Bug 149411 - Improve Columns deck at the sidebar
Summary: Improve Columns deck at the sidebar
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Impress (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.4.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Ashwani kumar
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: difficultyMedium, easyHack, skillCpp, topicUI
Depends on:
Blocks: Sidebar-Properties
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Reported: 2022-05-31 21:44 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2025-01-10 07:40 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2022-05-31 21:44:11 UTC
Suppose you have a box in Impress, and you want to modify the spacing between its borders and its internal text area (a.k.a. its "padding").

You can do this via the content menu > Text Attributes > Text. This is already not so great, as it's not really an "attribute of the text", but of the box. That's the minor issue.

The major issue is that it's very difficult, or impossible, to get to these settings from anywhere else:

* It's not on the main toolbar
* It's not on the text formatting toolbar (and even if it were, the infernal app closes that on you as soon as you exist text editing mode)
* It's not in the Format menu
* Specifically, it's not in Format > Text, if you were somehow optimistic about menu hierarchy consistency...
* It's not in any section of the properties sidebar - and you'll waste quite a bit of time looking for it in "Area" and "Position and Size" maybe.

WTF?! That makes no sense at all.
Comment 1 Heiko Tietze 2022-06-01 08:34:36 UTC
Context menu: Text Attributes...
Main menu: Format > Object and Shape > Text Attributes...
and at some of the Notebookbar variants

If you have the (classic) toolbar in mind I disagree that all commands need to be present all the time. What else?
Comment 2 Eyal Rozenberg 2022-06-01 09:10:04 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #1)
> If you have the (classic) toolbar in mind I disagree that all commands need
> to be present all the time. What else?

I somehow "misplaced" it in the main toolbar. So, I take back the claim that it's missing. Still, I feel it doesn't stand out. Line spacing has its own submenu, and so does "a bunch of actual text properties", bullets and numbering has 2 top-level main menu items (a submenu and an item for opening the dialog) - and all those are very well represented on the toolbars. Plus, we have two menu top-level items for "Name" and "Description" (Why are those not together, by the way? and Why is there both a title and a name?). But the padding is relegated to an ambiguously relegated tab in a dialog on a submenu? Not fair.

The other claims stand; especially this being absent from the side-bar.

About the toolbars - if this was better available otherwise, adding this to the main toolbar is not necessary, and the text formatting toolbar is not quite quite the right place, so not sure about that.
Comment 3 Rafael Lima 2022-06-01 21:14:07 UTC
Some of the options in the Text dialog (right-click the text inside the shape and go to "Text attributes" could be on its own section in the Properties sidebar.

The section could be named "Text Attributes" and we could have:
- Spacing to borders
- Wrap and resize options
- Number of columns and spacing between columns
- Effect (maybe)
Comment 4 Eyal Rozenberg 2022-06-08 19:25:58 UTC
(In reply to Rafael Lima from comment #3)

Are we talking about Impress only, or also Draw?

Also, following the design meeting today, it seems like this should be confirmed as NEW.
Comment 5 Rafael Lima 2022-06-08 23:52:58 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #4)
> Are we talking about Impress only, or also Draw?

Since the Text dialog is identical both in Draw and Impress, these improvements to the Properties sidebar should be implemented for both applications.
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2022-06-09 05:50:25 UTC
Yes, this topic has been discussed in the design meeting.

We have a deck "Columns" in the sidebar, which is part of the text attributes. So the recommendation is to rename this deck into "Text" (or "Text Attributes"), add the "Fit height/width" options, and provide full access to the properties via the deck master interaction (top-right button).

Some code pointers

svx/uiconfig/ui/sidebartextcolumnspanel.ui
svx/source/sidebar/textcolumns/TextColumnsPropertyPanel.cxx
Comment 7 Ashwani kumar 2025-01-09 20:09:00 UTC
Hi, I wanted to clarify my understanding.
Do we need to add a section in the Properties sidebar named "Text Attributes" that includes options like "Fit Height," "Fit Width," and other related properties? Am I understanding this correctly?
Comment 8 Buovjaga 2025-01-10 06:42:43 UTC
(In reply to Ashwani kumar from comment #7)
> Hi, I wanted to clarify my understanding.
> Do we need to add a section in the Properties sidebar named "Text
> Attributes" that includes options like "Fit Height," "Fit Width," and other
> related properties? Am I understanding this correctly?

Focus on comment 6. Open Impress, select a text box and look at the Properties deck of the Sidebar. Comment 6 has a mistake, claiming that there would be a separate deck called Columns, but actually it is just the last section in the Properties deck when you have a text box selected.
Comment 9 Ashwani kumar 2025-01-10 07:31:22 UTC
(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #8)
> (In reply to Ashwani kumar from comment #7)
> > Hi, I wanted to clarify my understanding.
> > Do we need to add a section in the Properties sidebar named "Text
> > Attributes" that includes options like "Fit Height," "Fit Width," and other
> > related properties? Am I understanding this correctly?
> 
> Focus on comment 6. Open Impress, select a text box and look at the
> Properties deck of the Sidebar. Comment 6 has a mistake, claiming that there
> would be a separate deck called Columns, but actually it is just the last
> section in the Properties deck when you have a text box selected.

I see the section at the bottom of the Properties deck when a text box is selected. Just to confirm, the changes need to be made in that section, right?
Comment 10 Buovjaga 2025-01-10 07:40:19 UTC
(In reply to Ashwani kumar from comment #9)
> (In reply to Buovjaga from comment #8)
> > (In reply to Ashwani kumar from comment #7)
> > > Hi, I wanted to clarify my understanding.
> > > Do we need to add a section in the Properties sidebar named "Text
> > > Attributes" that includes options like "Fit Height," "Fit Width," and other
> > > related properties? Am I understanding this correctly?
> > 
> > Focus on comment 6. Open Impress, select a text box and look at the
> > Properties deck of the Sidebar. Comment 6 has a mistake, claiming that there
> > would be a separate deck called Columns, but actually it is just the last
> > section in the Properties deck when you have a text box selected.
> 
> I see the section at the bottom of the Properties deck when a text box is
> selected. Just to confirm, the changes need to be made in that section,
> right?

That's what I just said and that's where the code pointers in comment 6 are pointing to.