Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Is it me or is there some setting hidden somewhere that would offer the Places/Folders panel on the left of this dialog box?
Sometimes, I would like to save the document to somewhere else rather than the folder specified in the path or the 'home' folder.
For example, to a usb stick? to an attached drive which is mounted?
I've searched high and low for this. In one topic someone has suggested perhaps use Tools>Options>General "Use OpenOffice.org dialog boxes"
to fix something else. First, I cannot find this setting and second, I do not know if this would be the answer.
Help please.
Thank you.

There should be an icon to allow you manoeuvre: in the OpenOffice dialog box at top right there is an icon to move up to the directory above, an icon to make a new folder and an icon to go to the default Save folder.

Thank you.
I am aware of them. However, that is not what I've asked/trying to find a way to get that panel showing to the left of the box.

Navigate to the folder where the drive is mounted. If you did not install the "desktop-integration" package for OpenOffice, you can't use the system dialogs.
I believe that CentOS comes with LibreOffice so you do not need OpenOffice. The preinstalled LibreOffice integrates with your desktop environment.

On my Xubuntu systems the folders panel displays on the left if I choose /Tools /Options /OpenOffice : General and uncheck "use OpenOffice dialogue boxes" in the Open/Save dialogue boxes section. Checking/unchecking this takes immediate effect without need to restart OO.

Villeroy wrote:Navigate to the folder where the drive is mounted. If you did not install the "desktop-integration" package for OpenOffice, you can't use the system dialogs.
I believe that CentOS comes with LibreOffice so you do not need OpenOffice. The preinstalled LibreOffice integrates with your desktop environment.

1. How can I navigate to the folder when the Places' panel to the left is missing?
2. Desktop-integration is installed; and
3. Thank you for your assertion that I do not need OpenOffice...

RoryOF wrote:On my Xubuntu systems the folders panel displays on the left if I choose /Tools /Options /OpenOffice : General and uncheck "use OpenOffice dialogue boxes" in the Open/Save dialogue boxes section. Checking/unchecking this takes immediate effect without need to restart OO.

Thank you. However, that panel is missing in my CentOS system or I cannot find a setting for it to get it back.
That 'use OpenOffice Dialogue boxes' is also missing from that option area. I've attached a screen capture:

There is a section missing, as you note. From where did you download? I installed from http://www/openoffice/org/download using the 64 bit DEB version.

Downloaded from SourceForge.
However, as my version was not the latest, I removed that and installed the latest version [4.1.2] just in case with the correct locale [en-GB].
The problem still persists...same settings as in that attached image.
At wits end...
With your experience of these forums, can you please tell me if somebody from the Apache.org actually do read these postings?
Regards.

Normally developers don't read this forum. Bugs and enhancement requests should be posted as detailed in
[Tutorial] Reporting bugs or suggestions

As you are downloading the same installation file as other DEB installation users, the problem seems to be O.S. specific - you use Centos - perhaps there is a difference in their drivers. I suggest you start by querying the problem on a Centos support forum.

You could also try using a live Ubuntu/Xubuntu DVD/USB and see if the missing section is available on the default installation of LibreOffice on that CD, which would prove that it wasn't equipment related.

That section of the dialog has always been there for me (installing OO rpms on Fedora). I can't imagine just now how/why it might not appear. One possibility: CentOS (or your install/config) may not provide the Gnome/GTK dialogs that OO is looking for. It could be that OO checks for the proper dialogs and simply omits that section if the non-OO dialogs are not available.

Just a guess.

Edit: PS:

Nope. Doesn't seem to be the case. My install of 4.1.2 on Fedora 23 has some problem interfacing with the Gnome/GTK elements, but the options section still appears. If I de-select (uncheck) the "Use OO file dialogs" option, I still get the OO file dialogs. Sorry, I've no suggestions.

On the OO Developer list Andrea notes that there is no difference between the DEB and RPM codebase and can switch between between OO and GNOME 3 dialogs. This problem seems to be an environment problem.

acknak wrote:That section of the dialog has always been there for me (installing OO rpms on Fedora). I can't imagine just now how/why it might not appear. One possibility: CentOS (or your install/config) may not provide the Gnome/GTK dialogs that OO is looking for. It could be that OO checks for the proper dialogs and simply omits that section if the non-OO dialogs are not available.

Just a guess.

Edit: PS:

Nope. Doesn't seem to be the case. My install of 4.1.2 on Fedora 23 has some problem interfacing with the Gnome/GTK elements, but the options section still appears. If I de-select (uncheck) the "Use OO file dialogs" option, I still get the OO file dialogs. Sorry, I've no suggestions.

Thank you. I appreciate your input.

RoryOF wrote:On the OO Developer list Andrea notes that there is no difference between the DEB and RPM codebase and can switch between between OO and GNOME 3 dialogs. This problem seems to be an environment problem.

Thank you.
I am going to check the minimum system requirements tomorrow. Perhaps a missing library is putting the spanner in the works?
[It just occurred to me to check some other programs installed. I have Evolution, KWrite, Atom and Emacs editors all in.
All offer this missing navigation panel/sidebar. So, this suspicion of a missing library may be a non-starter...]
As you may have guessed as well, my desktop is KDE.]

On the OO developer ML, Carl Marcum reports that Fedora 20 with Gnome 3 is OK.

What happens if you load Gnome 3 as an alternate desktop and don't use it?

In a reply on the Developer mailing list Kay Schenk says

​I'm on CentOS 6.7 with gnome 2. Either the default dialogs or unchecking
and using the gnome2 version for Save As... works correctly for me.

ALL Linux users should install the freedesktop menus since gnome and kde
both use this interface. This is covered in our installation instructions:
http://www.openoffice.org/download/comm ... tions.html

Other desktop interfaces may not work correctly with this, however.

I am able to use the system Save dialog on Ubuntu 15.10, but I have noticed a couple of problems with the dialog. If I'm saving an .odt file, the file type on the Save dialog is shown as "All Formats" instead of "ODF Text Document (.odt)" and the "Automatic file name extension" option is missing from the Save dialog. Is anyone else seeing this on Ubuntu?

On my Xubuntu 15.10 when using the OO dialogs the .odt file is shown as ODF Text Document (.odt); Save with password and Automatic file name extension are both shown.

Using System dialogs I get the left panel of directories, but the .odt is shown as all formats, with Save with password, but no "Automatic file name extension".

RoryOF wrote:In a reply on the Developer mailing list Kay Schenk says

​I'm on CentOS 6.7 with gnome 2. Either the default dialogs or unchecking
and using the gnome2 version for Save As... works correctly for me.

ALL Linux users should install the freedesktop menus since gnome and kde
both use this interface. This is covered in our installation instructions:
http://www.openoffice.org/download/comm ... tions.html

Other desktop interfaces may not work correctly with this, however.

Thank you for all the help and sorry for the delay in replying.
As a matter of fact I've been trying to fight my way out of the 'dependency hell' for the past couple of days.
To begin with, I should say that I have finally narrowed it down to something to do with KDE. It works if you follow the advice given by Kay Schenk above.
However, I had a lot of trouble getting gnome installed and/or getting rid of the remenants of LibreOffice.
As I had pointed out, I started with checking the minimum requirements and then following the steps in the above instruction document. But, I could not, for some reason that I cannot fathom out, get rid of the symlink. It would just say that the link exists, there's a conflict, etc., although I had removed it.
I think I also managed to break the system by manually deleting a couple of python libraries as well.
Anyhow, I updated the system again and again; installed the pythons and thought of installing LibreOffice to see what happens.
Nothing.
Then I removed this installation and tried OpenOffice again. This time it did not complain about the symlink conflict. As part of the installation, I also installed the freedesktop-menus for desktop integration rather than the redhat one.
Success.
However, with a pinch of salt. I can have the navigation panel/sidebar if the desktop environment is gnome [version 2.32.0] rather than KDE [version 4.14.8] AND also uncheck that option in the General dialog box [ if you choose KDE, that setting does not appear, as per my uploaded image]
It does not matter if you log in as root or as a user as well.
So, here it is. I do not know exactly what broke as I have been trying to learn Linux over the past few years. You can see that since I've opted for CentOS after playing with a good number of distros. You have to be a masochist to do that. However, I am not there yet.
thanks again.

I have a distro I like and an installation method for OO I use, all installed on my computers in daily use for personal work, so you will understand that I am not minded to explore further by making practical changes.

To remove libreoffice I use Note the trailing * - this is important. You would need to modify this for CentOS, removing the LibreOffice links at root level.

At one stage some years ago I did try a KDE version of one of the ubuntu based distros but found it had too much overhead for my older machines. As my first ubuntu distro used Gnome I have always favoured that flavour.

RoryOF wrote:I have a distro I like and an installation method for OO I use, all installed on my computers in daily use for personal work, so you will understand that I am not minded to explore further by making practical changes.

To remove libreoffice I use

Code: Select all

 sudo apt-get purge libreoffice* 

Note the trailing * - this is important. You would need to modify this for CentOS, removing the LibreOffice links at root level.

At one stage some years ago I did try a KDE version of one of the ubuntu based distros but found it had too much overhead for my older machines. As my first ubuntu distro used Gnome I have always favoured that flavour.

I think I finally managed to clean them up, otherwise the OpenOffice would not have been re-installed. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the the same name should be used for a symlink in two applications by different vendors. If the LibreOffice people took their ball and walked away, then why they have kept the same name for this file?

Anyway, do you think this question has now been resolved? Should this thread be closed and given the Solved status?
Or, do you think this is a problem that should be reported to the developers and/or KDE.org?
thanks again.