LibreOffice Base Form with subform date dropdown (default 14th Feb 2019)

[BrianStew]

I have a database which uses a form with subform in which a date can be entered.
The form contains a date field in the main form with a dropdown. Clicking this shows a calendar centred on today’s date (fine - as it should be).

The form also contains a subform with another date field. This also has a dropdown box for it’s date (edit form, right click date field, select column from list, select dropdown yes).
In the subform the date always seems to be centred on 14th Feb 2019 rather than today’s date. This is inconvenient as I usually want to enter a date close to today’s date.
I’ve searched “LibreOffice Base 14th Feb 2019” and can only see “On February 14, 2019, the primary LibreOffice development focused on the upcoming version 6.2”.

Is there a way to centre the calendar on today’s date that I’m not aware of.

I have created a sample database which shows the problem - just trying to figure how to attach it with screenshots.


Test.odb (10.8 KB)

[Villeroy]

Remove any default value from the date control properties.

[BrianStew]

I’ve managed to upload screen shots and “think” i’ve uploaded the test database.
I’m not aware of any “default value from the date control properties”.
There’s certainly no default value for date.

It seems like i’m unable to upload the external fdb file.
I’ve re-created it as an HSQLDB embedded.
Test1.odb (11.6 KB)

[CRDF]

@BrianStew

and “think” i’ve uploaded the test database

As it is external, cannot be opened, nor Form Design’s seen.
?

[RobertG]

@BrianStew : Add also the file testdb.fdb from your desktop. Then we could have a look at the database without any problem.

[BrianStew]

Yeah, that was why i said “think”. Wasn’t able to upload the fdb so I’ve since uploaded an embedded HSQLDB version which still has the date problem.

[Villeroy]

There are many issues with Base forms and gtk. The following line at the beginning of the soffice start script starts the program with its native fall-back tool kit.

if [ -z "$SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN" ];then SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen;fi

[BrianStew]

@Villeroy , I thank you for your valuable help and superior knowledge.
At the risk of sounding a complete numpty i’m afraid that is well beyond my knowledge base.
I wouldn’t even know where to find ‘soffice’ start script and I would be very reluctant to edit a system file, simply because I wouldn’t know what I was doing and if I made a mistake I wouldn’t know how to recover.

[Villeroy]

On some Ubuntu system where LO is installed in /opt, I make a backup soffice.bkp of the original script, change the script and then make an additional copy soffice.gen, which I can re-use when the next update overwrites the original script.

cd /opt/libreoffice25.8/program
sudo cp soffice soffice.bkp
sudo edit soffice
< make the changes >
sudo cp soffice soffice.gen

I’m sure, there is some other way to start LO with an alternative start script without changing the original script, but this is the obvious way.

[BrianStew]

@Villeroy thanks for that info.
As this is just a minor inconvenience for me, which I have been putting up with for 5 years, I will stick with my default until such time as this is fixed - or not.
I have filed a bug report as suggested by @RobertG :-
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168197

[RobertG]

Confirmed the bug with link to this thread.

[BrianStew]

The previous was a firebird external and I didn’t realise that the actual external file wasn’t present.
(Not used external before yesterday).

I’ve re-created the database as a HSQLDB embedded database and the behaviour seems to be exactly the same.

Test1.odb (11.6 KB)

[RobertG]

That is what I see here:

System: OpenSUSE 15.6 with KDE desktop
LibreOffce Version: 25.8.0.4 (X86_64)
Build ID: 48f00303701489684e67c38c28aff00cd5929e67
CPU threads: 6; OS: Linux 6.4; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Calc: threaded

[BrianStew]

Hi, That’s interesting, I wonder what’s different.
I’ve had this problem for as long as I can remember (more than 5 years) in a large database for our holiday let accommodation, the subform uses a payments table which tracks payment dates ( there can be multiple payments for a stay, hence the separate table).
I’ve recently split that database from embedded to external and tried to look at this again, which is why I created a new test database from scratch, still contains the same 14th Feb 2019 date.
Just don’t understand where this date is coming from.

[RobertG]

@BrianStew : Which system do you use? Have a look at Help → About LibreOffice. Copy with the button and paste it here.

[BrianStew]

Sorry, I normally do give this info in my post

Running Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
64-bit
Gnome version 40
Kernel Linux 6.14.0-28-generic

LibreOffice:-
Version: 25.8.0.4 (X86_64)
Build ID: 48f00303701489684e67c38c28aff00cd5929e67
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 6.14; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

[CRDF]

Bad image because I was unable to PrintScreen it. Had to take a picture and crop it do upload.
Yesterday I looked into the xmls for
“2019” and “43510”
but found nothing.

[RobertG]

@BrianStew : Try to start libre offce with SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen ./soffice

[BrianStew]

@CRDF - So you see the same date (14th Feb 2019).

[BrianStew]

@RobertG : I’m sorry, I don’t understand SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen ./soffice.
How do I do that? - Entering it from terminal doesn’t work.