A lightweight, background-running extension for LibreOffice that automatically saves your documents while you work. Built with modern Python and packaged using Poetry.

Features

Silent & Automatic: Hooks into LibreOffice's global OnLoad and OnNew events to run completely in the background without needing a user interface.
Smart Debouncing: Waits for you to pause typing (default: 1 second delay) before issuing a save. Rapid continuous typing will dynamically delay the save loop to prevent UI stuttering on large documents.
Atomic Backups: Before triggering LibreOffice's internal synchronous .store(), the extension executes an atomic file-copy of the last known saved state to a hidden .bak file (e.g., .filename.bak). This protects your data payload from corruption if your OS or LibreOffice crashes during a complex write cycle.
Safe Evaluation: Will not blindly save new documents that have not been given an initial file path location, protecting you from unexpected file generation.

Automatic Installation

For Windows (PowerShell):

# Download the latest release
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/JMR-dev/LibreOfficeAutoSave/releases/latest/download/AutoSave.oxt" -OutFile "AutoSave.oxt"

# Install the extension
& "C:\Program Files\LibreOffice\program\unopkg.com" add -f AutoSave.oxt

# Clean up the downloaded file
Remove-Item AutoSave.oxt

For macOS / Linux (Bash):

# Download the latest release
curl -LO https://github.com/JMR-dev/LibreOfficeAutoSave/releases/latest/download/AutoSave.oxt

# Install the extension
if [[ "$OSTYPE" == "darwin"* ]]; then
    /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/unopkg add -f AutoSave.oxt
else
    unopkg add -f AutoSave.oxt
fi

# Clean up the downloaded file
rm AutoSave.oxt

Manual Installation

Grab the compiled AutoSave.oxt file from the dist/ directory or the latest release.
Open LibreOffice.
Navigate to Tools > Extension Manager.
Click Add... and select AutoSave.oxt.
Restart LibreOffice. The listener is now globally attached and will silently watch your documents!

Development & Testing

This repository uses Poetry to handle dev dependencies, unit testing, and linting. Note that the runtime execution of the extension happens within LibreOffice's embedded Python interpreter.

Setup

# Initialize the virtual environment and install pytest
poetry install

Running Tests

The test suite utilizes unittest.mock to heavily mock the internal PyUNO C++ bridge. You can run the test matrix without needing an active LibreOffice instance:

poetry run pytest

Fast Deployment Loop

To accelerate iteration speed when modifying the python codebase, use the provided deployment scripts. They will automatically build the ZIP archive, forcefully kill active LibreOffice instances to drop file locks, use the unopkg command-line utility to uninstall the old extension, and inject the freshly built .oxt before restarting Writer.

For Windows (PowerShell):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\deploy_and_test.ps1

For macOS / Linux (Bash):

chmod +x deploy_and_test.sh
./deploy_and_test.sh

Debugging

If the AutoSave functionality fails silently, check the output log generated by the background thread. The extension writes timestamps and tracebacks directly to your home directory:

Windows: C:\Users\YourUsername\workspace\LibreOfficeAutoSave\autosave_debug.log
Linux/Mac: ~/autosave_debug.log