"filter selection" dialog is confusing

[JS]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

Sometimes when I try to open a file, OpenOffice.org does not recognise the file type automatically. It displays a "Filter Selection" dialog box.

The dialog box displays dozens of different file formats, apparently in no particular order. Just to give a sample of what is shown when I tried to open a PowerPoint file from a web site:

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text Document
PSD - Adobe PhotoShop
Web Page Query (OpenOffice.org Calc)
StarWriter 4.0
OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet Template
OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet
OpenOffice.org 1.0 Master Document
Lotus WordPro Document
...
[approx. 93 (!) lines omitted]
...
Text
Ichitaro 8/9/10/11 Template
CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile
StarChart 5.0
Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP [finally!]
...

At the very least, the entries should be in an alphabetic order. Ideally, most frequently used ones would be shown first.

Oh, and even better, OpenOffice.org should have been able to guess the file type. After all, the web server provided "Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-powerpoint" and, furthermore, the last component of the URL was "xxx.ppt". (I had clicked a link in Konqueror. As far as I can see, in the default configuration Konqueror simply passes the URL to OO.org and lets OO.org to do downloading. Thus, OO.org should have a complete information on the file type.)

[Jeremy (dinojerm)]

The list of filters in the 'Filter Selection' dialog (accessible by opening a
file type not detected automatically) is not currently sorted.
It should be to make it easier to use. (and it is sorted in 1.14)

[Thorsten-martens (thorsten-martens)]

TM->requirements: Please have a look.

[Lohmaier (lohmaier)]

*** Issue 70162 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

[Michael-ruess (michael-ruess)]

*** Issue 72936 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. With which version of Ubuntu and Openoffice.org did you notice this issue? Thanks in advance.

[JS (j5)]

Kubuntu Edgy. openoffice.org version 2.0.4-0ubuntu2.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I have confimed this on Fiesty using OpenOffice.org version 2.1-4ubuntu1.

[Michael-ruess (michael-ruess)]

*** Issue 81118 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

[Xyz-0 (xyz-0)]

I agree that sorting would make it easier to use. Thank you.

[Cactuscomputing (cactuscomputing)]

Still occurs in 3.0 beta 2 (Windows Vista). As the filter list becomes longer it
gets harder to find items. It would also be nice to mask out irrelevant entries
via an i-tunes like 'filter' field.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

An easy way to reproduce this is to create a 0 byte file for example a "foo.xls" then try to open it.

[Trouglide (trouglide)]

See this image for what a user is confronted with when the Filter Selection window opens:

http://img.skitch.com/20081208-gf5s2igr7x4mtqd8csyf5ieq3u.jpg

[Mathias-bauer (mathias-bauer)]

I think this issue either deserves some attention or it should be rejected. I've
not made up my mind yet but my tendency is to see the current behavior as close
to useless.

Only a few formats make some sense in this list at all and some structure is
definitely needed. Otherwise it might be better to remove that dialog completely
and just state "unknown format".

As I wrote, we have to find that out.

[Mathias-bauer (mathias-bauer)]

At least we can present the filters in a way as we do it in the file open dialog.

[Paddy Landau (paddy-landau)]

I fully concur.

It's frustratingly time-consuming to manually search through the 154 items; and
easy to miss while searching, so potentially you could search through (say) 230
items before finding what you need.

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23604

[Paddy Landau (paddy-landau)]

*** Issue 55152 has been confirmed by votes. ***

[kpalagin (kpalagin)]

*** Issue 41609 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

[kpalagin (kpalagin)]

This issues does not seem to be that difficult to fix. Any chance for 3.3?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

JS, could you please attach a document that demonstrates this problem? Does this issue occur for you in LibreOffice?

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

[This is an automated message.]
There are no new official OpenOffice.org releases in Ubuntu packaging anymore => Won't Fix

If the problem persists, please mark this bug as "also affects project Libreoffice" or "also affects distribution Libreoffice (Ubuntu)" if that has not happened already.

Please leave references to upstream OpenOffice.org bugs in place to allow cross pollination.

[Hdu-s (hdu-s)]

Created attachment 80996
suggested patch

[Jsc-n (jsc-n)]

grant showstopper flag

[Jsc-n (jsc-n)]

uncritical fix is already available

[Svnbot (svnbot)]

"hdu" committed SVN revision 1499775 into trunk:
#i55152# the listbox in the filter selection dialog should be sorted

[Hdu-s (hdu-s)]

My patch is applied now for AOO 4.0. Amazing that it wasn't fixed loooong ago considering the complexity of the fix vs the number of votes, duplicates, etc..

The next step for this listbox could be to use a sort key so that the most interesting choices get to the front and almost obsolete entries to the back of the list.

[Fanyuzhen (fanyuzhen)]

The latest build I get is AOO 4.0 r1496831, wait for revision 1499775 or higher for verification

[Robweir (robweir)]

How do you reproduce this bug? How do you "open a file type not detected automatically"?

[Hdu-s (hdu-s)]

> How do you reproduce this bug? How do you "open a file type not detected
> automatically"?

Try to open an unrecognized file type, e.g. the attachment 80995 (an XLSX 2010 file).

[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu. This Ubuntu release has reached EOL for Desktops.
See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

Since this bug hasn't been touched in a while and the Incomplete autoclose didn't work, I'm going to close it.

If you can still reproduce on a new version of Ubuntu, please reopen it.