Bug 153300 - Format->Text menu name is confusing in Calc
Summary: Format->Text menu name is confusing in Calc
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.0.0.3 release
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval, topicUI
Depends on:
Blocks: Main-Menu
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Reported: 2023-02-01 07:03 UTC by Mike Kaganski
Modified: 2023-02-10 13:21 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot (242.13 KB, image/png)
2023-02-01 11:56 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details

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Description Mike Kaganski 2023-02-01 07:03:59 UTC
In Calc, there is an important concept of cells' number format, which determines both content formatting, and recognition (conversion) of newly entered text. It is available through Format->Cells (Ctrl+1), "Numbers" tab [1]. The number formats are divided into categories, e.g. Number, Date, Text. The latter category, when applied to a cell, makes all following entry into the respective cell to be not converted to numbers and formulas, which is important for many use cases.

There is rather established, common across many spreadsheet applications, idiom like "format cells as text". It means precisely the application of a number format from the respective category.

In Calc, since 5.1, there is Format->Text menu [2]. It lists assorted items, some of which apply character formatting, others may edit the cell text itself (tdf#152197). These elements are not connected to the number formats discussed above.

The name of the Format->Text menu creates a confusion in users [3]. People who get an advice to format cells as text, may try the Format->Text subentries.

The proposal is to rename the Text menu name (which is common across different modules, i.e. Writer, Draw, ...) to something else - like maybe "Text Effects", or "String", or whatever (I realize that my wording is awful - I hope it just gives an idea).

[1] https://help.libreoffice.org/7.5/en-US/text/shared/01/05020300.html?DbPAR=CALC
[2] https://help.libreoffice.org/7.5/en-US/text/shared/submenu_text.html?&DbPAR=CALC
[3] https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/keeping-zeros-infront-of-a-number/83306/3
Comment 1 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2023-02-01 10:23:56 UTC
Adding libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org to CC to make sure it reaches them.

Should it use the term "Font", as that's what's used in the Format > Character tabs "Font" and "Font effects", where all the corresponding commands are?
Comment 2 Mike Kaganski 2023-02-01 11:04:32 UTC
(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #1)
> Should it use the term "Font", as that's what's used in the Format >
> Character tabs "Font" and "Font effects", where all the corresponding
> commands are?

Note that not everything there is from "Font" (as noted in bug 152197).

Another option: "Characters"?
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2023-02-01 11:56:25 UTC
Created attachment 185044 [details]
Screenshot

Screenshot for the lazy people. 

Although renaming Text to Character sounds good, the label aligns currently with Writer and Draw/Impress. And actually I wonder how changing the font weight to italic, for example, could be mistaken as formatting as text.

In other words: does the (little) improvement of understanding the functionality outbalance the drawback of diverging labels?
Comment 4 Mike Kaganski 2023-02-01 12:08:46 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #3)

IMO, if this would be renamed, it should be renamed synchronously everywhere.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2023-02-10 13:21:37 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting.

"Character" is used in Writer for the Character Style so out of the options. "Font Effect" is not correct as it excludes the font weight. "Text Formatting" could be an alternative but is not an improvement. We concluded that "Font" is okay and has no better replacement. Users need to learn the difference of number formatting and text formatting.