Bug 116827 - [FILEOPEN] Support for opening same document twice as read only with command line switch
Summary: [FILEOPEN] Support for opening same document twice as read only with command ...
Status: RESOLVED INSUFFICIENTDATA
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Commandline
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Reported: 2018-04-05 14:27 UTC by Nick
Modified: 2019-01-11 15:26 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Nick 2018-04-05 14:27:42 UTC
Description:
There's currently no way to view the same document twice. One can open a new window and try and open the same document again, but it will just bring focus to the currently open document.

Additionally, Microsoft Office Word has command line switches to do this (/n and /m) and it's something I would be extremely happy with if included with LibreOffice.

Even if the second document was a read only copy of the first it would help. With big displays, I often have the same document presented in multiple spaces.

The command line switch --view will only open one window per document so that won't work.

Thanks for looking.

Best,

Nick

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open a document in a libreoffice component
2.Open another instance of that libreoffice component
3.Try to open the same document

or...

1. Use the command line
2. Navigate to libreoffice program directory
3. In CMD, soffice.bin "FilePath" --view
4. Try the same thing again.
5. Focus brought to currently open document

Actual Results:  
In both cases, focus brought to currently open document.


Expected Results:
A new window would appear with the same document loaded. Either read only or normal depending on what is possible for you to program.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes



Additional Info:
A new window would appear with the same document loaded. Either read only or normal depending on what is possible for you to program.



User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/65.0.3325.181 Safari/537.36
Comment 1 Jean-Baptiste Faure 2018-04-14 08:34:34 UTC
I am not sure if I understand your request correctly. Did you try _in LibreOffice_ menu Window > New Window ?
Since the days of StarOffice that opens a second window with the same document. 

Status set to NEEDINFO, please set it back to UNCONFIRMED once requested
informations are provided.

Best regards. JBF
Comment 2 Nick 2018-04-14 17:25:36 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 3 Nick 2018-04-14 17:26:04 UTC
(In reply to Jean-Baptiste Faure from comment #1)
> I am not sure if I understand your request correctly. Did you try _in
> LibreOffice_ menu Window > New Window ?
> Since the days of StarOffice that opens a second window with the same
> document. 
> 
> Status set to NEEDINFO, please set it back to UNCONFIRMED once requested
> informations are provided.
> 
> Best regards. JBF

Yes, I tried that. Using that method you can only open one additional document of the same name. I work with huge displays where there may need to be several copies of the same document on the display at the same time. That's why I have requested this feature. I also launch libreoffice through a program I wrote automatically so that's why I requested a command line switch. In the interim, I've written a wrapper program which creates read only clones of the document and allows you to open as many copies of a document as you like. But if this feature were to be built in, that would be awesome. If anyone wants to see my wrapper code written in C#, let me know. I understand this feature is rather niche, but I thought I'd request it anyway.
Comment 4 Jean-Baptiste Faure 2018-04-14 18:20:25 UTC
I still don't understand: iterating menu Window > New Window allows you to open the same document as many times as you want. Shift+Ctrl+M switch the new copy in read-only mode.
Alternatively, using the command line, you can use the -n switch to open a new copy of your document as template.

Best regards. JBF
Comment 5 Nick 2018-04-16 13:01:37 UTC
(In reply to Jean-Baptiste Faure from comment #4)
> I still don't understand: iterating menu Window > New Window allows you to
> open the same document as many times as you want. Shift+Ctrl+M switch the
> new copy in read-only mode.
> Alternatively, using the command line, you can use the -n switch to open a
> new copy of your document as template.
> 
> Best regards. JBF

Jean, 

I've modified the title of my bug to more accurately reflect what I'm requesting. I had no idea about Window > New Window. That's awesome! Though, it doesn't help me because I need to be able to open multiple read only copies of the same document from the command line. -n will copy a document and open it as writable. What I need is a -n that copies the document and opens it as read only. Or, opens the same read only document multiple times. Given that the document is read only, making copies might not be necessary.

I've tried combining --view and -n to no avail.

Again, I realize what I'm requesting is niche. So I understand if I'm on my own here.

Best,

Nick
Comment 6 Buovjaga 2018-04-22 16:50:00 UTC
Adding design team to CC to act as gatekeepers for niche features.

Perhaps this would be doable by the user with some UNO script and there would be no need for a core feature.
Comment 7 Cor Nouws 2018-04-25 17:43:15 UTC
not sure if this is Writer only? Leaving component as LibreOffice for now
Comment 8 Kenneth Hanson 2018-04-26 04:16:03 UTC
I'm confused, and I think it's because the word "copy" is being used for two different things.

Nick, do you want multiple *views* of the same document, or would multiple *copies* (that is, separate files with the same content) be adequate?

Command line switch -n gives you the latter. There is no point in making them read-only in this case, because they can't affect each other or the original.

My suspicion is that what you really want is multiple *views* (or instances) of the same document, so that all remain in sync as you edit them. This would require a new command line switch. Is this right?

Then, combining this another switch (current "view" or a new one with a better name) to make the new views read-only from the start would be a separate change. Certainly this would be the logical thing to do. But do you actually need this? Your original comment makes it sound unnecessary.
Comment 9 Heiko Tietze 2018-05-17 08:45:21 UTC
Nick, what do you think about comment 8? Would resolve this ticket as WFM.
Comment 10 QA Administrators 2018-12-03 13:13:21 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 11 QA Administrators 2019-01-11 15:26:31 UTC
Dear Bug Submitter,

Please read this message in its entirety before proceeding.

Your bug report is being closed as INSUFFICIENTDATA due to inactivity and
a lack of information which is needed in order to accurately
reproduce and confirm the problem. We encourage you to retest
your bug against the latest release. If the issue is still
present in the latest stable release, we need the following
information (please ignore any that you've already provided):

a) Provide details of your system including your operating
   system and the latest version of LibreOffice that you have
   confirmed the bug to be present

b) Provide easy to reproduce steps – the simpler the better

c) Provide any test case(s) which will help us confirm the problem

d) Provide screenshots of the problem if you think it might help

e) Read all comments and provide any requested information

Once all of this is done, please set the bug back to UNCONFIRMED
and we will attempt to reproduce the issue. Please do not:

a) respond via email 

b) update the version field in the bug or any of the other details
   on the top section of our bug tracker

Warm Regards,
QA Team

MassPing-NeedInfo-20190111