I would like to see the behavor when double-clicking a word be user-modifiable preference. Most WYSIWIG editors I use, including the one I'm using to create this report, select a group of consecutive letters plus trailing whitespace up to the punctuation or the next letter. Writer selects only the word. This is not necessarily /wrong/ behavior, however it is contrary to what my muscle memory expects. The behavior is especially bothersome when editing a document as I tend to write a lot and then delete words either as a group, or one at a time. To delete a word I have to hit the delete key twice, once for the word, once for the space. This is an admittedly minor point, but it can be irritating when I really want to focus on what I'm doing rather than the technology. Thanks! Chris
Hi Chris, thanks for reporting this issue. However, I do not clearly understand your request because the current double-click effect we have in Writer is the same in MS Word, Google Docs, as well as the text input here in Bugzilla. For instance, when I double-click a word, the entire word is selected. I have never had a different result in any other application. What WYSIWYG editors do you use? In which OS? In Writer, you can use multiple clicks to select a word (double-click), sentence (triple-click), or paragraph (quadruple-click).
Created attachment 180382 [details] Double-Click Behavior Writer This screenshot reflects the behavior of Writer in my experience -- it selects only a string of text between whitespaces. Hitting Delete at this point will leave two consecutive spaces in the work.
Created attachment 180384 [details] Double-Click Behavior of MS Word Word selects the word, plus any trailing spaces. The fact that it picks up those consecutive spaces may also create problems, but that is a topic for another discussion.
Created attachment 180385 [details] Double-Click Behavior Google Docs Google Docs emulates the behavior of MS Word (and this editor) by selecting the text string plus the trailing space.
Created attachment 180386 [details] Another example in Google Docs This is a bit weird. See in my screenshot that double-clicking a word in Google Docs only selects the word (not the trailing spaces). What operating system are you using? What Web browser do you use with Google Docs?
Created attachment 180387 [details] Double-Click Behavior Bugzilla This selection shows several spaces beyond a double-clicked word being selected.
As a follow-up to Comment 5, when I double-click a word in Google Docs, indeed just the word gets selected. However, if I press delete only one space is left between both words, which is very handy and prevents the user from making the mistake of leaving two consecutive blank spaces. LibreOffice Writer would have left two consecutive blank spaces in this case, which is indeed not a great experience. I myself have made a few mistakes in documents due to this behavior. IMO when we select a word and delete it, only one blank space should be left, as MS Word and Google Docs do. Let's hear the UX team's opinion on this.
I see from your examples that perhaps there is a regional component to this. For me that is all the more reason to have the behavior be user-selectable. Thank you for taking an interest. I hope we can find a way to make this improvement to Writer!
(In reply to Rafael Lima from comment #5) > Created attachment 180386 [details] > Another example in Google Docs > > This is a bit weird. See in my screenshot that double-clicking a word in > Google Docs only selects the word (not the trailing spaces). > > What operating system are you using? What Web browser do you use with Google > Docs? I'm in Windows 10 and using Brave browser. The behavior is consistent from one browser to another for me. As noted, there may be a regional component to this.
We should not add magically do something and rather select the exact characters. This means "Hello <brave >new world" with brackets for the envisioned selection. Works for delete but not if you replace the word - you'd have to add the trailing space in this case again. And btw, trailing or leading white space? Probably depending on whether at the beginning of the sentence or at the end. I vaguely remember a similar ticket, but bug 100189 is different and I cannot find anything better.
Heiko Tietze, you are correct of course. I'm looking for a consistent experience that I can adjust to my needs. If I could adjust it, double-clicking a word would act like MS-Word which selects the word plus the trailing space. A delete or a backspace removes the word, plus the trailing space. Overtyping preserves the space, or more correctly, replaces the trailing space. There may be some other options, but this is something that I've grown used to, and I'd prefer not to have to re-learn how to use the word processor as I'm trying to write or edit a document. Thanks for your consideration. I don't want to add to bloat, and I really don't want to complicate configuration menus, but this one feature would be really helpful as I edit my writing. Chris
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. Some good arguments support this request, first of all convenience (select and delete/over-type without need to adjust spaces) and consistency (most competitors do so). But in fact we do the expected behavior when the selection is done by keyboard (shift+ctrl+right - or left in case of RTL). And we should implement the same for mouse interactions. Bug 149308 requests the opposite to not include trailing spaces (NAB/WF IMO) Bug 82735, bug 136053 discuss whether deleting a word should automatically include the trailing space (resolved WF since we delete the selection - and the selection should include the white-space) Bug 129426 is about collapsing the selection
Addendum: We recommend adding trailing spaces to the selection should _not_ made optional.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #13) > Addendum: We recommend adding trailing spaces to the selection should _not_ > made optional. I don't disagree -- making it optional is pretty granular and might generate more heat than light. At the very least double-clicking a word and then deleting it should not leave an "extra" space and instead leave the words on either side with a single space between them. Thanks you for your interest. I look forward to seeing my little contribution in an upcoming iteration of LibreOffice! Regards, Chris
May I ask what the compatibility option "Word-compatible trailing blanks" does? I didn't notice any difference and there is no help for that. (see Bug 131235 - Add help for trailing blanks gimmick and other missing compatibility options)
(In reply to s5t1e3v4e3m11@hotmail.com from comment #15) > May I ask what the compatibility option "Word-compatible trailing blanks" > does? AFAIK it's supposed to add trailing spaces to the copied or pasted text. And yes, it's not working for me as well (7.6 on macOS). I suggest to create a new ticket. The point of this request was to harmonize keyboard and mouse handling - and considering the option is definitely necessary.
"point of this request was to harmonize keyboard and mouse handling" Certainly a good point, but it started about about matching user expectations, comparing the behaviour of LO with competitors. The bug title ("Make the selection behavior when double-clicking a word a user preference") brought me here, because the colon is not a word separator in LO, if the adjacent character is a number (I could not find any option to change that.) A:B:42:54:C will get "42:54" selected, if we double-click "42" A:B2:42:54:C will get "B2:42:54" selected So, making that configurable (as per bug title) would be great. (The underscore is the opposite from the colon: it IS a word separator in LO, whereas it is not in most other apps I am using, e.g. Notepad++, Firefox, MS-Outlook, MS-Teams, SQuirreL SQL) If the definition what constitutes a word is a completely separate issue, I'll file a separate report.
*** Bug 159001 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***