Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 81035
"insert file"+"link" does not work as expected
Last modified: 2017-05-20 10:06:14 UTC
According to the UI it is possible to link complete impress presentations into other ones. To do so just use Insert->File->(select file && check "link"). This linking behavior seems to be completely broken. Two cases need to be considered: 1) The user selects the file itself (which is the root of the presentation-slide tree in the "insert file"-dialog): If the "link"-box is being checked, the user assumes that the complete presentation is linked into the current presentation. She also assumes that all changes in the linked-in presentation are reflected in the current presentation (at least after a complete reload in OO). This in not the case at all a) Changes in on the slides of linked presentation are not visible at all (also after closing OO an reloading the master-presentation) b) slides which become added to linked-in presentation do not appear in the in master-presentation at all. 2) The user selects just a few slides in the presentation-slide-tree (in the insert-dialog): Changes in the linked slides are not visible at all (also after closing OO an reloading the file). A very interesting discussion-thread about the problem can be found at http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?p=223397 . As described in the cited discussion the current behavior seems to be just a kind of copy-and-paste and not linking. But for such a purpose the user can do slide-c&p directly.
I can't reproduce the bug. when I tested it everything works like expected. Please write me a step by step description how to reproduce the bug.
Problem 1 (new slides do not appear/deleted slides are kept: 1) create a presentation (link.odp) with 3 slides (add some content to each side to make them unique). save&close the file. 2) create a new presentation (master.odp) 3) within the master.odp click insert->file 3b) select the link.odp within the file-dialog 3c) click on the root node of the document tree of link.odp in order to select the complete presentation to be linked in into master.odp 3d) make sure that the "link"-checkbox is checked 3e) click ok to link all content of link.odp into master.odp (which appears immediately in master.odp) 4) save&close master.odp (no document should be open now) 5) open link.odp and create a new slide 6) save&close link.odp 7) open master.odp: the newly created slide does not appear !! (note: the same holds for slide deletion: slides which are deleted in link.odp do still appear in master.odp) Problem2 (changes are not reflected): 0) repeat the step 1-4 as described above 5) open master.odp and modify one of the linked-in slides. 6) save&close master.odp 7) open link.odp: The modifications are not reflected here (!!), although we checked the "link"-box in the insert-dialog --> its rather a copy&paste than a linking, which contradicts the user expectation (at least my one)
Problem 2: The links are not updated immediately. You can update them by Edit > Links.. > Update. (You can multiselect the items.) In addition, the links can be updated when you open the document. This works for me. In Problem 1 you are right. Not the "file" is linked but each slide/page individually. I think, linking a whole file as file would be a new feature.
Problem2: thanx for pointing me to this dialog (never seen it before). But: problem2 describes the other direction. Changes made within master.odp in the linked slides are not reflected in the underlaying document (link.odp). But this is what the user expects if she's using linking. (It's like with "ln -s" under linux: if you change the content of a symbolic link, you're automatically changing the source of the link).
This issue is duplicate to issue 77396 *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 77396 ***
I close the issue as duplicate.
why closed? problem2 remains IMHO open (cf my last comment about it): Changes in linked slides are not reflected in the linked-in document. As fas as I can see this is not covered in issue 77396.
reopen the issue
Save the changes of a linked slide in the master is a feature. In my mind it's not good to save the changes in the master because if you use the slide in several different presentations you don't know which presentations you all change.
@cgu It's a feature from the implementation point of view. From a content point view a "link" (or here: some linked slides) directly refers to an additional object. A link for which changes are not reflected in the linked entity is not a link but a simple copy. So if you would like to keep your masters as they are, you could IMHO just copy them. If you would like to change the pages refered by a link directly you would need a real link, but what is currently called "link" in OOo-Impress is not a link but a copy with a unused reference to the original.
Expectation is wrong regarding problem2. Just like in master documents: "Subdocuments never get changed by changes made to the master document." Changes made in step 5 of comment 2 are not reflected in link.odp. Link feature works downstream, not upstream.