In an earlier version of LO Writer I could enable View>Formatting Marks to show all formatting marks on the screen, e.g. blanks, forced line breaks, tabs, paragraph marks, protected spaces and the like. When I work with LO Writer, I always have this option on. When I was composing this bug report, I found out that it already had been dealt with as https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101438: Now working with Version: 7.1.0.0.alpha0+ Build ID: <buildversion> CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.4; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3 Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: en-GB TinderBox: Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@86-TDF, Branch:master, Time: 2020-08-06_17:35:14 Calc: threaded I don’t see those little blue arrows denoting tabs any more. They should be on if View>Formatting Marks is enabled. I composed this error message in the named version of LO Writer and in the sequence “Now <Tab> working with” there is a tab included. I marked it and copied it to the older version and yeah: the tab between “Now” and “Working” showed up there! So it is not a bug and this report is not a duplicate because it calls for an improvement: 1. The default setting should be with all selectable items set to ON. 2. In the dialogue View>Formatting Marks should be equipped with a small triangle pointing to the right to let one select or deselect which formatting marks should be shown. The other place to change it under Tools>Options>LibreOffice Dev Writer>Formatting Aids is really hard to find and it is not an obvious place to look up. Side finding: 1. The function is told to be controlled by Ctl-F10, however this does not work as advertised although there in no shortcut defined for this combination of keys in my xfce4-keyboard-settings. 2. When one is in a table, pressing Tab gets you to the next cell (like in spreadsheet programs). If you want to insert a Tab character into a table, you have to press Ctl-Tab. This should be described in the documentation not only on page 294 (which is too much to read before one finds it), but already on page 91, where tab positions are discussed. The thing to changed there is: replace (by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard) by (by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard or Ctl-Tab if the cursor is in a table)
Adalbert, you've written a long report. Not easy to understand. Please keep it short. Just for clarification: Your idea is, to have the settings, that are currently at Tools => Options => LibreOffice Writer => Formatting Aids => Display formatting should (also) be a submenu at View => Formatting marks. Is that correct? => NEEDINFO
Dieter, yes, I want such a submenu. At least, after a new install, all selectable items should be enabled by default. (This modification probably would be made with the least effort). But the submenu is better, because the place to configure View>Formatting Marks is too far away to where you would enable the whole function. Also consider my side findings (if the same code is involved for the first one). Regards Adalbert
(In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #2) > Dieter, > > yes, I want such a submenu. cc: Design-Team for further input and decision. Personally I won't support such a submenu, because I think that are settings you normaly will change only once.
Created attachment 164431 [details] Tools -> Options -> Writer -> Formatting Aids dialog -- with default settings The menu View -> 'Toggle Formatting Marks' (or its <Ctrl>+F10 shortcut) is "at hand" during editing. Default configuration of the attributes is as shown in the attached clip from a clean reset user profile. Work remains on bug 58434 to move the full complement of formatting marks under the <Ctrl>+F10 toggle--but configuration of the marks that will show on document canvas is best kept only in the Tools -> Options dialog, including adding entries for bug 58434. So leaving the menu entry directly functional by mouse, keyboard accelerator, or shortcut. The additional menu level would just disrupt established usage. -1 and => WF
in reply to Comment 3 from Dieter: > Personally I won't support such a submenu, because I think that are settings you normally will change only once. That's right. Unfortunately the place where to change it is far away from where the thing is invoked. If we have more such situations: What about if someone holds his mouse for longer than three seconds on such an item, then the submenu pops out.
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #4) > Created attachment 164431 [details] > Tools -> Options -> Writer -> Formatting Aids dialog -- with default settings > > The menu View -> 'Toggle Formatting Marks' (or its <Ctrl>+F10 shortcut) is > "at hand" during editing. Default configuration of the attributes is as > shown in the attached clip from a clean reset user profile. > ... But enabling them all in a freshly installed program should not be much work and probably it already serves almost everyone best. Not showing tabs does not make sense for me and this must have changed recently (inadvertently?). BTW: If I remember right, MS Word lets one select which formatting marks to show if they are enabled. They don't (or did not) bury that parametrizing feature so far away.
(In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #6) > > But enabling them all in a freshly installed program should not be much work > and probably it already serves almost everyone best. Not showing tabs does > not make sense for me and this must have changed recently (inadvertently?). > The 'Tabs' checkbox *is* enabled by default with a clean/new user profile (please see the attachment) and the tab mark arrows *are* shown by default. To verify, clear your user profile (Help -> Restart in Safe Mode).
Created attachment 164452 [details] Sample of hidden characters not shown even if their display is enabled
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #7) > (In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #6) > > > > But enabling them all in a freshly installed program should not be much work > > ... > > The 'Tabs' checkbox *is* enabled by default with a clean/new user profile > (please see the attachment) and the tab mark arrows *are* shown by default. > > To verify, clear your user profile (Help -> Restart in Safe Mode). Yes, the checkboxes for all features except hidden characters are checked, as I have just checked in safe mode. Sorry for the inconvenience. Side finding: If I select the checkbox "hidden characters" which was unchecked by default, it does not work as expected. When I write some words and mark them as hidden text, they disappeared from screen despite hidden characters are to be shown. See new attachment. Before I retired I used a similar feature in MS Word frequently to prepend each document worked on by a whole group with a version history telling in few words how the different versions of the document evolved. I had the impression that showing hidden characters does not work in LO Writer. Now I learned about the existence of this flag. Unfortunately it still seems to not work. Ctl-F10 does not work as advertised even in safe mode. There in no shortcut for Ctl-F10 defined in my xfce4-keyboard-settings.
Let's put it together: * having everything from tools > options > formatting aids in a submenu receives no acceptance (me too; it's a question of how often an ordinary user needs to change it and that's less often than you do) => WF * tabs are checked by default (and toggle with formatting marks) => NAB * hidden characters are off by default but also toggle with formatting marks when checked for me => NAB; see also https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/swriter/guide/hidden_text.html Please keep requests concise; only one issue per ticket. If you cannot figure a workflow please ask first on ask.libreoffice.org
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #10) Heiko, thank you for putting it all together. > Let's put it together: > ... > * hidden characters are off by default but also toggle with formatting marks > when checked for me => NAB... In order to see text which has been marked as hidden by direct formatting, the checkmark in Tools>Options>LibreOfficeDevWriter>FormattingAids>Hidden Characters must be set AND the the checkmark at View>Formatting Marks must be set. The latter toggles display of hidden characters. If the other one is not set, hidden characters stay hidden. Fortunately once enabled it is memorized past the end of the current LO Writer session. That works for me. Now I got it, how hiding characters works. The link you supplied is for yet another mechanism through conditional text which is something more complicated and targeted at creating automated texts which adapt themselves to conditions, probably usable in mail merge operations (e.g. to create serial letters).