Collabora Online Weekly Meeting #51

Development Meeting Minutes
1

Collabora Online Weekly Meeting #51

Date: Dec 2, 2021
Next meeting: Dec 9, 2021
All minutes published on: Meeting Minutes - Collabora Online

Attendees (write your name):

  • Pedro, Cor, Gabriel M, Gokay, Kendy, Pranam, Szymon, Aron, Andreas, Andras, Michael

Community update (Pedro)

  • Some forum activity:
    • Problems creating new documents from custom ott template
    • Admin : incorrect url path?
      • How to solve it?
        • Asked for exact hash.
      • Want to integrate CO in his project, question about license
        • .
      • Annoying failure to get CI to pass (Gabriel)
        • with new PDF / conversion patch
        • first to look if others are passing (Kendy)
        • the test UITest_calc_demo failed … python test in core.
        • Main problem is cypress test failure in CO-2021 (Gabriel)
        • Use a common-sense approach & merge it (Michael)
          • Tor is hoping to look at unit test stability.
        • How to re-trigger ? (Gabriel)
          • through re-basing; a dummy-commit ?
          • Can close the PR & re-open in github (Andras)
          • change the commit msg slightly ? (Michael)
          • on github – commit amend with no changes (Julius)
      • Our tinderbox says it is green (Michael)
      • what seen (Kendy)
        • UITest_calc_demo:
          • a crash during tear-down, on ending the tests …
          • coding terminate – done-OK; couldn’t connect to pipe etc.
            gitpod (Pedro)
  • people were reporting problems; now everything should work properly
  • people can test the Cypress tests now – which didn’t work before
    • can contribute & try to help.
  • Many times a cypress test finds a problem with the change

Design bits (Pedro)

  • Improvements around classic mode
    • using the space more efficiently for menus horizontally
  • Improvements around About dialog - changing things from 21.11 to 6.4.x back-porting
  • Many things still to improve – around JSON dialogs
  • started contributing again (Andreas K)
    • did a lot of cool things in the last months
    • also wrt. Nextcloud changes & so on.
    • Want to support the work, have some Q’s about branding & so on.
    • General question:
      • when built – have very different arrangement compared to the NC branding
      • had a look around the CSS files – eg. 1k – 2k CSS elements in branding file.
      • How can we bring work from NC changes into COOL ?
        • COOL + on top branding (updated colors etc.)
        • now looks like we have in the master build a general design
          • and then branding & differences on top.
      • eg. middle of page – the file-name, when the window is small – will be hidden in the NC branding
      • in core/master – we don’t have this functionality – CSS is completely different
      • how can we bring everything together?
      • Otherwise we fix master – but can’t guarentee some branding is not destroyed.
        • Wouldn’t worry about breaking it (Michael)
          • it’s an inevitable down-side of such changes
      • Want to have useful stuff in COOL
        • so we don’t have two different layouts.
      • 2nd thing → visual thing – Material Design icons
        • can offer – to say easier to have these in COOL as a 2nd icon theme.
          • select somewhere in the settings which you prefer.
        • Then NC can work there & they can work there – back-port it to LibreOffice
    • regarding the layout (Pedro)
      • desire is that common things relaying to layout should be shared among everything
        • the theme should be a theme – like a mask.
      • Many things – even with pressing deadlines – are already there in master
        • also other things – didn’t have time to include in master
        • even refinements – that will be on master.
      • A nice PR from Julius regarding new flex-layout on classic mode
        • some follow-ups to be included there.
    • Lines from branding (Pedro)
      • many of them can be generated more efficiently – some duplication there
        • the number is not very representative of complexity there.
      • Improvements needed here around the building process
        • good to point out those lines.
        • Repeating root variables in CSS – in the end not a big deal, but is ugly.
        • Should be done better.
    • Material design icons (Pedro)
      • something that NC decided on (Julius)
        • Apache licensed in general.
        • Looking into what we can contribute back there.
        • The Avatar list – is a larger feature here.
        • Some of the changes under time pressure re: 23 release
          • and will review & see what can be merged into the base.
          • To ensure theme is really about visual changes.
          • And structural ones are up-stream.
          • Goal is not reduce maintenance of the UI.
      • Think on the same track (Andreas K)
        • talk about it – see the nice feature:
        • file-name is in the center when window is small can be hidden
          • not theming, should be in master.
          • Understand time-pressure, completely ok.
        • don’t want to start back-porting & having different CSS methods.
        • For this one make an issue on github, or wait until back-ported.
      • Icons: no problem if NC say they have their icons (Andreas K)
        • if they want to maintain that in the online release
        • not many icons - in LibreOffice it is 3k icons
        • only want to say – can offer to work on the material design icons, have them in COOL.
    • Happy to have a nextcloud specific look for now (Michael)
      • good to file a ticket & merge the centering / hiding of file bits
      • even the C’bra theme doesn’t have that (Pedro)
        • agree: we need to get that into the core.
        • Also possibility if someone wants to add possibility for more than 1 icon theme up-stream
        • give more freedom to anyone who wants to switch between; completely ok
        • either way – lots of things that can be improved.
          • Many things already done, or WIP & should be merged soon
  • Saw Andreas’ PR on drop-down for font-size (Pedro)
    • perfect – it looks good; would be nice if it works for notebookbar toolbars
      • odd: FontSize & FontSizes
  • When we have docs on where icons can be located (Andreas)
    • easier for customers to re-theme without updating a CSS file.
  • Contextual toolbars ? (Andreas)
    • saw the PR - will take a look (Szymon)
      • wanted to have multiple contexts for one item.
      • Same as we have in the Notebookbar
        • these commands are for >1 layer and for default layer
        • with possibility for contextual toolbars – when you select a table
        • have commands from text & tables in the toolbars
          • very important for mobile device UI.

Schedule & update (Andras)

  • CODE 21.11.0.5
    • bug-fix & translation updates & small fixes we’ve done.
      • expect this tomorrow or thereafter.
  • 6.4.15 release soon too
    • will be done today / tomorrow …

Misc 1&1 bits (Gabriel)

  • PDF patch – like to get it merged
  • Saving issue
    • tried Ash’s suggestions – by using debug.html
    • managed to run this page locally – seems issue doesn’t reproduce anymore
    • put a comment in the issue; waiting for Ash to answer
    • if not reproducible – should drop it.
  • Alex working on contributions, didn’t manage to join today.

a11y work (Gokay)

  • Lighthouse score is much improved
  • can now activate a11y for the online side
  • will add listeners & will send a draft-PR this week
  • updated PR to make notebookbar items unique (Szymon)
    • to check it doesn’t break icons – then it will be ready.
      Update on what we’re up to (Szymon)
  • Working on a calc / clipboard issue last week
  • now almost done – now we re-use the same SystemClipboard that LibreOffice uses
    • previously we created a new instance every time – which didn’t work.
    • good to test for multiple users copying at the same time (Michael)
  • Switched to more important issue – loading just 1 tile on mobile in some cases
    • this is because the canvas has size 0x0 when we receive the docLoaded message
    • then we request only one tile – after that, we re-size and we don’t request more tiles.
    • Perhaps because the webview is hidden in the NC app,
      then we get an event that shows this
      • was failing for me locally without NC (Michael)

Other updates (Kendy)

  • Ash chasing some data-loss, initially caused by a corner-case
    • updating some reporting in the unit-test, three more broke & found other cases
    • Mert & Rash fixed something similar in the area of conflict resolution
  • Dennis → making good progress on RTL in Calc
    • lots of things going from RTL - most recently shapes & some invalidations
      • even before we invalidated too much.
    • Next looking at the toolbars.

Marketing bits (Cor)

  • announced CODE last week – attention on the community the day before
  • and a post afterwards on performance improvements
  • now preparing for COOL launch later.
  • Now sharing COOL days videos gradually …
    content is great & nicely visible with clear descriptions.
  • Nice to share minutes on github – perhaps makes sense to share minutes on social media
    • good to get Pedro setup so he can do that (Michael)

Pull Requests in Need of Attention (Pedro)

  • a number of these for Pedro to look at.

Next Meeting
Thursday, Dec 09, 2021 at 11:00 am (UTC) (12 CEST)