Just like it is possible to have a preview reflecting the changes of various properties when we are creating a chart, it would be great (and much less intimidating for users) if LibreOffice Calc, like Excel, provided a live preview of the pivot table while you moving various things into the "Page Fields:", "Column Fields:", "Row Fields:" and "Data Fields:" areas of the "Pivot Table Layout" dialog. Corollary: for the case where we are creating (rather than modifying) a pivot table, and where the pivot table's destination would be a new sheet, it could make sense for the "Source and Destination" settings to be a wizard/dialog that show before the Pivot Table Layout dialog, then making it so that the Pivot Table Layout dialog "does one thing and does it well" (editing an existing pivot table's properties).
+1 from me Ux-Team?
Created attachment 160314 [details] Mockup #1 Sounds like a good enhancement. Here is a quick mockup that also tries to improve accessibility.
no objections to such a nice improvement :)
This needs improvements for the options. Anyone?
Just a thought: if I recall correctly, Excel does the live previewing directly on the canvas (essentially WYSIWYG) instead of in the properties dialog. Have you considered this avenue? Probably more complex to implement though. Your mockup is a step in the right direction with the fact that the "Available Fields" portion is on the left instead of the right, I already like that change; maybe then it's a matter of styling + headers to make it more evident, with a vertical separator (or sidebar styling, somehow) between that area and the rest? As for the notion of "targets" and add/remove arrow buttons, this could be complex and a bit cluttered from a UI interaction perspective. Wouldn't it be simpler and cleaner to have the drag-and-drop nature of the dialog be made more evident than the current implementation, for example having the "Drag the Items into the Desired position" label be repositioned at the top, left-aligned, with clearer wording ("Drag items from the available fields into the desired column, row or data fields")? Or perhaps that label could be put right underneath the "Available Fields:" header, but then this wouldn't reflect the fact that you can drag from any area to any other area. The alternative — if you prefer to save space, eliminate the "Available Fields is not visually distinct enough from other field areas" problem, and not strictly depend on drag-and-drop — is to use inline toolbars and GtkPopover widgets (and the equivalent on other platforms). For instance, under each of Column, Row and Data field listview widgets, you could have a small toolbar (with the "inline-toolbar" styling class) containing these standard inline buttons: +, -, top, up, down, bottom ...and clicking the + would open a GtkPopover containing the list of "Available Fields" to add into the current field area.
Created attachment 160510 [details] Mockup #2 In case this helps, a rough mockup of the potential general arrangement for the scenario mentioned at the end of my comment #5.
Created attachment 160522 [details] Mockup #3 (In reply to Jean-François Fortin Tam from comment #6) > Created attachment 160510 [details] Hm, cleaner layout but quite a lot clicking needed with the plus buttons. And keep in mind that we strive for perfect accessibility (drag 'n drop works but requires accompanying interactions). WYSIWYG might work but the dialog preview makes it more clear when what happens. Meaning with cancel you surely wont get anything applied to the document. If we think about alternatives, how about this idea?
UX input given, happy to fine-tune the proposal that will be picked up by a volunteer. Could be a nice GSoC project.
I just discovered today a feature that I had no idea existed, because (again) the UI isn't self-documenting and doesn't make it easy to discover: bug #148100 So if mockup 1 (attachment #160314 [details]) or mockup 2 (attachment #160510 [details]) were implemented, they would need to incorporate a similar clarification to what is presented in bug #148100; however, I suspect that this is part of what Heiko tried to represent in mockup 3 (attachment #160522 [details]) with comboboxes instead of double-click, though I doubt this encompasses all the configurability/complexity that is offered when users currently double-click on a "Row field", "Column field" or "Data field". Alternatively, instead of relying on people double-clicking, if using a visual approach similar to mockup 2 (attachment #160510 [details]), then you would only need to imagine that mockup having an extra stock "Edit" button on the inline toolbars to edit the properties of the selected item. --------- I will also add: the distinction between "Column" fields and "Data" fields has always been extremely confusing to me as a user, I still don't feel like I understand it properly, to be honest, so I kinda have to fumble around with it all, which I suppose is another argument in favor of the live preview.
I just like to suggest that the user should be able to drag multiple items from "Available Fields" box by selecting multiple items by pressing shift. I filed this enhancement request as Bug 149931.
*** Bug 137321 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***