Bug 57932 - LibreOffice will not open multiple documents simultaneously from within Windows Explorer
Summary: LibreOffice will not open multiple documents simultaneously from within Windo...
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.6.3.2 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Desktop-Integration
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2012-12-06 03:06 UTC by Ben
Modified: 2023-11-06 07:44 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot demonstrating that LibreOffice will not open multiple documents simultaneously from within Windows Explorer (21.31 KB, image/png)
2012-12-06 03:06 UTC, Ben
Details

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Description Ben 2012-12-06 03:06:44 UTC
Created attachment 71068 [details]
Screenshot demonstrating that LibreOffice will not open multiple documents simultaneously from within Windows Explorer

If I select several LibreOffice documents simultaneously and attempt to open them all at once -- either by pressing the Enter key -- nothing happens. If I then attempt to right-click any of the selected documents and choose "Open" from the right-click context menu, I find the "Open" option to be missing from the context menu.

Please see attached screenshot for example.
Comment 1 Ken Biondi 2013-06-28 06:12:15 UTC
I was unable to recreate this bug.  If this is still a bug for you please change the status back to UNCONFIRMED and provide more information if possible.

I tested using:

Version 3.6.3.2 (Build ID: 58f22d5)
WIN 8 x86_64
Comment 2 Ben 2013-06-28 23:14:56 UTC
The problem still occurs.

The key piece of information that I failed to realize until just now is that a .csv file must be among the multiple files that are selected. (This was demonstrated in the attached screenshot; I simply didn't realize its significance previously.) Apparently, adding the .csv file is what causes the "Open" option to disappear from the context menu and renders the Enter key useless.

Presumably, .csv is not the only file type that will cause this problem.
Comment 3 Ken Biondi 2013-06-29 18:34:27 UTC
I tested again attempting to open multiple .csv files and was not able to recreate this bug.  I tested using WIN 8.  What version of Windows are you using?
Comment 4 Joel Madero 2013-06-29 19:45:06 UTC
This is really an interesting one, took quite a few tests but I have pinpointed xls as the culprit NOT csv. 

To confirm this, save a xls, csv and ods in the same folder. Mix and match from explorer (highlight and right click, see if "open" is present). If you have xls highlighted with either ods or csv, the open option disappears - while if you have csv + ods highlighted you can open fine as long as you have the csv set to open with LibreOffice by default (vs. MSO or some other software)

I am not 100% that this is our bug but I'll prioritize, if there is some technical reason why we can't fix it (most likely something to do with Windows doing stupid stuff that we can't control) a developer can close the bug.

Trivial - doesn't prevent nor slow down high quality work - really just a very very minor annoyance that has probably been around since OOo days. 

Medium - default is lowest but I think medium is good here since it's not behaving consistently dependent on file type - again this very well could be NOTOURBUG but definitely confirmed the behavior you're speaking of.


Windows 7
LibreOffice 4.1 RC1
Comment 5 A (Andy) 2014-09-27 10:30:33 UTC
reproducible with LO 4.3.2.2 (Win 8.1)

But it does not depend on the csv file.  Always if you select several different file types at once you can't open them (e.g. select a xls and a ods, rtf and odt, odt and odg or odt and odp, ...).  As long as you select only one identical file type it works.  But what is a little bit strange, if you select a doc and docx then it also works.
Comment 6 QA Administrators 2015-10-14 19:58:27 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 7 QA Administrators 2016-11-08 11:42:40 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 8 QA Administrators 2020-11-01 04:19:37 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 9 QA Administrators 2022-11-02 03:35:20 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 10 Steven Casey 2023-11-03 00:23:38 UTC
Still Reproducible.

Possibly something going on with Windows. Explanation on why its happening below

.xls files can be opened together simultaneously, however when paired with anything else (tested with .csv and .ods) the open option is not present. 

Reason:
When selecting 2 .xls files, the open option is there with an icon representing Calc. When selecting 2 files such as .csv and .ods together, the open button has a different icon representing LibreOffice. It looks as if Windows detects Calc as the application that should handle .xls while detecting the LibreOffice application as what should handle everything else. Since Windows wants to use 2 "different" applications, the open button is not present. 

This is backed up by the fact that you can open LibreOffice and select "open file" and select .xls with any file type and it will open them just fine. Further, if you select a .xls file in file explorer and click "open with" -> "choose another appl" and select "soffice.exe" (exe to launch LibreOffice) and finally, select "always" instead of "just once" then the option to open .xls files with any other file is present on right click.

Tested with:

Version: 7.6.2.1 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 56f7684011345957bbf33a7ee678afaf4d2ba333
CPU threads: 32; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 22621; UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded

Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: c0c8cffd3541e3cd616c96791b04e7ebf2b2ed03
CPU threads: 32; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 22621; UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 11 Mike Kaganski 2023-11-06 07:36:47 UTC
This is not a bug; this is how Windows' Open action works. When the files in selection are all associated with the *same* application, the Open option appears; when the associated default applications are different, the option disappears. This is normal, and this option would be at best dangerous when the apps are different - because user would possibly be confused, or something subtle could happen, if done otherwise (imagine a .bat file among .csv).

Test: right-click a CSV in Explorer, choose Properties, and associate with LibreOffice. Repeat with ODS and XLS. Then a mixed selection would have an Open context menu default item. Then associate CSVs with notepad. Then selection including CSV + either of ODS or XLS would not have that item.

Indeed, Explorer has more complexities; e.g., the number of selected elements also affects this; too many selected files (>15 on my system) would disable the Open item.
Comment 12 Mike Kaganski 2023-11-06 07:44:30 UTC
Note that associating files to Calc (calc.exe; something a user is likely to do) is different to association to LibreOffice (soffice.exe; something done by default), even if icons look the same.