Bug 140561 - wrong term for gutter position in mirrored page layout
Summary: wrong term for gutter position in mirrored page layout
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.2.0.0.alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 144539 153084 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Page-Style-Dialog Gutter-Margins
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2021-02-20 18:04 UTC by Regina Henschel
Modified: 2023-01-19 08:59 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of the affected dialot (28.82 KB, image/png)
2021-02-20 18:04 UTC, Regina Henschel
Details

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Description Regina Henschel 2021-02-20 18:04:07 UTC
Created attachment 169925 [details]
Screenshot of the affected dialot

Start a text document. Open the page style dialog. Set 'Page layout' to "Mirrored". Notice, that the labels in the 'Margins' section are changed to "Inner" and "Outer". Now look at the field 'Gutter position'.
Error: The item is still "Left".
Expected: The item becomes "Inner".
Comment 1 Regina Henschel 2021-02-21 12:23:26 UTC
Besides the wrong term, it should be considered to disable the position field at all in case of "Mirrored" page layout. A position "Top" makes no sense. A "Mirrored" page layout is designed to have the gutter always in the middle, at the inside margins.
Comment 2 Dieter 2021-03-08 07:27:03 UTC
I confirm it with

Version: 7.2.0.0.alpha0+ (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 28555fc345ac2ccdda0e4e0f3c812c646befe68b
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19042; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: de-DE (de_DE); UI: en-GB
Calc: CL
Comment 3 Dieter 2021-10-02 04:37:49 UTC
Bug 144539 gave some references to proof the wrong name
https://www.abaa.org/glossary/entry/gutter or
https://www.printivity.com/insights/2019/05/18/how-to-design-for-gutter-margins/ or any number of other sites, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookbinding

Reading LO Help [1] I also don't understand this feature at all, or some informations are missing. Gutter margin in LO is not the margin between left edge of a page and text area, but the margin between left margin and text area. 

Miklos, could you explain the idea behind a current behaviour (there is no definition of gutter margin in your blog https://vmiklos.hu/blog/sw-gutter-margin.html) and perhaps design-team has idea for a solution

cc: Design Team
cc: Miklos Vajna

[1] https://help.libreoffice.org/7.2/en-GB/text/shared/01/05040200.html?System=WIN&DbPAR=WRITER&HID=cui/ui/pageformatpage/PageFormatPage#bm_id3149877
Comment 4 Dieter 2021-10-02 04:38:21 UTC
*** Bug 144539 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 V Stuart Foote 2021-10-02 13:13:01 UTC
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #1)
> Besides the wrong term, it should be considered to disable the position
> field at all in case of "Mirrored" page layout. A position "Top" makes no
> sense. A "Mirrored" page layout is designed to have the gutter always in the
> middle, at the inside margins.

No, it depends on intended binding -- a mirrored page would be left/right (inner reversed for LTR/RTL locale) OR top/bottom--mirroring is done when bound on either the vertical inner edge or across the horizontal top. 

Consider for example a ledger of landscape pages, or a wall calendar. When bound, the upper and lower pages need symmetrical/mirrored layout also. A binding gutter accommodates the print layout when bound.
Comment 6 Regina Henschel 2021-10-02 14:21:29 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #5)
> (In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #1)
> > Besides the wrong term, it should be considered to disable the position
> > field at all in case of "Mirrored" page layout. A position "Top" makes no
> > sense. A "Mirrored" page layout is designed to have the gutter always in the
> > middle, at the inside margins.
> 
> No, it depends on intended binding -- a mirrored page would be left/right
> (inner reversed for LTR/RTL locale) OR top/bottom--mirroring is done when
> bound on either the vertical inner edge or across the horizontal top. 
> 
> Consider for example a ledger of landscape pages, or a wall calendar. When
> bound, the upper and lower pages need symmetrical/mirrored layout also. A
> binding gutter accommodates the print layout when bound.

I mean the page layout type "mirrored", not the fact, that the intended binding needs different margins for upper/lower or left/right pages. The layout type "mirrored" provides an automatic switch of layout for left and right pages, and it effects only left and right margins.

Using page layout type "mirrored" makes no sense, if you want to bind at top/bottom as used for calendars. In that case you need to use the layout "right" and "left", because a "right" page needs different margin settings for top and bottom than a "left" page. Actually they are then not "right" or "left" in that use case but "upper" and "lower".

An automatic alternating different margin on top and bottom is not possible with current implementation. In case you use page layout "mirrored", the additional space by gutter position "top" will be only applied to (LTR) right pages. In case you use page layout "only right" and "only left", the additional space will be always applied to top margin, whereas the binding would need it alternating on top and bottom margin.
Comment 7 Miklos Vajna 2021-10-04 06:37:49 UTC
(In reply to Dieter from comment #3)
> Miklos, could you explain the idea behind a current behaviour (there is no
> definition of gutter margin in your blog
> https://vmiklos.hu/blog/sw-gutter-margin.html) and perhaps design-team has
> idea for a solution

It is meant to match the Word behavior: "The page gutter defines the amount of extra space added to the specified margin, above any existing margin values."
Comment 8 Dieter 2021-10-04 07:14:48 UTC
(In reply to Miklos Vajna from comment #7)
> It is meant to match the Word behavior: "The page gutter defines the amount
> of extra space added to the specified margin, above any existing margin
> values."

Thank you for explanation, but I still dopn't understand the practical relevance for such a feature and the term "gutter" is used in a different way than in the world outside "word". I wonder, if LO should go with this.
Comment 9 Heiko Tietze 2021-10-04 09:39:21 UTC
There is also the weird "Gutter on right side" option, which would turn inside out (if it worked). Weird because more reasonable it would be done as radio button with "Gutter Position" as "Side" instead of "Left" and (o) Left ( ) Right as options below. Now I wonder if the binding of mirrored pages is done outside in case of RTL languages.

And in respect to Stuart's comment 5, what binding could be meant when mirrored is active but gutters are on top?

For the documentation part I'd appreciate to see this cheat sheet incorporated into the documentation https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Writer/PageElementSizeRelations
Comment 10 Miklos Vajna 2021-10-04 10:05:38 UTC
The code is meant to do this:

- by default, always on the left

- if you have mirrored layout, you get inner/outer, and the gutter margin is the inner margin

- RTL is about swapping the left/right

- if you want to have it at the top, then mirrored/RTL has no effect

Feel free to tweak the UI if you think a checkbox is better, though keep in mind that Word has the same listbox, so that's what is familiar to users.
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2022-03-11 07:37:27 UTC
We discussed this topic in the design meeting.

"Inner" is welcome and could be enhanced with Left for LTR and right for RTL to make users easily understand the term. "Inner (Left)" vs. "Inner (Right)"

The radio buttons as suggested in comment 9 would be helpful too.
Comment 12 Heiko Tietze 2023-01-19 08:59:54 UTC
*** Bug 153084 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***