not exactly like for like which is why I'm asking for other people's observations.

On my Windows notebook, if I start typing in a cell and the text matches previous entries, the auto-complete shows the whole matching string (overflowing the current cell if necessary).

On my Linux machine, the matching string is confined to the current cell only, so it is not possible to see the whole string being offered if it overflows. Accepting the auto-complete (by pressing return) then displays the text properly, but it might not be the wanted text if there were several alternatives to choose from!

Is this a Win vs. Linux thing, or a 4.12 vs. 4.1.10 thing? If the latter, then an unwanted "feature" has been introduced. Is it just me seeing this, in which case what is different about my system? If it's not just me, why hasn't anybody spotted this before?

[Hagar Delest]

Try with to start AOO in Mint with (in a terminal) SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen soffice
It may be an issue with the theme rendering.

[Mohawk]

That cures it! How to make it stick?

[Hagar Delest]

I tweak the /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice file by adding export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen (to be done at every application upgrade).
There should be a similar file for OpenOffice. It can be done in the desktop file too but if launched by an application (say Thunderbird), you don't get the tweaked setting.

[Mohawk]

Excellent, and thanks, but what a pain.

How about a boot script which imposes that change if it's not already in the file?

Any idea why this is wrong? Is it a Mint thing? If so, I can report it there.

[robleyd]

Visual Class Library (VCL)

Visual Class Library (VCL) is responsible for the widgets (windowing, buttons, controls, file-pickers etc.), operating system abstraction, including basic rendering (e.g. the output device).

It should not be confused with Borland’s Visual Component Library, which is entirely unrelated.

VCL provides a graphical toolkit similar to gtk+, Qt, SWING etc.

Taken from https://docs.libreoffice.org/vcl.html which has more, but technical, detail.

You could try defining the environment variable in your shell - ~/.bashrc on Slackware - but if any other program needs a different value you may find unexpected behaviour.

[Mohawk]

That's getting a bit deep for me, I need an interpreter!

I understand OpenOffice/LibreOffice needs a different setting for its instantiation than (maybe) other programs in Mint, and that setting is in the file referenced by Hagar above (for LibreOffice)... but I believe programs are tailored for the particular distro before they get into the distro's software repo. Presuming that to be the case, is this an instance where that particular tweak has not been done but can be done?

Linux Mint, for example, currently only has AOO 4.1.10 in its repo when the latest from Apache is 4.1.12.

[Hagar Delest]

There is not that much tailoring IMHO. There is a minimum of standardization to ease the integration of the applications in as many distros as possible. In this case, I think that the problem is actually with the gtk rendering. If you look at the menus also, you'll notice that with the default setting, the icons do not have a special place (before the text entry), thus, text entries are not aligned at the same position, which is disgraceful IMHO. And the generic rendering doesn't have this problem. See screenshots here: https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/why-did-t ... 4/50875/11
So it is not that the tweak has not been done, it's on the opposite by applying the settings that fits the most the distro theme that leads to the issue. And the proposed tweak is in fact canceling the default theme integration.

[Mohawk]

Rather a mess, isn't it! Only serving to confirm my opinion of Linux as a replacement for Windows. If the mainstream distros want to be seen as usable by anybody, is it too much to ask that ordinary office apps run properly out-of-the-box?

OK, so Mint has Libre installed as standard rather than AOO, but I prefer AOO and uninstalled Libre and anyway your comments indicate Libre is also affected. For Linux to become mainstream, it needs to work without users having to become IT consultants and understand the nuances of VLC, GTK, whatever (I certainly don't want to – I have other expertise and little more capacity).

[Bill]

...your comments indicate Libre is also affected.

LO is not affected for me on Linux Mint 20.3, Ubuntu 22.04 or Ubuntu Mate 22.04.

[Mohawk]

LO is not affected for me on Linux Mint 20.3, Ubuntu 22.04 or Ubuntu Mate 22.04.

Good to know, I will investigate further. Thanks.

[Mohawk]

I tweak the /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice file by adding export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen (to be done at every application upgrade).
There should be a similar file for OpenOffice. It can be done in the desktop file too but if launched by an application (say Thunderbird), you don't get the tweaked setting.

The equivalent file for Linux Mint is /opt/openoffice4/program/soffice. Works great, many thanks.