Bug 134790 - MAILMERGE Wizard: Next is not available at 'Salutation' screen if it's not used
Summary: MAILMERGE Wizard: Next is not available at 'Salutation' screen if it's not used
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.0.7.3 release
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Mail-Merge
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2020-07-13 23:41 UTC by Jim Harvey
Modified: 2021-03-03 15:23 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Blocked Salutation requester (46.73 KB, image/jpeg)
2020-07-13 23:42 UTC, Jim Harvey
Details
the screenshot from reporter and from me (103.03 KB, image/png)
2020-07-20 20:04 UTC, BogdanB
Details
Screencast mentioned in comment 11 (1.90 MB, video/webm)
2020-08-20 14:45 UTC, Michael Weghorn
Details

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Description Jim Harvey 2020-07-13 23:41:11 UTC
Description:
Working through Mail Merge with wizard, the Salutation screen will not activate the 'next' button. Can't continue. Worked around by using the mail merge toolbar.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Create document to send via email
2. create spread sheet with email addresses
3. activate mail merge wizard from tools menu
4. 'Use current document', 'next'
5. 'E-Mail message', 'next'
6. 'Select Address list', 'OK', 'next'
7. 'create a salutation' , 



Actual Results:
at step 7, 'Next' is not clickable.

Expected Results:
Should continue on to next screen 'Adjust Layout'


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes



Additional Info:
I'v been doing this same mail merge for 18 months. Not seen this problem before.
Comment 1 Jim Harvey 2020-07-13 23:42:49 UTC
Created attachment 162992 [details]
Blocked Salutation requester

Next button is not activated.
Comment 2 Julien Nabet 2020-07-14 08:13:29 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 3 Jim Harvey 2020-07-14 12:40:19 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 4 QA Administrators 2020-07-15 04:04:27 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 5 Xisco Faulí 2020-07-16 10:31:03 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 Jim Harvey 2020-07-18 23:14:24 UTC
Installed Ubuntu 20.04 which came with Libre 6.4.4.2. Same problem.
Installed Libre 6.4.5.2, same problem observed.

Can not continue the mail merge wizard unless a Salutation is created.
Tried creating a Salutation, then "next" is activated and goes to a screen to position the Salutation. That screen does not have "next" activated.
Comment 7 QA Administrators 2020-07-19 03:35:43 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 8 BogdanB 2020-07-20 20:02:56 UTC
I confirm this, but I am not sure when someone have to go to the Next option.
I don't know how this was created to be used.

Version: 7.1.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: abea0d6647c7f1f7e76c73c26cb80e6a67dc5111
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.4; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: ro-RO (ro_RO.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 9 BogdanB 2020-07-20 20:04:26 UTC
Created attachment 163336 [details]
the screenshot from reporter and from me
Comment 10 Jim Harvey 2020-07-20 23:06:06 UTC
(In reply to BogdanB from comment #8)
> I confirm this, but I am not sure when someone have to go to the Next option.
> I don't know how this was created to be used.
> 
> Version: 7.1.0.0.alpha0+
> Build ID: abea0d6647c7f1f7e76c73c26cb80e6a67dc5111
> CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.4; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
> Locale: ro-RO (ro_RO.UTF-8); UI: en-US
> Calc: threaded

You should be able to skip the Salutation by just clicking "Next" if you do not want one. I last did a mail merge with the wizard on June 9, had no problem then but not sure what the Libre version was at that time. 

I noted that even if you do create a Salutation, it won't let you continue.
Comment 11 Michael Weghorn 2020-08-20 14:44:10 UTC
I've never used this personally, just took a quick look.

What are you expecting to do in the "Adjust Layout" step if there is no salutation?

From how it looked like to me in a quick test, it might be as follows, s. a. attached screencast that I created during my testing:

1) The "Adjust Layout" step can be used to adapt where to put the salutation, see screencast at time 00:15: "Saluation Position" can be adapted there.

2) Therefore, if there is no salutation, there is nothing to do in the "Adjust Layout" step, and it is skipped. For this reason, "Next" is greyed out, but "Finish" can be used to continue. (That button is not greyed out in your screenshots.)

(In reply to Jim Harvey from comment #10)

> I noted that even if you do create a Salutation, it won't let you continue.

3) In my quick testing, that did work, but only if there were no unmatched fields being used, e.g. it does not work at time 00:17 because there is still "<not yet matched>" in the preview, but does work later when all fields in use have been matched to the "email" field.

Does that make sense and is it the same for you as well? If so, the behaviour seems to be OK to me at a quick glance.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. As mentioned, I've just "played" with it a bit right now, never used it before.

I've used the version from Debian:

Version: 7.0.1.1.0+
Build ID: <buildversion>
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 5.7; UI render: default; VCL: kf5
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Debian package version: 1:7.0.1~rc1-1+b1
Calc: threaded
Comment 12 Michael Weghorn 2020-08-20 14:45:49 UTC
Created attachment 164497 [details]
Screencast mentioned in comment 11
Comment 13 Jim Harvey 2020-08-20 23:11:34 UTC
(In reply to Michael Weghorn from comment #11)
> I've never used this personally, just took a quick look.
> 
> What are you expecting to do in the "Adjust Layout" step if there is no
> salutation?
> 
> From how it looked like to me in a quick test, it might be as follows, s. a.
> attached screencast that I created during my testing:
> 
> 1) The "Adjust Layout" step can be used to adapt where to put the
> salutation, see screencast at time 00:15: "Saluation Position" can be
> adapted there.
> 
> 2) Therefore, if there is no salutation, there is nothing to do in the
> "Adjust Layout" step, and it is skipped. For this reason, "Next" is greyed
> out, but "Finish" can be used to continue. (That button is not greyed out in
> your screenshots.)
> 
> (In reply to Jim Harvey from comment #10)
> 
> > I noted that even if you do create a Salutation, it won't let you continue.
> 
> 3) In my quick testing, that did work, but only if there were no unmatched
> fields being used, e.g. it does not work at time 00:17 because there is
> still "<not yet matched>" in the preview, but does work later when all
> fields in use have been matched to the "email" field.
> 
> Does that make sense and is it the same for you as well? If so, the
> behaviour seems to be OK to me at a quick glance.
> Please correct me if I'm wrong. As mentioned, I've just "played" with it a
> bit right now, never used it before.
> 
> I've used the version from Debian:
> 
> Version: 7.0.1.1.0+
> Build ID: <buildversion>
> CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 5.7; UI render: default; VCL: kf5
> Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
> Debian package version: 1:7.0.1~rc1-1+b1
> Calc: threaded


Thank you for looking at this. I don't need any salutation so I don't need to adjust layout, and clicking Finish in any case exits the wizard. I can, as a workaround from that point complete the mailing from the mail merge tool bar.
Comment 14 Michael Weghorn 2020-08-21 05:09:44 UTC
(In reply to Jim Harvey from comment #13)
> Thank you for looking at this. I don't need any salutation so I don't need
> to adjust layout, and clicking Finish in any case exits the wizard. I can,
> as a workaround from that point complete the mailing from the mail merge
> tool bar.

Thanks for your update.
Since you mention that this is a "workaround", do you still think this is not the way it should be, and if so: What would be the expected behaviour?

From how I understand it so far, "Next" being greyed out is "correct", since you can click "Finish" right away and there's nothing else to be reached with "Next" in case there's no correct salutation.
Therefore, I'd tend to close this bug as WORKSFORME, but your comment sounds like you're still missing something, and you probably know this functionality better than I do (and mentioned you didn't see this problem earlier, so how did it work there?).
Comment 15 Timur 2020-09-02 13:39:16 UTC
So far this looks like NotABug (WORKSFORME is when there was a bug and it was fixed with unknown commit).
If we have and explanation why this would be a bug, please set Unconfirmed agaion.
Comment 16 Jim Harvey 2020-09-02 15:24:25 UTC
(In reply to Michael Weghorn from comment #14)
> (In reply to Jim Harvey from comment #13)
> > Thank you for looking at this. I don't need any salutation so I don't need
> > to adjust layout, and clicking Finish in any case exits the wizard. I can,
> > as a workaround from that point complete the mailing from the mail merge
> > tool bar.
> 
> Thanks for your update.
> Since you mention that this is a "workaround", do you still think this is
> not the way it should be, and if so: What would be the expected behaviour?
> 
> From how I understand it so far, "Next" being greyed out is "correct", since
> you can click "Finish" right away and there's nothing else to be reached
> with "Next" in case there's no correct salutation.
> Therefore, I'd tend to close this bug as WORKSFORME, but your comment sounds
> like you're still missing something, and you probably know this
> functionality better than I do (and mentioned you didn't see this problem
> earlier, so how did it work there?).

Formerly, I could click NEXT and the wizard would continue on to generate the merged file and then to the actual mailing window. The mailing window would stay on screen throughout the four mail sessions (my ISP only allows 100 mails per minute). Doing the workaround from the tool bar I have to go through the whole merged file generation four times.
Comment 17 Michael Weghorn 2020-09-04 10:43:44 UTC
(In reply to Jim Harvey from comment #16)
> Formerly, I could click NEXT and the wizard would continue on to generate
> the merged file and then to the actual mailing window. The mailing window
> would stay on screen throughout the four mail sessions (my ISP only allows
> 100 mails per minute). Doing the workaround from the tool bar I have to go
> through the whole merged file generation four times.

Is the main problem that of having "to go through the whole merged file generation four times" that it's slow, or is there an additional problem about it as compared to the previous behavior?

The fact that it's slow should IMHO the same as tdf#117212.
Comment 18 Timur 2021-03-03 15:23:46 UTC
This bug was in Needinfo for a long time without response. 
Problem boils down to Finish and if wizard should generate the merged file. 
User here and in bug 108561 expected so. 
But I didn't, nor reporter in bug 98985,instead you call Save, Print, Send. 

that procedure was changed from 8 to 5 steps. It would make sense to propose help update. So far I'll note in bug 138254.