Week 3 Report: More Certificate Manager Improvements

Greetings, fellow FOSS enthusiasts! Welcome to another captivating update on my journey through GSoC'23 at LibreOffice. Here is an insightful recap of the past week, brimming with discoveries and a relentless pursuit of improving the PGP/GPG experience.

TL;DR: Improved LibreOffice certificate managers' integration and optimized certificate caching for enhanced user experience.

Fixing Certificate Manages' Integration

This week marked a start for the milestone of improving certificates' managers integration, which had been one of the most common reasons for bugs related to signing and encrypting documents. I successfully completed an initial patch, which you can find the patch here. The patch simply hides the button of using certificate manager in case none exists on the system. This is the initial step before making the handling of managers better.

To achieve this, I implemented a new function called IsThereCertificateMgr() within digitalsignaturesdialog.cxx. This function discreetly checks for the presence of a certificate manager, then I used it to hide the button from the dialog in case no managers exist.

Certificates' Caching

I have also worked simultaneously on certificate caching, which I started working on the previous week. It simply takes place with memoization within the security environment, we can now swiftly access certificates, eliminating unnecessary delays caused by repeated loading. However, this part is still incomplete because of some bugs related to the sophisticated flow of security context, still WIP.

In parallel, I focused on revamping the certificates view to enhance its user-friendliness and intuitiveness. Picture a magnificent tree view that elegantly displays certificates, simplifying navigation and management. With these visual improvements, users will find it easier than ever to handle their digital signatures and navigate the vast certificate landscape.

The Challenges Ahead: Customization and the Final Flourishes

As the journey unfolds, I anticipate encountering challenges that will test the mettle, with me working on their resolution! In the upcoming weeks, the current step is through a three-fold parallelized path to continue my progress:

1. Certificate Managers' Integration Fixes: Our focus shifts towards making the certificate manager integration more flexible and versatile. Departing from the current rigid, hardcoded approach.

2. UI Improvements For Viewing Certificates: The visual transformation continues as I will be further working to enhance the certificate view. This will be done with transforming the current crowded way of viewing certificates to a more clear tree view.

3. Finishing Caching Certificates: Equipped with newfound knowledge I accumulated this week, I will press onward in the conquest of caching. I will be working to finish that part so certificates will be cached to avoid that one or two second delay when you have a large number of certificates.

A Special Acknowledgment

Before concluding, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Thorsten Behrens, Heiko Tietze, and Hossein Nourikhah. Their unwavering support, guidance, and enthusiasm have propelled my progress, making this adventure all the more enriching. LibreOffice thrives on collaboration and camaraderie, and I am grateful to be part of such an exceptional community.

That's it, see you next week! Feel free to email me with any questions or concerns <3.