Bug#895440: jabref: [~Unable to connect to libreoffice

[D Haley]

Package: jabref
Version: 3.8.1+ds-3
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

The Libreoffice "connect" feature does not appear to work in this version
of jabref by default.

The "manual connect" feature [1][2] fails as it is looking for several
.jar files:

unoil.jar
jurt.jar
juh.jar
ridl.jar

These files are located in some of these folders (but not all):
/usr/share/java/
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/classes/
/usr/share/libreoffice/program/classes/

which are not in the default paths listed by the program.

Furthermore, as jabref insists on appending "program/classes/" to
any path that you specify, you can only access them by supplying
"/usr/lib/libreoffice/" as the path. Using /usr/share/java/ or
/usr/share/libreoffice/ does not work, as not all jars are in these
directories (for /usr/share/libreoffice/ OR under the apprpriate sub-path
(program/classes, as the case for /usr/share/java/).

Possible solutions:
1) The default path in the automatic or manual connect could pointed to /usr/lib/libreoffice/
2) Upstream could allow specifying multiple search paths 
3) Upstream could hard-code in multiple search locations, such
as /usr/share/java/ and drop the hard-coded requirement for the
"program/classes/" subfolder, and search these optionally
4) Libreoffice could be more consistent in where .jar files are symlinked/installed. The "ure" package does not use /usr/lib/ for .jar installation.

Thanks!

[1] https://help.jabref.org/en/OpenOfficeIntegration
[2] https://www.onetransistor.eu/2015/04/libreoffice-bibliography-jabref.html

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.4
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-6-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages jabref depends on:
ii  default-jre [java8-runtime]     2:1.8-58
ii  java-wrappers                   0.1.28
ii  libandroid-json-java            7.0.0+r33-1
ii  libantlr3-runtime-java          3.5.2-6
ii  libantlr4-runtime-java          4.5.3-1
ii  libbcprov-java                  1.56-1+deb9u1
ii  libcommons-cli-java             1.3.1-3
ii  libcommons-lang3-java           3.5-1
ii  libcommons-logging-java         1.2-1
ii  libglazedlists-java             1.9.1-2
ii  libguava-java                   19.0-1
ii  libhttpasyncclient-java         4.1.2-1
ii  libhttpclient-java              4.5.2-2
ii  libhttpmime-java                4.5.2-2
ii  libjava-string-similarity-java  0.19-1
ii  libjempbox-java                 1:1.8.12-1
ii  libjgoodies-common-java         1.8.1-2
ii  libjgoodies-forms-java          1.9.0-3
ii  libjgoodies-looks-java          2.7.0-2
ii  libjhlabs-filters-java          2.0.235-3
ii  libjsoup-java                   1.10.2-1
ii  liblog4j2-java                  2.7-2
ii  libmicroba-java                 1:0.4.4.3-5
ii  libpdfbox-java                  1:1.8.12-1
ii  libreoffice-java-common         1:6.0.2-1~bpo9+1
ii  libspin-java                    1.5+dfsg-8
ii  libswing-layout-java            1.0.4-4
ii  libswingx-java                  1:1.6.2-2
ii  libunirest-java-java            1.4.8-2
ii  openjdk-8-jre [java8-runtime]   8u121-b13-4

Versions of packages jabref recommends:
ii  libmysql-java            5.1.42-1
ii  libpostgresql-jdbc-java  9.4.1212-1
ii  libreoffice-writer       1:6.0.2-1~bpo9+1
ii  xdg-utils                1.1.1-1

Versions of packages jabref suggests:
ii  evince [postscript-viewer]       3.22.1-3+deb9u1
ii  ghostscript [postscript-viewer]  9.20~dfsg-3.2+deb9u1
ii  mupdf [pdf-viewer]               1.9a+ds1-4+deb9u2
ii  okular [postscript-viewer]       4:16.08.2-1+b1

-- no debconf information