Bug 144483 - UI Save merged document dialog should separate the range selector from the single/individual documents radio buttons
Summary: UI Save merged document dialog should separate the range selector from the si...
Status: VERIFIED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.3.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Balázs Varga
URL:
Whiteboard: target:7.3.0 target:7.2.2
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Mail-Merge
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2021-09-14 06:56 UTC by NISZ LibreOffice Team
Modified: 2021-10-06 15:16 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of the problematic dialog in Writer (7.11 KB, image/png)
2021-09-14 06:56 UTC, NISZ LibreOffice Team
Details
Screenshot of the Mail Merge dialog after selecting Print in Writer (25.26 KB, image/png)
2021-09-14 06:56 UTC, NISZ LibreOffice Team
Details
Before_After_the_Modify (18.88 KB, image/png)
2021-09-14 07:55 UTC, Balázs Varga
Details
How it could look with a Range frame (32.09 KB, image/png)
2021-09-15 21:57 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (allotropia)
Details

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Description NISZ LibreOffice Team 2021-09-14 06:56:11 UTC
Created attachment 175011 [details]
Screenshot of the problematic dialog in Writer

When creating a mail merge in the Save merged document dialog it is not possible to select a range for saving mail merge as single large document. 
The radio buttons only make it possible to select between single large document, individual documents with all data or individual documents with a range of data.
The Mail Merge dialog has these options independent from each other: it is possible to save merged documents as single document or individual documents, and the range of data (all/partial range) can be selected independently of this choice.


Steps to reproduce:
    1. Set up a mail merge document with the attachment 174941 [details] and attachment 174942 [details]
    2. On the Mail merge toolbar choose the Save merged documents button

Actual results:
Save As Options lets you choose from three radio buttons, and there is no option to save the output as a single document with only a range of data.

Expected results:
The radio button before the From – To spinboxes should be a checkbox, independent from the Single document / Individual documents choices.
Press the Print button on the Standard toolbar. Answer Yes to the question “Your document contains address database fields. Do you want to print a form letter?”
In this Mail Merge dialog the range selection (All/Selected/From-To) is independent of the Save as single document / Save as individual documents choice under Output -> File.

LibreOffice details:
Version: 7.3.0.0.alpha0+ (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 29b34a06a55bbb85d84e1ca2d728f325d355f871
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 18363; UI render: default; VCL: win
Locale: hu-HU (hu_HU); UI: en-US
Calc: CL
Comment 1 NISZ LibreOffice Team 2021-09-14 06:56:40 UTC
Created attachment 175012 [details]
Screenshot of the Mail Merge dialog after selecting Print in Writer
Comment 2 Balázs Varga 2021-09-14 07:55:07 UTC
Created attachment 175015 [details]
Before_After_the_Modify

The related patch, which would modify the 'From-To' UI radiobutton to checkbox in the Save merged document window, in order to we could save individual documents and a single large document with a range: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/122078
Comment 3 Timur 2021-09-14 09:42:26 UTC
I set needsUXEval for 1 of 2 options:

1. Improve the MM toolbar Save merged document dialog as reported (solving inside-the-box).

2. Discard the separate MM toolbar dialogs for Save and Print and use a single button that invokes File-Print dialog that already works fine and has more options (with some additional requests like bug 86672 and bug 47890).
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2021-09-14 13:01:30 UTC
(In reply to Timur from comment #3)
> 2. Discard the separate MM toolbar dialogs for Save and Print and use a
> single button that invokes File-Print dialog...

Wouldn't it be weird to get the print dialog when saving or mailing a document? The patch works well and I wonder what use case you cover with, for example, printing only the odd pages of a MM document. And what happens when the document itself has more than one page? I understand the From/To option as the #address but might be wrong.
Comment 5 Timur 2021-09-14 13:25:19 UTC
MM toolbar has both Save and Print buttons.
File-Print is a single dialog, with clear Printer and File options.
I think it's better to have 1 more complex dialog than 3 separate, and they seem not to share code (separate reports for printing from 0 or 1).
  
I don't understand why mentioning printing only the odd pages of a MM document (guess it's used when one has 1-sided printer only).
Real need is printing only some pages, which is a different bug.  

But let me rephrase this: let 2 buttons Save and Print stay, is it possible to unify code with File-Print? So that all logic is the same.
Comment 6 Commit Notification 2021-09-14 13:40:19 UTC
Balazs Varga committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/45c4caff685b15a0f1b87ef05436a7e6aca96851

tdf#144483 sw mail merge: save ranges in a single document

It will be available in 7.3.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2021-09-14 13:43:17 UTC
(In reply to Timur from comment #5)
> But let me rephrase this: let 2 buttons Save and Print stay, is it possible
> to unify code with File-Print? So that all logic is the same.

If we have a use case and request for a more complex export this idea might be a solution.
Comment 8 Timur 2021-09-15 08:55:30 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7)
> (In reply to Timur from comment #5)
> > But let me rephrase this: let 2 buttons Save and Print stay, is it possible
> > to unify code with File-Print? So that all logic is the same.
> 
> If we have a use case and request for a more complex export this idea might
> be a solution.

We have, bug 86672 to be added to File-Print (which includes Save).
Comment 9 Heiko Tietze 2021-09-15 10:50:17 UTC
(In reply to Timur from comment #8)
> We have, bug 86672 to be added to File-Print (which includes Save).

Mostly your personal pet ;-). And the use case is still not clear to me. But let's discuss over there.
Comment 10 Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) 2021-09-15 21:57:48 UTC
Created attachment 175041 [details]
How it could look with a Range frame

With https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/122164 
it would look a bit better, implementing the separation idea from https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/122078
Comment 11 Commit Notification 2021-09-17 07:52:20 UTC
Balazs Varga committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-7-2":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/d8e5a8c7c3ff747023e7b4b501b7eaef86c40592

tdf#144427 tdf#144483 sw mailmerge: fix merge all document

It will be available in 7.2.2.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 12 Justin L 2021-09-24 07:20:33 UTC
(In reply to Timur from comment #5)
> Is it possible to unify code with File-Print? So that all logic is the same.
I think that Mail-Merge is intimidating for a lot of people. So I can appreciate that there are two different paths to handle it. The toolbar mail-merge path is a bit more guided, and the file-print path is a bit more stream-lined for the advanced user.

(I didn't even know about the file-print path until this week. I think I would have liked using it, but now we aren't using mail-merge any more.)
Comment 13 BogdanB 2021-09-29 09:24:57 UTC
Selection of recordings and Save as single document is now separated.

Verified in
Version: 7.2.2.1 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 0e408af0b27894d652a87aa5f21fe17bf058124c
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19043; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: ro-RO (ro_RO); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 14 Commit Notification 2021-10-06 15:16:26 UTC
Gabor Kelemen committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/6da7e4de06b413a52070ac5414b7e1989eedb322

(related) tdf#144483 Add Range frame above range selector spinboxes

It will be available in 7.3.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.