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Unsere Arbeit orientiert sich an den Bedürfnissen unserer Kunden!

 

Use Visual Studio Code to edit LibreOffice Macros

During the development of macros in LibreOffice it is very useful to use an IDE like Microsoft Visual Studio Code to be able to use all the features of the environment.But unfortunately the use of external editors in LibreOffice needs some additional help

The first step to reach this target is to install the APSO-Extension. This Extension gives you the ability to configure an external editor for your python macros and a shell to the python installed with LO.

Just download the extension from the website (apso.oxt) to your pc or mac. Then open LibreOffice and install the extension (screenshot is MacOs):

Use the «Add» button and choose the extsion from the destination folder of your download.

Python Macros in LibreOffice on a Macbook

To be able to execute Python macros in LibreOffice it is necessary to configure your macOS to be able to execute the code. First of all, you need to install LibreOffice.

There are several ways to store Macros in LibreOffice:

1. Macros could be used by all users of the device
2. Macros could only be executed by the current user
3. Macros could be executed by the user of a document or template

The macros must be stored in different paths if you want one of those three options.

For all users

Macros that should be used by all users of an Apple device must be stored in

/Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/Resources/Scripts/python/

 Store your macros as usual in a file with the filename <fileName>.py, After that you will be able to see the file inside the macro list in LibreOffice

For the current user only

Macros that should be used by all users of an Apple device must be stored in

–/Library/Application Support/LibreOffice/4/user/Scripts/python

 In my case, the subpath Scrips/python did not exist so I had to create the path.

mkdir -p –/Library/Application Support/LibreOffice/4/user/Scripts/python

If you store your python files here they will be visible in LibreOffice.

For the user of the current document or template

In this case Script/python folder must be created inside the document itself. Each LibreOffice file, whether it is an ods, odt or odp file, is some kind of a zip file. If go to the filesystem and unzip the file

unzip <myFile>.<odt|ods|odp>

A structure of subdirectories will be created containing several kinds of files. It may look like this:

To add a Python macro to your document you need to create two subdirectories inside this directory structure. If you work with some kind of unix-like OS execute

mkdir -p Scripts/python

and copy your macro into the python directory. Last but not least you need to zip the structure again into an ods, odt or odp file.

cd directly to the top-level folder of your unzipped file like you see in the picture and execute the zip command

zip -r - . |dd of=~/<yourTargetDirectory>/<yourFileName>.<ods|odt|odp>

This command may look strange to you.  The parameter -r includes all subdirectories, and the dash - sends the output to the standard output (the screen). This will be used by dd (disk dump) to create a new file.

If you open the file in LibreOffice it will be recognized as a non-regular file because you added some files to the file structure. LibreOffice can repair this and give you the ability to open the document. The macro will be visible but cannot be executed because of the macro security in LibreOffice. You can adjust this behavior in the settings menu.

The next article will explain how to create a macro that adds some text and tables to your document.

have fun!

Downloading M32 Updates automatically

We recently created a python application to automatically download software, firmware and other components from the differnet company websites of Music Tribe (c). 

The python script is downloadable from this website or from github. The python script needs to be configured using an ini-file. If it will be configured correctly and the script will be called eg. once a day using crontab or some other regular mechanism the script will check all configured Music Tribe (c) sites to download the newest versions of the software. 

The script will read the downloadPath variable from ini-file and create subdirectories for each brand name, category, product, type and subtype. The script allways check whether a file is available in your download path and will only download files that are currently not available. No old files will be deleted. 

The email  notification subprocess will inform you when a new file has been downloaded. If there are several files you will only receive one email containing all new filenames.

Configuration of INI-File

The ini-file contains three main sections:

1. [Global]: 
   1. There is only one entry here: downloadPath. Specify the full path to the targetdirectory where all files should be stored.
2. [Mail]
   1. In this section are several adjustments necessary:
      1. fromaddr: Defines the email-address that sends you a notification about newly downloaded files.
      2. toaddr: Defines the email-address that should receive updates about newly downloaded files.
      3. SMTPserver: specifies the name of the smtpserver which should receive the email. Currently there is no authentication implemented. We will update the software to enable authentication.
3. [URL]
   1. This section contains all url of Music Tribe (c) brands to contacted and scanned for new updates. Each line contains defineable name (eg: M32C) and an rest-api url to be queried.
   2. The example urls on github and this site will be updated from time to time. Music Tribe (c) adjusts the parameters, brandnames, categories or model codes this and then so the urls need to be adjusted as well. 

This script has been works for us since four or five years. You are free to use the script. We are not responsible for any issues or defects that might ocure if you use this software. 

Local DNS and IOS16

After upgrading to IOS16 on several devices we recognized an issue according to name resolution. Our DHCP-Server offered two types of DNS entries to clients: Some local DNS servers and two Cloudflare ones. This worked like a charm for years. After upgrading our IOS devices we recognized after a while that all local addresses are no longer resolved to addresses. Each time we tried to connect to an office server by name the name could not be resolved.

After some testing with several other devices (macOS, Windows, Linux) we were completely lost: All devices were able to use the DNS system and connect to any server in the office - except the ios ones.

Checking the configuration of our ios devices showed up all necessary DNS servers and the configured fallback to Cloudflare servers. The only difference between the local and the Cloudflare servers is the ability to use DNS over HTTPS. Cloudflare is able, but our local servers are not. To quickly solve this issue we tried to deactivate the Cloudflare servers on our ios-devices - and the DNS system worked as expected.

In the next step, we changed the DNS distribution of our DHCP servers to drop all external DNS servers, which solved the problem immediately.

Enabling DNS over HTTPS on local DNS servers would be a different solution to overcome this issue.