fake libreoffice install?

[risto]

Been a long while since I've used wine, but I found that I'm able to run the payroll program under wine (8.1) instead of using virtualbox.
For the most part, things are ok... but there seems to be a functionality missing to open certain forms in Excel (as a spreadsheet).

In virtualbox I only installed libreoffice 7.5.0 and it more or less worked (just a problem with iso-8599-1 that I haven't worked out just yet).

With wine, so far I've *only* needed to install (via winetricks) dotnet48 and the application, and certain things like printing or opening a report as a PDF work fine (invoking my native pdf viewer).
I'd like to keep this a 'light' installation avoiding outright installation of libreoffice in wine [if possible].
Has anybody been able to do the registry magic to make wine believe that LO is installed 'locally'?

Cheers

[jkfloris]

Do you want to open a xml file in Wine with LibreOffice? Or does the program needs Excel components to display the spreadsheet?
The first one can be done with winebrowser.

[risto]

No, that seems to work (with winebrowser or wine explorer)... What doesn't work [yet] is the application being able to invoke LO with the xml after generating it... I have since found out that msxml6 needed to be installed [thanks to another post found].

I'm presuming, perhaps falsely, that it's because the necessary glue isn't set in the registry...

That is, it does work in VirtualBox after LO is installed... but vbox can't invoke native linux application from a 'doze client that I'm aware of. So I'd like to fake the install since in wine the native apps can be invoked.

[jkfloris]

Oops. Instead of xml file, I meant xls file.
In other words, can you open an xls file with LO like this?

Code: Select all

wine start test.xls

To enable this, the following registry file must be imported:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xls]
@="XLSfile"
"Content Type"="application/vnd.ms-excel"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\XLSfile\shell\Open\command]
@="winebrowser \"%1\""

Should the program create xlsx files, the registry file will be:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xlsx]
@="XLSXfile"
"Content Type"="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\XLSXfile\shell\Open\command]
@="winebrowser \"%1\""

[risto]

Well, it's an .xml file
using `wine start foo.xml` the file is opened with LO calc
but not directly via the application when the file is generated.

The header of the file looks like this:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>
<Workbook xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel"
xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<DocumentProperties xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">
<Author>blah blah</Author>
<LastAuthor>blah blah</LastAuthor>
<Created>2023-02-14T00:00:0Z</Created>
<Version>12.00</Version>
</DocumentProperties>
<ExcelWorkbook xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel">
    <WindowHeight>8520</WindowHeight>
    <WindowWidth>18720</WindowWidth>
    <WindowTopX>240</WindowTopX>
    <WindowTopY>105</WindowTopY>
    <ProtectStructure>False</ProtectStructure>
    <ProtectWindows>False</ProtectWindows>
</ExcelWorkbook>
...

It must be using a M$ centric means of opening the spreadsheet... again, the application is a .NET framework 4.8 program.

Guess I have not much choice other than to copy my .wine to another prefix and install LO windows (and hope it runs)
in order to see what's needed to make things work.

cheers

[jkfloris]

When you try to open a form in the payroll program, do you see a line like

Code: Select all

002e:err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx} not registered

in the terminal output?

If that is the case, search for "{xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx}" in the registry of the virtualbox installation.
With a little luck, you can copy the registry keys and modify them for Wine.