Bug 137419 - Data Provider has no documentation
Summary: Data Provider has no documentation
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Documentation (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.4.6.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Olivier Hallot
URL:
Whiteboard: target:25.8.0 target:24.8.5 target:25...
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Data-Provider
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Reported: 2020-10-12 11:25 UTC by mshiner
Modified: 2025-03-13 22:11 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description mshiner 2020-10-12 11:25:25 UTC
Hi

ilmari.lauhakangas suggested I post a bug report - hopefully I'm in the right place.

There is no documentation for the new Data Provider

https://help.libreoffice.org/6.2/en-US/text/scalc/01/data_provider.html

Also it'd be useful if the differences between database connections via base, links to external sheets/csv and the data provider could be better documented and the differences explained.

I'm willing to help with this and the docs, testing and bug filing as I'm interested in the whole "getting external data into Calc" and then using it for analysis.

Is there a way I can reach out to the devs responsible and then get something going?

Cheers

Martyn Shiner
Comment 1 Travis Stewart 2020-10-12 19:09:21 UTC
This was also reported in bug 120220. The feature was removed in a patch because it wasn't ready for production. I sent an email to the LibreOffice development mailing list to see if I could get some information about the current status.

If they expect to keep the Data Provider, I'd also be willing to help. It needs better documentation. I also was not able to find any reference to Data Provider in the Calc guide.
Comment 2 mshiner 2020-10-12 19:41:28 UTC
(In reply to Travis Stewart from comment #1)

> This was also reported in bug 120220. The feature was removed in a patch
> because it wasn't ready for production. I sent an email to the LibreOffice
> development mailing list to see if I could get some information about the
> current status.
> 
> If they expect to keep the Data Provider, I'd also be willing to help. It
> needs better documentation. I also was not able to find any reference to
> Data Provider in the Calc guide.

Travis....

Thanks for that. The DP looks very interesting.

I use the Base data sources (linked to postgreSQL) a lot as an input into Pivot tables, but sometimes its overkill to set up a base file to a backend, register it and the use it - especially where the backend database is 'remote'.

The DP feature would be great but needs ways more work I suspect.

Like you I'd be happy to help in testing features documentation etc.

Martyn
Comment 3 Julien Nabet 2021-01-04 17:56:47 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 120220 ***
Comment 4 Commit Notification 2025-01-06 04:37:31 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/4c5a09f2ad9c2396860dc89553e4a6b31f2e0896

tdf#137419 Remove Data Provider help page
Comment 5 Commit Notification 2025-01-06 04:39:35 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-24-8":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/cab4fd33dd76b7a095b60a77dac3cc440979145b

tdf#137419 Remove Data Provider help page
Comment 6 Commit Notification 2025-01-06 04:39:38 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-25-2":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/9eb92fc6781ad602d4e8435cab4605590a92a05c

tdf#137419 Remove Data Provider help page
Comment 7 Buovjaga 2025-02-11 06:20:37 UTC
Olivier: I think your removal patch was a mistake. Data Provider made a comeback in 2021: https://libreoffice-dataproviders.blogspot.com/2021/08/data-providers.html
Comment 8 Olivier Hallot 2025-02-11 10:08:22 UTC
(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #7)
> Olivier: I think your removal patch was a mistake. Data Provider made a
> comeback in 2021:
> https://libreoffice-dataproviders.blogspot.com/2021/08/data-providers.html

The feature is not available in the Data menu, however it is available in the tabbed UI - Data. When I reviewed Calc menu, the features wasn't there so I removed the Help page on assumption that the features was dropped. 

Actually, the removed page included a "need help to improve page": 
<embed href="text/shared/need_help.xhp#needhelp"/>

so no big loss.

But again, the feature - if it was ever announced in the release notes - is not visible to documenters, much less a screenshot.

Anyway, thanks for the blog post pointer.
Comment 9 Commit Notification 2025-02-11 14:54:42 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/84435ba08d96a46d9ced24ccd37599d2932e8932

tdf#137419 (part) Restore Data Provider Help page
Comment 10 Olivier Hallot 2025-02-11 15:04:52 UTC
If the subscribers to this bug report are interested to contribute, please consider writing contents for the Help page. A template is available at

https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/join-the-documentation-team/update-help-contents/

And attach your contribution to this bug report for further processing.
Thank you.

PS. You contents can also be source for the Calc Guide.
Comment 11 Commit Notification 2025-02-11 21:34:31 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/35b759e6da136e3d46e3e1d08ef2245c50b1d76d

tdf#137419 (part 2) Data Provider Help page
Comment 12 Commit Notification 2025-03-07 00:20:17 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/1ae751565346311b204f62a1e82e22d2e9969d44

tdf#137419 More content in Data Provider Help page
Comment 13 Commit Notification 2025-03-13 22:11:13 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/4a006edb8f7907be14cedaba4da9b14902c86a47

tdf#137419 More content in Data Provider Help page