Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 97112
templates listed by titles, not filenames
Last modified: 2014-03-29 17:27:53 UTC
Under File/New/TemplatesAndDocs templates are listed by their Properties>Description>Title, not by their filenames; If two files have the same Title, only one is listed. This happens, for example, if a template was saved under a new name; it has the same title as the old version --unless the user thought of changing the Title. Issues 67279, 45558 may be related, but deal with keywords. Issue 63622 (supposed ly a duplicate of 45558) may be closer. Maybe the filename/title mixup is at the root of all these issues.
This is an enhancement, not a defect.
hi: This is a defect in that the template list is incomplete.
This is MOST DEFINITELY a defect. It is exactly what I wrote about in Issue 102756 on 6/14/09, which has now been closed as a "duplicate of 68223. (It appears to me that 68223 is a related, but different bug.) I had an existing template named "ltr.PersTemplate.ott". It lives at: c:\Documents and Settings\Tim\Application Data\OpenOffice.org\3\user\template\" When I decided to create the new template, I navigated to that directory, opened that .ott file, and then chose |File|Save As| to rename it as a template filetype to "ltr.PersTemplate5x8.ott" (making sure it got saved in that same directory). I then made my changes and saved it again (not 'save as', just 'save'). On the 14th, I started Writer and clicked on the dropdown arrow beside the NewFile icon (first icon on the left), then chose |Templates and Documents|. I immediately knew something was wrong, because the "ltr.PersTemplate5x8.ott" template name was not in the list. I then selected the original "ltr.PersTemplate.ott" template. But what opened was a new document based on the "..5x8.." template. I then navigated back to the directories the two templates live in. Both files were still there. I opened both files and started looking thru the Properties of both files. I also used Windows Explorer to check the properties of both files. What I found was that in both files the "Title" field shown in the Description tab of the window that appears when you click |File|Properties| still showed the original template file's name. (The correct filenames appeared in all other 'Properties' locations I found.) In the "..5x8.." file, I changed that field to its proper filename, saved it, and closed both template files. I then went back to the dropdown arrow beside the NewFile icon, chose |Templates and Documents| again, and now both templates appeared in the file list. And clicking on each name now opened a new doc with the contents of the proper template. Basing the list of templates in the |Templates and Documents| list on an internal "title" field rather than on the actual template file names is an invitation to corruption. Most users are never going to even be aware that the "title" field exists, much less be aware that they need to change it. So if OOo is going to use that field, then not automatically changing the "title" field to agree with the actual filename is indeed a defect.
Correction to my earlier post. On re-reading, I guess issue 68223 IS talking at least partially about this same bug. But I found the thread there to be difficult to follow and misunderstood it.
*** Issue 107298 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
This issue was opened on OO 3.0. Still the same in 3.1 if that helps (no idea if Writer was updated from 30.0 to 3.1 at all).
Listing templates by Titles will be OK if OO requests a title when the template is created,and checks that no such title already exists.
In my opinion, the "Title" field should always default to the Filename any time a document is saved with a new filename. I have recently discovered that when I make documents using these templates, the "Title" of the new document is the "Title" of the original template. And since the "Title" is what shows up at the top of the screen when someone opens that document, that can be VERY confusing.
As given in description AOO410m14(Build:9760) - Rev. 1573062 2014-03-01_04:11:01 - Rev. 1573123 Debian
This issue and (all related issues) isn't a defect. Go to the options and open OpenOffice → Paths and edit the settings for "Templates". There you can register more than one path, e. g. a network path for common templates and a path for user templates. In every path you can have subfolders with same names, assuming path1/folder1 path1/folder2 path2/folder1 path2/folder2 Folders with the same name will be merged as one region (folder). So you can have 2 templates (ore more if more pathes with same subfolder name) with the same filename! And template folders can have a locale representation into the template window. So you find the predefined regions "Presentations" and "Presentation Backgrounds". In a german locale this is "Präsentationen" und "Präsentationshintergründe". But this always directs to installed folders named "presnt" and "layout". If you create subfolders with this names in any other registered template path it will be merge with the existing entries. Because the presentation wizard looks into this regions, all templates are easily usable by the wizard. But they should have different (unique) titles ...
This may have been INTENDED to be an enhancement, but as it works now it is DEFINITELY a defect, for reasons I detailed in my 2009 posts. 1. When you open an existing template file, edit it, and save the edited file to a new name so that the result is a NEW template, the result is that the one of these two templates is now HIDDEN because they both still have the same "Title". 2. When you create a document based on a template and someone (the recipient) opens that document later, the "Title", which shows up at the top of the screen, is still the "Title" from the template - which is probably NOT what I want the recipient to see. I should NOT have to go in and manually CHANGE the document properties "Title" every time I create a new file from a template.
(In reply to timdeaton from comment #11) > This may have been INTENDED to be an enhancement, but as it works now it is > DEFINITELY a defect, for reasons I detailed in my 2009 posts. No. Because this is an very old discussion the developers changed the behaviuor of saving templates by the "documented" way: Using File → Templates → Save and saving the file in any region with your selected filename, the filename is automatically saved as title. If you store a template in any other way, the application have no influence on your action, because it do that what you have selected to do.
Then at least part of the problem has been fixed, but not documented on this thread til your (mroe's) 3/25 comment. It's been a few years since I created a new template; and though I use OpenOffice at one of my part-time jobs, these days I usually only create documents from templates at home (here), where I'm now using LibreOffice. The last version of OO that I used was 3.3.0, and the Title problem when creating new documents from templates still existed on OO then. I know that on LO, the Title problem still exists when creating new documents from a template, because I deal with that at least once a week. The version of OpenOffice I use at work is 3.x. Can you confirm whether that part of the problem has also fixed in OpenOffice? If the version of OO at work is later than 3.3.0, then I'll try to get time to test it when I'm there this afternoon. But if it has been fixed it may have been after the 3.x version there - which I am not at liberty to update. (I think it probably IS 3.3, because I think I remember seeing the Apache logo this year instead of the Oracle logo. [It's a tax-season job]).
Sorry, don't know the precise version. But the behaviour I've described in comment 12 was introduced by Sun/Oracle, so it must be 3.3 or earlier.