Bug 151185 - Impress: Table design icon without function
Summary: Impress: Table design icon without function
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Impress (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.3.6.2 release
Hardware: All All
: low enhancement
Assignee: Rafael Lima
URL:
Whiteboard: target:7.5.0
Keywords: difficultyBeginner, easyHack, skillDesign, topicUI
Depends on:
Blocks: ImpressDraw-Tables
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2022-09-26 10:59 UTC by mare1203
Modified: 2022-12-12 11:24 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
screenshot of bug (93.69 KB, image/png)
2022-09-26 10:59 UTC, mare1203
Details
Screenshots of the Table Design button (160.88 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics)
2022-12-05 18:14 UTC, Rafael Lima
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description mare1203 2022-09-26 10:59:22 UTC
Created attachment 182680 [details]
screenshot of bug

Table design icon is not responding. On the other side, the table design section is displayed in the sidebar.
Comment 1 Timur 2022-09-26 13:45:50 UTC
Icon opens sidebar with table design.
But let's hear UX on changing this icon to dropdown with table designs.
Comment 2 Rafael Lima 2022-09-26 19:24:46 UTC
This isn't a bug per se. The "Table Design" command simply opens the Table Design sidebar. If it is already open, then nothing happens.

(In reply to Timur from comment #1)
> But let's hear UX on changing this icon to dropdown with table designs.

I'm not sure this would be the way to go, because the current implementation of Table Design needs a deeper rework. Basically, the available set of table styles is hardcoded (see bug 34391, bug 38213 and bug 74142).

There's also bug 101802 that requests an integration of Table Design across Writer / Draw / Impress, which seems the better approach.

So I believe that when these enhancements have been made, this bug report will be automatically fixed. The main question is whether any dev will take on these huge tasks.

I am an avid user of Impress Tables and I can tell that table support in Impress/Draw is very lacking and buggy.
Comment 3 Timur 2022-09-27 08:27:22 UTC
I agree that this should not be worked upon until proper table styles but I don't see how this will be fixed then. Same icon will remain to just open Sidebar. 
So I'd confirm this to be dropdown as Lowest enh.
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2022-09-27 13:36:08 UTC
.uno:TableDesign / SID_TableDesign runs https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/sd/source/ui/table/tablefunction.cxx?r=8611f6e2#233 which just opens the sidebar. I think we should remove the command.
Comment 5 Rafael Lima 2022-09-27 13:43:31 UTC
FTR if this command gets removed, the patch should also remove it from the Notebookbar in Impress and Draw.
Comment 6 Timur 2022-09-27 13:53:44 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> I think we should remove the command.
But icon is obviously used. What would be another way to come to Table Design?
And why not make it dropdown, if someone is not using Sidebar?
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2022-09-27 13:59:42 UTC
The function just opens the sidebar and we have other commands for this. Introducing a function to show the available table designs in a widget for use in a toolbar sounds like a nice enhancement. But the current function is something else.
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2022-11-22 12:23:49 UTC
Maxim, with your latest patch I could imagine to have a menubutton for the functions at the sidebar. Or just remove the button/function. What do you think?
Comment 9 Maxim Monastirsky 2022-11-22 20:06:20 UTC
We have few other commands that "just open the sidebar", as can be seen with 'git grep ::sfx2::sidebar::Sidebar::ShowPanel'. What makes this case particularly confusing in my opinion are 2 things:

1) If the sidebar is already open (which is the default configuration for Impress/Draw), the command does nothing on subsequent click, giving the impression that the command does not work. This in unlike the other commands that act as a toggle and collapse the sidebar if it's open. Such behavior at least gives the user a clue on how the command is supposed to work.

2) The table design panel doesn't have its own deck. Instead, it's hosted in the Properties deck with a lot of other formatting controls. It might be confusing for a user to click on a "table design" function, and get a lot of character and paragraph controls in response. Moreover, it's buried in the bottom of the deck, which typically will be off-screen with lower resolutions. And the panel itself might be actually collapsed.

I believe that moving the table design panel to its own deck will largely resolve the confusion. And it should allow us to keep it accessible even when no table is selected (like it was before the panel was moved to the sidebar), which might be proven to be useful given the new editing capabilities. Imagine a user that wants to define few table styles in a template, but don't want the template to actually include a table. With the current workflow, it's required to temporarily insert a table, then edit the styles, then remove the table.
Comment 10 Rafael Lima 2022-12-01 13:44:52 UTC
> I believe that moving the table design panel to its own deck will largely resolve the confusion.

+1 to this idea. With the new Table Design functionalities I think it deserves its own sidebar deck, which could receive all the commands that are currently available in the toolbar.

We could also make the preview area a bit taller (at least one row taller).

> Such behavior at least gives the user a clue on how the command is supposed to work.

As for the "Table Design" button, I think it should be kept in the toolbar, provided that it acts like a toggle button that shows/hide the deck.
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2022-12-01 14:00:02 UTC
To conclude the input, we should hide the command at the toolbar but keep it at the notebookbar since this UI usually runs with sidebar closed.

Code pointer in comment 4.

We have two META tickets for table design deck, bug 128570 Table panel of the Properties deck/tab of the Writer sidebar and bug 112630 Table design content panel of the Properties deck/tab of the sidebar. Both deal with just one bug. => QA, please check this

The dedicated table panel is requested in bug 95279.
Comment 12 Rafael Lima 2022-12-05 18:14:11 UTC
Created attachment 184002 [details]
Screenshots of the Table Design button

@Heiko, here's the screenshot of the Table Design button in the Tabbed UI.

The other two screenshots show that the command is available in the Customize dialog.
Comment 13 Commit Notification 2022-12-07 11:04:09 UTC
Rafael Lima committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/e0e51cc5441669f6297383d8d50bfde2854be874

tdf#151185 Make Table Design button toggle-able

It will be available in 7.5.0.

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 14 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2022-12-12 11:24:40 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #11)

> We have two META tickets for table design deck, bug 128570 Table panel of
> the Properties deck/tab of the Writer sidebar and bug 112630 Table design
> content panel of the Properties deck/tab of the sidebar. Both deal with just
> one bug. => QA, please check this

The meta bugs are distinct, at least for now (table editing panel only for Writer, table design panel only for Impress / Draw). I clarified with the Component field.

> The dedicated table panel is requested in bug 95279.

I've marked that one as fixed as it was mostly about adding a panel, and opened a fresh one for a dedicated deck: Bug 152481