Currently Szymon Kłos is implementing an elementary form of a watermark feature that is available in the TSCP classification toolbar (bug 88774). I don't know how this feature should be available for a broader user base in the future. But beside a classification and printing/export feature (e.g. bug 54053), how's about the idea of implementing the watermark feature into page styles as an own tab. It could also be accessible via toolbar/sidebar/notebookbar which can open the watermark tab of the page style dialog. I haven't found anything about watermarking in the ODF specification (beside a transparent/pale discussion for draw objects). Would such a feature possible according to ODF? Is a watermarking feature even desired in the page dialog? As far as I remember in Word for example it's not only a print/export feature. People want to save a watermarking information into the document itself.
Good idea. @Regina, is there anything to know from the format? (setting component to Writer as I think we do not watermark spreadsheets)
Inserting this watermark is already available via Insert > Watermark in Version: 5.5.0.0.alpha0+ Build ID: b56d1e294d838d4b3d0f237c81325a0d1a1cff83 CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 6.1; UI render: default; TinderBox: Win-x86@39, Branch:master, Time: 2017-05-26_06:14:42 Locale: de-DE (de_DE); Calc: group The TSCP toolbar inserts a lot of custom properties into the document properties. But for Insert > Watermark creates not even the property corresponding to this watermark. So Insert > Watermark is a version for a "broader user base", who do not care about TSCP. The current implementation of Insert > Watermark opens a small dialog. It creates a custom shape of type fontwork and anchors it to a character in the header and sets the wrap properties of this shape. That is nothing special in regard to ODF. You are able to do it without the 'Insert> Watermark' wizard as well. Currently no content of the header is added in the page style dialog in Writer, because the content of headers are often very complex. Adding the call to the watermark dialog or a tab containing the entire watermark dialog, might be a useful exception. But before making things more and more complex, I would wait and see, whether Insert > Watermark will work for the users. The situation is different in Calc, because content for the header/footer can only be added via the page style dialog. And currently exists no way to add a shape to the page style in Calc and up to now it is not done by the TSCP toolbar. From a user point of view I see these problems: There is no obvious way, how to delete a watermark. There is no obvious way, how to alter the text of the watermark. Color, angle, font properties are available in the sidebar. But you need to be an advanced user who knows, that objects in the background are available via Navigator.
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #2) > But before making things more and more > complex, I would wait and see, whether Insert > Watermark will work for the > users. Bugzilla lacks a feature to halt a bug for a defined period and then to contact all CC'd people when the time is expired. @Heiko: I see a Watermark feature also as needful enhancement for Calc and Draw and even Impress.
(In reply to Thomas Lendo from comment #3) > @Heiko: I see a Watermark feature also as needful enhancement for Calc and > Draw and even Impress. Yes, makes sense. Users likely expect watermark as a page background - and that's how it was done before this function, as an image as page background. But another tab in the page style dialog makes also sense. Unlike Calc and Draw we do not have a page style in Impress on the other hand. (In reply to Thomas Lendo from comment #0) > It could also be accessible via toolbar/sidebar/notebookbar... I'm against abusing the sidebar for seldom used functions and wouldn't have integrated the page settings there. Since it's done we could add the watermark too. (In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #2) > The current implementation of Insert > Watermark opens a small dialog. It > creates a custom shape of type fontwork and anchors it to a character in the > header and sets the wrap properties of this shape. That is nothing special > in regard to ODF. You are able to do it without the 'Insert> Watermark' > wizard as well. Okay > There is no obvious way, how to delete a watermark. > There is no obvious way, how to alter the text of the watermark. If you open the dialog again you can modify the text. Not going over Insert but Page Style makes it even more clear. (The whole function would have been better realized as an extension, IMHO.)
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4) > (The whole function would have been better realized as an extension, IMHO.) The Template Changer extension and the way of Mozilla Firefox in the last years show that for such features it's not a good solution to outsource it into an extension. Watermarking isn't a seldom used feature - maybe it's not used that often but anytime in the worklife of every office user.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4) > > There is no obvious way, how to delete a watermark. > > There is no obvious way, how to alter the text of the watermark. > > If you open the dialog again you can modify the text. Not going over Insert > but Page Style makes it even more clear. Hence the idea to put it in the Format menu https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=88774#c17
Yes it will be implemented in the Page style dialog once all the work in the dialog has been completed, as discussed with Syzmon.
From the competitive analysis point of view, eg. Word has the watermark quite prominently in the UI: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Insert-a-watermark-in-Word-f90f26a5-2101-4a75-bbfe-f27ef05002de#ID0EAABAAA=2016,_2013 Any reason to hide it in a dialog, instead of having it in the menu / sidebar / toolbar? :-)
(In reply to Jan Holesovsky from comment #8) > From the competitive analysis point of view, eg. Word has the watermark > quite prominently in the UI: > > https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Insert-a-watermark-in-Word-f90f26a5- > 2101-4a75-bbfe-f27ef05002de#ID0EAABAAA=2016,_2013 As we should compare apples with apples, yes a watermark button would be visible in the tabbed Notebookbar similar to how it is in the Ribbon. Not sure that i would classify it as quite prominent, when it is located in the 'Page Background' group at the end of the Design tab, but yes it does have a large button which is understandable as it is a group button with presets, which we dont have. In 2010, it was located in the Page Layout tab, which is how i assume we'll also do it in Notebookbar. 2013: http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/extra/WINDOWS3/large/MS%20Word/Word%202013%20ribbon%20bar.png 2010: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MRLIhB075_E/UDs4h-XNAtI/AAAAAAAABiI/Q8c_CXuv1l8/s1600/Page+layout+Red.png > Any reason to hide it in a dialog, instead of having it in the menu / > sidebar / toolbar? :-) Wouldnt call it hidden when its suggested to move it from a new dialog to an existing one which contains all page-level properties, especially when the page properties dialog has a more prominent position in the menu, it is available in the context menu, and has its own dedicated deck/tab in the sidebar. :D From a different view, how would a user modify the watermark properties of a page-style that hasnt been applied from the styles & formatting deck of the sidebar if its not available in the page style dialog? The main point is that all relevant properties should be accessible from a single dialog, so users dont have to open multiple dialogs to access related features, like unfortunately we have to for object properties (bug 96355). Similar to MS Word, it groups watermark along with page color and page borders, which are available in the page dialog. If the separate UNO command and dialog are still wanted, it is fine to include the features in both places, but it wouldnt be listed in the Format menu as it would be redundant. Watermark should also go in the sidebar's Page deck/tab (bug 108651). The feature isnt used enough to go into the standard toolbars.
Jay: To be more clear here, I'm OK with moving the functionality from a separate dialog to a shared one, that makes sense. But - I want to have a possibility to access that functionality directly, ie. choose a menu entry or something that leads the user directly to the Watermark tab in the dialog :-) - via the menu entry or another way. How can we do that? Or did I misunderstand, and you are not proposing to remove the menu entry? Thank you!
(In reply to Jan Holesovsky from comment #10) > Jay: To be more clear here, I'm OK with moving the functionality from a > separate dialog to a shared one, that makes sense. > > But - I want to have a possibility to access that functionality directly, > ie. choose a menu entry or something that leads the user directly to the > Watermark tab in the dialog :-) - via the menu entry or another way. How > can we do that? Not sure if this is possible coding wise, but i'm assuming .uno:Watermark or a new UNO command could launch the page style dialog and have it switch to the Watermark tab. Ideally all dialogs should be able to take a query argument, so we could use something like .uno:PageDialog?Tab:string=Watermark, as this would be highly useful, e.g. the Page deck/tab in the sidebar. > Or did I misunderstand, and you are not proposing to remove the menu entry? Yes i'm proposing the removal of the entry from the menu as it is redundant when the functionality is accessible from the page style dialog. We dont provide direct menu access to more highly used page-level features like page size or margins, so not sure why we'd want to do so for watermark.
(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #11) > Not sure if this is possible coding wise, but i'm assuming .uno:Watermark or > a new UNO command could launch the page style dialog and have it switch to > the Watermark tab. yes that is possible. Also used with the Character dialog to activate Font, for setting language. So I would support that proposal to also have Format > Watermark.
As a side note, the watermark feature--as it works today--adds it to ALL pages regardless which or how many page styles are active. Must the watermark feature be changed to only have an effect on the dedicated page style if it's moved to the page dialog?
(In reply to Thomas Lendo from comment #13) > Must the watermark feature be changed to only have an effect on the > dedicated page style if it's moved to the page dialog? Hi Thomas, Since we only have a dialog Page Style, the settings there can only effect the style in question.