Bug 127947 - Reduce amount of tabs in the Paragraph dialog
Summary: Reduce amount of tabs in the Paragraph dialog
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Paragraph-Dialog
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2019-10-03 12:04 UTC by andreas_k
Modified: 2019-10-10 07:42 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Paragraph 01 (603.62 KB, image/png)
2019-10-03 12:04 UTC, andreas_k
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description andreas_k 2019-10-03 12:04:40 UTC
Created attachment 154729 [details]
Paragraph 01

Top: master
Bottom: proposal

The Paragraph Dialog has now 9 tabs compare to 2 tabs from MS Word (+1 for tabstop). With 9 Tabs you need two rows of tabs that's a lot so I make an proposal to reduce the tab number and cancel 3 tabs.

canceled tabs: Alignment, Outline & Numbering and Drop Caps

new tabs: Indents & Spacing and Text Flow

Tab Indents & Spacing
- layout is follow what MS Word paragraph dialog show (cause when it's new, than it should be at least similar for new users or users that use both)
- Outline and Numbering stuff from Outline & Numbering tab was on top
- Alignment group has stuff from Alignment tab, but with drop down menus (cause they need less space, and word also has drop down menus)
- Indent Automatic checkbox was located next to First Line setting (cause it's related to that one)
- Spacing include also Line Spacing (similar to what MS word has)

Tab Text Flow 
- maybe need a new label cause there is now more in this tab
- Text Flow group on top (cause MS Word has it also on top)
- Breaks group get a new arrangement to better fit the tab layout
- Hyphenation sync layout with Drop Cap group
- Drop Cap group items come from Drop Cap Tab

Wait for feedback.
Comment 1 Heiko Tietze 2019-10-08 12:21:15 UTC
You cannot just drop tabs, somehow those properties have to be available (MSO has some buttons on the dialog opening additional dialogs). And moving controls from one to another tab is also not so simple.

As a general note, I'm a bit confused about one, two, or three column layout. For example, at Text Flow you seem to save space primarily.
Comment 2 Thomas Lendo 2019-10-08 20:56:39 UTC
Outline/Numbering/Alignment/Indent/Spacing:

Line Spacing and Spacing shouldn't mixed as 'Don't add space between ...' is related to Spacing and not to Line Spacing. I would move Line Spacing to the bottom of the Spacing section.

Where is the 'Restart at this paragraph' option of the Numbering section?

I miss a text in front of the 'Start' drop-down field where now is 'Last line:'. And where is the 'Expand single word' checkbox?

Where is 'Register-true' of the current Indent & Spacing tab?

In general, I think the drop down boxes are too small to give languages--other than English and with longer names--enough space.


Text Flow/Breaks/Properties/Hyphenation/Drop Cap/Line Numbering:

Drop Caps section is missing the preview image. :-/

Drop Caps section is also missing 'Whole word' and 'Number of characters'.
'Text' and 'Character style' must be positioned together as the are related.

The text direction drop-down field seems too short in relation to the default text that is shown now ('Use superordinate object settings').

I miss the 'Start with:' in front of the number field in the Line Numbering section. Now it isn't self-explanatory what the number means.
Comment 3 Cor Nouws 2019-10-09 18:57:25 UTC
Hi Andreas,

Thanks for the mockup and the ideas. A bit of a surprise :) to be honest.

I'm not sure if comparing with MsOffice Word makes sense. In general, and especially here. In Word there is the famous open Dialog, choose More .. find Advanced sequence.
On of the things I learned years ago from users, is the appreciation of settings being just before your eyes.

But let me look at your proposal. It reduces the number of tabs with 1 (one). Did I get that right?
Then how to handle all other dialogs in LibreOffice where Alignment, Indents and Spacing etc. are in use?
It looks as a whole lot of work. For development, and for documentation.

My gut feeling is: let's not do this..
Comment 4 andreas_k 2019-10-09 21:58:09 UTC
In general I don't have strong feelings. As I open the paragraph dialog I saw two rows of tabs and every where a lot of settings. Than I open Word and there were two tabs.

Drop Caps Tab
- Drop Caps is an tab I would NOT integrate to somewhere else (cause there is also an preview in the tab) and it's very self explanation.

Alignment Tab
- Alignment tab has for me to less content to have it. 
- There are some specific settings for justified align
- but left, right, ... align you don't need the dialog for it. 
- RTL an checkbox could be enough 

Text Flow Tab
- Settings are in general from my point of view to much (but where should they be when not in the dialog
for example Break
- Break above checkbox whit an config button right to it

Outline Tab
Is not so much content
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2019-10-10 07:42:27 UTC
So let's close the ticket as WF. Less tabs is not necessarily desirable, we cannot move controls around tabs, and users are familiar with the current situation. Besides the "number of tabs" +1 for a cleaner look of the dialogs. Feel free to create follow-up ticket(s) or reopen this.