Bug 114205 - Add a Tabulation Size entry to the style panel
Summary: Add a Tabulation Size entry to the style panel
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Styles-Paragraph
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Reported: 2017-12-02 09:51 UTC by Chris
Modified: 2019-07-01 15:19 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Chris 2017-12-02 09:51:53 UTC
Description:
Currently, a default Tabulation size is defined in the options of Writer (in General). This option affects the appearance of any (default) tabulation of any open document.

The appearance, and arrangement, of a specific document should be defined in the document itself, using its styles, and should not depend on a specific user setting.

I suggest to add a Tabulation size entry to the style panel.
It should not be mixed with the current entries of the Tabulation tab of the style panel, which have a different meaning.

The current default Tabulation size entry in the Writer settings should only be used for the document formats that can not set their own Tabulation size (the raw TXT format for example, and any raw source code formats).

A default Tabulation size should be defined in the default paragraph style of the ODT document or OTT model.

Actual Results:  
 

Expected Results:
 


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No



Additional Info:
Example:
When pasting source code, which is full of tabulations, it is rather annoying to not be able to set the tabulation size independently to the Writer general setting.


User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
Comment 1 Heiko Tietze 2017-12-04 10:28:12 UTC
We are talking about Tools > Options > Writer > Tab stops. On a document level it is available in every style (Paragraph > Tabs), so it's a WFM for me. The open document format defines a couple of properties including tabs for paragraphs so we have to follow this prerequisites. And while exposing the tabs option is possible I don't think it's required by the average user. Please define own styles as solution for you request.
Comment 2 Chris 2018-08-27 07:09:17 UTC
LO version 6.0.6.2 still does not apply the Paragraph Tabs Position setting correctly.

CURRENTLY:
For example, when I enter the following paragraph..
0
	1
		2
			3
				4
.. that contains four levels of tabulations, and I set Format > Paragraph > Tabs > Position to 10 centimeters, I obtain what is visually similar to that:
0
                                         1
                                         2
                                                   3
                                                             4

The horizontal length between “3” and “2” wrongly follows the general tabulation length (defined in Tools > Options > Writer > General > Tab stops). [ That is one problem. ]
While “1” applies the right paragraph tabulation length (10 cm).
And “2” applies the right paragraph tabulation length once only, for some (buggy) reasons).

SHOULD BE:
All the tabulation lengths of the paragraph should fit the paragraph “Tabs / Position”.
We should have 10 cm between “0” and “1”, 2×10 cm between “0” and “2”, etc.

SUGGESTED CORRECTIONS:

1. RENAMING FOR CLARIFICATION. The setting “Position” in the “Tabs” tab of the Paragraph panel should be renamed “Lengths”, in order to not confuse the user (and the developers) with the paragraph indentation setting (in the Paragraph panel, tab “Indent & spacing”, “Before text” setting) that is conceptually different in LO.

2. DISPLAY PRIORITIES. When displaying a tabulation character (I mean ‘\t’), LO Writer should search the paragraph tabs lengths (currently named “Position”) setting first. If, and only if, no tab length is found in the paragraph properties (including styles), Writer should use the default general tabulation length (defined in Tools > Options > Writer > General > Tab stops).

3. INFORM THE USER. The general tabulation length (defined in Tools > Options > Writer > General > Tab stops) should have a Hint/Tip text that explains this setting is used by default when either the document does not define a tab length or the document format does not allow setting the tab lengths (example: TXT raw format). The same information should be added to the documentation.

[ For information, I wasted an hour testing, updating LO, setting it in English, writing this additional note, etc. for something I already explained in details the first time and that is obvious. A real reading would be appreciated this time. After all, the tabulation concept is not new, it was applied to the typewriters one hundred years ago, although differently from the programming text editors. Thank you ]
Comment 3 Xisco Faulí 2018-08-28 16:38:07 UTC
You can't confirm your own bugs. Moving it back to UNCONFIRMED until someone
else confirms it.
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2018-08-29 06:20:35 UTC
Regina, what do you think?
Comment 5 Xisco Faulí 2018-10-17 17:41:17 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> Regina, what do you think?

Ping!
Comment 6 Dieter 2019-05-01 05:33:14 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> Regina, what do you think?

Again a polite Ping!
Comment 7 Xisco Faulí 2019-07-01 15:19:56 UTC
This enhancement has been in UNCONFIRMED status for a while, moving it to NEW...

Note to the reporter: Changing the status to NEW doesn't mean the enhancement is going to be implemented. In order to do so, either you implement it yourself, you find someone to do it for you or you get professional support < https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/ >