Bug 139956 - Enable gridline option "Show on Coloured Cells" by default
Summary: Enable gridline option "Show on Coloured Cells" by default
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.0.3.1 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: difficultyBeginner, easyHack, skillDesign, topicUI
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2021-01-28 03:29 UTC by Steve
Modified: 2021-02-02 11:49 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Steve 2021-01-28 03:29:08 UTC
This might be a bug.  Might equally be a design decision.  I find it irritating.

All cells have a border: either the default is displayed or the user-specified border is displayed.  But, when a cell is filled with a background colour, the default border is omitted.  As a consequence, the filled cell becomes "frameless" and looks disconnected from the surrounding cells.


Steps to create:

1.  Create a new sheet.  Notice how all cells are framed by the default border.
2.  Select a cell somewhere in the middle of the sheet.  Ctrl-1
3.  Select Background.
4.  Select Light Lime 3 (or any "light" colour)
5.  Click on OK
6.  Deselect the filled cell by clicking on any other cell

You will now notice that all the surrounding "touching" cells have their touching border omitted.  This is NOT the case if the colour-filled cell had a user-specified border and is therefore inconsistent.



Installation Environment:

Version: 7.0.3.1 (x64)
Build ID: d7547858d014d4cf69878db179d326fc3483e082
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19042; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-AU (en_AU); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 BogdanB 2021-01-28 05:22:03 UTC
Hi, 
- first thing: change from 7.0.3 to 7.0.4. There is an annoying bug about recalculation of formula.

- in a default sheet there are no borders, they are a grid line: Go to View - View Grid Lines and there are no "border" anywhere

- Grid Lines are a visual help lines for you until you decide to have borders. Borders are visibile even on a Light Lime 3 colour.

I will not close this bug, because I want UX Team to analize if could be possible as Grid Lines to be visibile even on a different background color, like borders are.
Comment 2 BogdanB 2021-01-28 05:26:58 UTC
Steve, of course, you could add borders meanwhile, in order to have a design for a sheet as you like. With light borders for dark background and reverse.
Comment 3 BogdanB 2021-01-28 05:27:03 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 4 Steve 2021-01-29 02:27:08 UTC
Thanks for the reply BogdanB.

a)  I will be upgrading to 7.0.4 pretty soon.
b)  Regarding the grid vs border nomenclature: thanks for pointing out the difference.  That said, thanks for referring it to the UX team as I think my points are equally valid for grid settings.  That is, a fill must be strictly less than the edge - whether that edge is a border or grid does not make any difference: it should be displayed.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2021-01-29 10:07:50 UTC
You may set-up a sheet to your liking (with border lines in a defined color), save it as template, and make this the default in the template manager. If you run Calc now it will always use this template.

Should we switch the appearance by default? Have to admit that these grid lines are surprising- they not only disappear for cells with a background but are also not shown on printouts/previews. Eike, what do you think?
Comment 6 Maxim Monastirsky 2021-01-29 10:21:49 UTC
There is a setting for it: Tools > Options... > LibreOffice Calc > View > Grid Lines. This can be changed to "Show on colored cells".
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2021-01-29 10:28:37 UTC
There is an options for everything ;-)
Comment 8 Steve 2021-01-29 11:04:21 UTC
Perfect!

Thank you very much
Comment 9 S.Zosgornik 2021-01-29 13:16:58 UTC
@Heiko

Toggle the grid lines inside Calc on/off is one of the few user settings that will actually be saved if "Options>Load/Save>General>Load user specific settings with the document" is checked. This is helpful for templates and finished sheets.

We could consider to have "View>Grid Lines>Show on Coloured Cells" option on by default installation.
Comment 10 Steve 2021-01-29 22:31:38 UTC
+1 vote from me
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2021-02-01 09:29:14 UTC
Code pointer: In sc/source/core/tool/viewopti.cxx switch "aOptArr[ VOPT_GRID_ONTOP  ] = false;" to true.
Comment 12 Eike Rathke 2021-02-01 10:38:53 UTC
IIRC grid lines on colored cells was set default off a while ago because it kinda looks ugly and Excel does the same. If this was to be changed again then
a) prepare for new bugs that claim it would be a regression, but more important
b) importing Excel documents would have to set it off (unless it's enabled there, I don't know if and how that's the case)

All IMHO and AFAIR.

So simply switching that one place to true may not be sufficient.
Comment 13 Heiko Tietze 2021-02-01 11:06:46 UTC
"The default has been set to show to ease migration from Excel. Excel documents often use background colors to hide gridlines and implement some kind of "nice" on the screen form."

https://github.com/LibreOffice/core/commit/0c95b19629d1d22ae7cbabb4d2805b26f8dd6718

Good reason to keep it. Bug 118295 ponders over a slightly different UI.
Comment 14 S.Zosgornik 2021-02-01 16:20:41 UTC
Well, my argument was that grid lines are useful during document creation/editing but might be turned off by users for better or "nicer" look on finished documents.
And those documents would keeps the same on every reload thanks to the "Load user specific settings with documents" option - which is active by default.

So if a document is imported from Excel with "Show grid-lines on coloured cells" = off it also should keep the same inside LibreOffice or does LibreOffice's import filter not support "show grid lines on coloured cells" option?
Comment 15 Eike Rathke 2021-02-02 11:49:02 UTC
Note there's also bug 118295 which is about the same from a slightly different angle.