Category: technology

I tinker with tech…

technology

LibreOffice – Impress Templates and Object Styles

I just upgraded one of my computers to Kubuntu 18.10. With that upgrade came the latest version of LibreOffice (6.1.2.1).


With this new version, when I try to create a new Impress document, I’m now forced to pick a template. The options aren’t terrible, but I am of the opinion that presentations should focus on the content, not the pretty colors, shapes, or designs around the content.

I wanted a plain as can be, black and white template. There wasn’t one to be found. So, I created one.

Plain TemplateDownload

I’m not going to go into the process of how to create a template in this post, but I do want to note one thing that I learned while creating my template. There is a quick way to change the characteristics of drawing objects in LibreOffice as well. I have always hated the default color when I create a box or circle in Impress (usually it’s some ugly blue color). It is possible to change the defaults for those, but doing so also seems to affect the defaults for outline boxes (not sure why). But it’s also possible to simply create a new style for objects and then apply that style once you’ve created your object, just like can be done with text. Here’s how you do that.

First, make sure you have your right side panel open in Impress and click on the Styles tab.

I initially tried changing the Default option in the list of styles, but that ended up changing the characteristics of the outline boxes, which I didn’t want to do. So, instead, what you need to do is create a new style (or modify one of the existing ones). You can create a new style by right-clicking on one of the existing styles and selecting “New” (my mouse was on “Modify” in the screenshot below). 

In the window that pops up, you can change the fill color under the “Area” tab and the line color under the “Line” tab. 

Since I like super plain, I changed mine to a grey fill with a black outline. Now, when I create a new drawing object, I can simply select it and double-click the style and it is how I like it:

I also saved this as part of my template. So, now, when I create a new Impress presentation, I load my template, and all of the settings I like are already in place.

(NOTE: How to save this as a template. Click on “File -> Templates -> Save as Template.” You’ll get a new window. Name your template and pick your folder. It will then be saved as a template for you that you can use when you create a new Impress file.)

technology

LibreOffice – animating elements or series in a chart/graph in Impress

I really like LibreOffice. It’s not just my default office suite because it’s free. I like it because of the control it gives over so many elements of what I do in my day-to-day work. However, this post is one of those where I lament the fact that it is missing a feature that other similar software has had for over a decade: the ability to animate a series or element in a chart or graph. There is a way to do this, but it is extremely clunky and should really be a feature that is added to the software.

Assuming you want to use LibreOffice to animate a series in a graph or chart, here’s the process.

First, create your graph. I created mine in LibreOffice Calc.

Now, copy and paste that into a slide in Impress. 

Check to be sure the chart looks exactly how you want it to look, because this next step is going to make it so any future changes to your chart will be really time consuming. What you’re going to do is right-click on the chart and select “Break”.

What the “Break” command does is separate every element of your chart into individual pieces. You can test this once it’s done by clicking on any one piece of the chart and you’ll see that it doesn’t select the chart anymore. It select just the single piece of the chart, as shown in this next image.

So, after “breaking” your chart, you have all the same elements, but they are all broken into individual pieces. What that means is you can now animate every single piece of your chart.

Of course, if your goal is like mine and you want to show change over time by animating a series from left to right, there are a couple more steps. 

To animate an entire series, you have to select the whole series. You really need to do this by dragging a selection square around the relevant elements, since there are is an outline of each marker in an element, the fill component, and then the line. Selecting each component individually is basically impossible. So, drag a square around the elements you want to link together like this:

Then right-click on them and select “Group”. Once you’ve got the elements grouped together, you can then “Animate” the group using a Wipe animation from left to right.

Here was my result once you play the slideshow:

LibreOffice programmers, if you’re listening out there. I love the software. But this is a feature that should be included and not require this length of work. Please add it.

technology

Linux – tinyMediaManager on Kubuntu 18.04

I run a network attached storage (NAS) device at home to manage all my media (e.g., music, videos, photos, etc.). I have used various programs over the years to manage the naming and organizing of my music files but just recently discovered tinyMediaManager for managing video files. Since it’s written in Java, it works on any OS, including Linux.

Given my large collection of movies, I have been looking for software that would properly name and organize all of them. tinyMediaManager seemed like the perfect solution, but I immediately hit a snag once I tried to get it running on Kubuntu 18.04 (my current distribution of choice). I couldn’t get the GUI to launch. It took some doing, but I eventually figured out how to make this work on Kubuntu 18.04.

First, download the tar.gz file here. (Note: I couldn’t download it using Chrome, as the tinyMediaManager site only lets you download it using a browser that allows Java and, as of Chrome 45, Chrome doesn’t. I used Firefox, which worked fine.).

Untar that file and move the resulting folder wherever you want it to reside (obviously, somewhere you have access to it, but, otherwise, it doesn’t matter).

Now, the tricky part. According to the tinyMediaManager website, all you need to do to launch the program is use a terminal to navigate to the folder you just untarred and use the command:

cd /home/ryan/tinyMediaManager
./tinyMediaManager.sh

When I tried this, it didn’t work. It seemed like it was trying to do something, but then the GUI wouldn’t open and… nothing. Disappointed, I started looking for answers. I eventually found the “launcher.log” file in the tinyMediaManager folder and that gave me the clue I needed to solve the problem. As it was trying to launch, it was running into a problem with a specific thread and library in the version of Java I had installed by default. Here was the error:

Exception in thread "Getdown" java.awt.AWTError: Assistive Technology not found:

It turns out, tinyMediaManager has not been updated to work with newer versions of Java. So, here’s what you can do.

First, install the Open Java Development Kit version 8 which is the latest version it works with:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

It turns out, you can have multiple openjdk’s installed at the same time. I was running as my default openjdk 11. Now, in order to switch to the openjdk 8 environment, type in the following command at the terminal:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

You’ll then be given the chance to choose which openjdk you want to use, like in this screenshot:

Choose openjdk 8 as your default. Then try running tinyMediaManager again. If the software gods are smiling upon you, the GUI will launch:

technology

LibreOffice Calc – Comparing and Aligning Two Lists Using VLOOKUP

One of the tasks I have to do regularly as part of my job is to compare two lists to see which items are missing on one list but not the other. I have been doing this by hand but figured there had to be a way to do this in Excel. I finally figured it out but don’t want to forget how to do it. So, I’m documenting it here so I can draw on this whenever I need to do it again.

Here’s the scenario. I have a list of “items” but every month or so I receive an updated list of “items” from someone else. During that month, some of the items on my list have been taken off and some have been added to it. Likewise, the same has happened to the other list that this other person sends me (I’m being really vague here because I work at a university and there are laws that govern academic records).

My list and the other list have to be kept synchronized but we have two separate databases that are used for this because… (argh, yeah). Anyway, what that means is that I have to compare the two lists and quickly find the items on one list but not the other and vice versa. Here’s how to do it quickly in LibreOffice Calc.

Here are two lists:

(NOTE: You can actually do this in two separate Calc sheets or within the same one.)

LIST 1 is in Column A and List 2 is in Column C.

In Column B I am going to create a function that allows me to search all of Column C to see which of the items in LIST 1 show up in LIST 2. Click in Row 2 of Column B then click on the Function Wizard (or start typing):

In the Function Wizard dialogue box, you’ll see this:

Search for VLOOKUP then double-click it and you’ll see this:

You now need to build the function. This is where I got confused, so I’m going to try to explain this carefully.

The first box is the “Search criterion.” Basically, this is what you want to find. In our example, let’s say that we want to see which items in List 1 are in List 2 (Hint: It’s apples and grapes.). So, we are going to put in the Search criterion that we want the software to search the items in column A or LIST 1. We do this by simply selecting cell A2 (you can do this by typing it in or by selecting it by clicking the button to the right of the box and then selecting A2 like I did below):

Next is the “Array” box. This is the content through which you want the software to search to find the items in LIST 1. Again, you can type this in or select it using the button to the right. However, there is an important change that you need to make here. If you select the array with your mouse and leave it as is, the values will change as you drag this formula down in Column B as it will assume you want to adjust the array as well. Since we don’t want to adjust the array but rather want to search through the same items in LIST 2, we need to put dollar signs before the letters and numbers in the Array which will lock the boundaries of the array into place so they don’t change when we copy the formula to other cells, as shown below:

The next part is the part that threw me off for a long time in figuring this out. The “Index” is the column in the Array you want to compare to the Search Criterion. In this case, all you need to do is specify “1” since there is only one column. But, presumably, you could have an array made up of multiple columns and want to choose just the 4th column (so you would enter 4 in the Index). Here’s how this looks:

Finally, the last box that is part of our function is the “Sort order” box. This tells the software whether the lists are ordered alphabetically or not. If they are not, enter zero (“0”). If they are, enter “1.” If you leave this blank, LibreOffice Calc thinks the lists are ordered. So, make sure you fill this out.

Once you’ve got that all entered, your formula should look like what I have above. Hit “OK” and it will search the Array C2:C7 for “bananas.” If it finds it, it will return “bananas.” If it doesn’t, it will return “#N/A” as shown below:

You can then, of course, drag this formula down. When it finds the item from LIST 1 in LIST 2 it returns that item. When it doesn’t, you get #N/A.

And there you have it. A LibreOffice Calc function for searching a list for a target and returning an indicator.

(NOTE: What I typically do after I have run this function is sort by the column where the function is located so I know which items are missing from LIST 1 and which are missing from LIST 2.)

technology

Linux – Adding and Organizing Music with Clementine

In the almost 15 years I’ve been using Linux I have gone through a number of music playing apps. From Amarok to Banshee to Rhythmbox and at least a few more. My favorite at the moment is Clementine. I’ve grown to really like the basic interface of Clementine and it does a good job with pretty much everything I need.

The one issue I had with it over the years is that I didn’t think I could use it to add music to my music library and organize it at the same time. Turns out, I was wrong. Clementine does have the ability to add songs to your music library and organize them (into folders and renaming the files). It’s just not the most intuitive process. So, I figured I’d outline the process below.

First, you obviously need to install Clementine.

You’ll then need to set your music directory in Clementine which is where you want to store your music files. Go to Tools -> Preferences.

In the window that opens, click on “Music Library” and then add the folder where you want to store your music:

Next, to add music to your folder, go to the left side of Clementine and look for where it says “Files”:

Click on that and you’ll be able to browse to any folder on your computer.

I usually put the music I want to add to my collection on my desktop, so I navigate there, find the folder, and then right-click on it. In the context menu that comes up, click on “Copy to library.”

In the window that comes up next, you’ll have the option to change how the files are organized, both at the folder level and with the renaming of files.

You also have the option of changing the destination (which doesn’t make much sense since you want the music in your primary music folder). You also have a bunch of other options, like deleting the files after they are copied, changing the naming conventions, etc. Once you’re ready, hit “OK” and your music files will be copied into your music library named exactly how you want them to be named and organized how you want them to be organized.