It was possible to open a small special character box in some earlier versions of Writer. I found that little box quite useful and applaud the designers for creating it. In those earlier versions, the special character symbol in the Standard toolbar had a small drop-down list where this small window could be selected. When I wanted to open the small window after updating to 6.0.0.2, I expected this option to still be there, but could not find it. I asked about this in the forum, and found that this option is now available only by adding a button to the toolbar. I am puzzled why the decisions were made to make this option less accessible and to use the identical icon for the button. There must be some rationale for the decisions, but it would certainly be easier to find this option if it could be directly available on the toolbar. If it is decided that this option should have its own button, it would be less confusing if a different icon could be used for the button. I am editing some user documentation and would like to let people know about this box. Accessing it would be easy to describe if it could be accessed directly on the toolbar. Otherwise, it might be too cumbersome. It would be helpful to have a sense of whether the round-about way of accessing it is likely to change in the near future.
The Special Character "Symbol" dialog was reworked for the 2017 GSOC. Rework included adjustment to the old dialog of .uno:InsertSymbol and a new .uno:CharmapControl dialog holding Favorites and Recent in the "small special character box" you describe. In UX review, the Favorites/Recent button dropdown button was deemed by UX & Design team not to be a viable replacement for the full function dialog and was replaced with the button control for the full dialog [1]. Both controls are assigned buttons on the Standard toolbar, but the new uno:CharmapCotnrol is not going to be shown on standard toolbar with default profile. Users can add it. And, likely additional work will see the two button actions merged into a split button. =-ref-= http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Minutes-from-the-design-meeting-2018-Jan-03-td4230149.html https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=490287a1b22411f4ac32127c93228e06dad4ff22
Thank you for the clear answer. My fault. I thought I understood from somewhere that such issues should be reported here. There must be a separate place for requests. Can this be forwarded to that or do I need to go through this process again?
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #1) > In UX review, the Favorites/Recent button dropdown button was deemed by UX & > Design team not to be a viable replacement for the full function dialog and > was replaced with the button control for the full dialog [1]. Rationale for moving back to the old button was that the dropdown takes more horizontal space. It was not an unanimous decision and personally I agree with you. (In reply to Cathy Crumbley from comment #2) > My fault. I thought I understood from somewhere that such issues should be > reported here. There must be a separate place for requests. Can this be > forwarded to that or do I need to go through this process again? Bugzilla is the perfect place to discuss questions like this. And we can continue here.
Glad to hear that someone else feels the same way. A few more questions: Was it considered to have a button that opens it on the larger special character dialog? Is it possible to create a shortcut to open this window? If so, what is the function that does that? On a related topic, I would like to find out about other hidden functions like this that many people may find useful or that would be of great interest to specialists. For example, some functions listed in the keyboard dialog have names that are quite mysterious, such as "aging". Other names may be less mysterious, but it may still not be clear what they do or under what conditions. How can we obtain that information?
(In reply to Cathy Crumbley from comment #4) > > Was it considered to have a button that opens it on the larger special > character dialog? Recent and Favorites list boxes were included on the full dialog. So no point to having a button there to show the reduced dialog. > > Is it possible to create a shortcut to open this window? If so, what is the > function that does that? No as apparently the control is not structured correctly and needs additional dev effort. Otherwise Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard would be the method to assign it a keyboard shortcut. And from there, you'd search for "Symbol". The .uno:CharmapControl is the second search result. The first--linked to .uno:InsertSymbol--does correctly take a keyboard shortcut assignment and works fine. As noted, both "Symbol" buttons can be set visible on the Standard Toolbar--it is just the full dialog's button that is visible by default. With additional dev effort the two buttons may be merged.
Here are the 4 reasons i gave in the gerrit patch of why 1. space (it takes up 1.5 times the size of the non-group button version) 2. importance (we use group buttons in the toolbar for highly important features, which symbol isnt) 3. we dont use this group button version in other modules 4. it was placed in the toolbar for testing purposes during GSoC The new group button is available in the standard toolbar, but it is hidden by default, so it will be easy for users who want it to use it to enable it by right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting 'Customize Toolbar' from the context menu. (In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #1) > And, likely additional work will see the two button actions merged into a > split button. Not aware of any additional work which would suggest this and doubt it would be useful in any of the toolbar layouts.
(In reply to Cathy Crumbley from comment #4) > On a related topic, I would like to find out about other hidden functions... If you are talking about the new customization dialog there is a description field that explains the commands when the offline help is installed.
Oh, I hadn't realized that there is offline help for 6.0. I had looked for it before but not found it. Now I just have to figure out how to install it with a parallel installation. Will ask in the forums. On another note, I think those files should be called something other than "offline help". I did not download them for months since I had assumed that they were just a local version of what can be found in the online help. Is there an appropriate place to submit this feedback?
(In reply to Cathy Crumbley from comment #8) > On another note, I think those files should be called something other than > "offline help". Adding our documentation manager...