Bug 143341 - UNO object inspector: undocking/floating behavior is sub-optimal
Summary: UNO object inspector: undocking/floating behavior is sub-optimal
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.2.0.0.beta1+
Hardware: All All
: medium minor
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 143669 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: UNO-Object-Inspector
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2021-07-13 23:05 UTC by Ming Hua
Modified: 2023-07-11 15:23 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of the floating UNO-Inspector window (23.05 KB, image/png)
2021-07-13 23:05 UTC, Ming Hua
Details

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Description Ming Hua 2021-07-13 23:05:52 UTC
Created attachment 173544 [details]
Screenshot of the floating UNO-Inspector window

The UNO object inspector tool, activated from menu Tools > Development Tools, starts as a panel at the bottom of the main window, like the sidebar.

Like the sidebar (and many toolbars), this inspector panel can be dragged by mouse and undocked from the main window, becoming a floating window.  However, unlike the sidebar, the behavior of the inspector window after undocked is rather strange and causes UX problems.

1. Too easy to undock.  The inspector panel doesn't have a obvious "title bar" like the sidebar which is used for dragging and undocking.  Instead, it seems the whole area from "Current Selection" to "Class Name: foo" can be used to drag the panel off its place.  I first found this undocking behavior by accidentally triggering it when trying to highlight the class name with mouse (for copying) .

2. The undocked floating inspector window has a sub-optimal size, and many elements are not displayed by default.  The user has to enlarge the window to see everything that was shown at the docked panel status.  See attached screenshot.

3. Hard to re-dock.  The undocked sidebar can be relatively easily re-docked by dragging the floating window towards the right edge of the window.  However, once the inspector window is undocked, the user has to drag it very precisely to the center of the bottom edge just above the status bar -- a tiny area -- in order to re-dock it as a panel.

I'm not sure this undocking of UNO inspector is intentional, but currently as is, it doesn't seem to be useful.  Please either disable this undocking or improve its behavior when undocked.

The bug was first found in 7.2.0 Beta1, and is still reproducible in 7.2.0 RC1:
Version: 7.2.0.1 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 32efc3b7f3a71cfa6a7fa3f6c208333df48656cc
CPU threads: 2; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19041; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: zh-CN (zh_CN); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 Buovjaga 2021-07-19 10:39:40 UTC
Repro

NixOS
Version: 7.3.0.0.alpha0+ / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: b1df9c67349cf4cc5be4128d797aefb87f50e38f
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 5.13; UI render: default; VCL: x11
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 2 Diana 2021-08-01 14:28:12 UTC
*** Bug 143669 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 Sophie Sipasseuth 2023-07-11 15:19:41 UTC
Repro

Version: 7.3.8.0.0+ (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: e1ad83ddb2f39419fb5d7c69eba51e2b9f49c788
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: fr-FR (fr_FR); UI: en-US
Calc: CL

Version: 7.4.0.0.alpha1+ (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: c94961c6869c34b3874d21cfaa5ec1488609acfe
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: fr-FR (fr_FR); UI: en-US
Calc: CL

Version: 7.5.0.0.alpha1+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 1c629ca0048670db4bed5e7d8d76bcf8e81f2158
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: fr-FR (fr_FR); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 4 Sophie Sipasseuth 2023-07-11 15:23:24 UTC
For this version of LibreOffice, the UNO object inspector tool is directly a floating window:

Version: 7.6.0.0.beta1+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 1b5cee822e0bc15ddbdfc86926678ca35ab3e082
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: fr-FR (fr_FR); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded