Bug 156274 - Table Properties | Table | "Text direction" is confusingly named
Summary: Table Properties | Table | "Text direction" is confusingly named
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsDevEval
: 157819 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Tables RTL-UI
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Reported: 2023-07-13 15:38 UTC by William Friedman
Modified: 2023-10-20 18:40 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description William Friedman 2023-07-13 15:38:01 UTC
Description:
In Table Properties | Table there is a drop down menu labeled "text direction" under the heading "Properties." The label "text direction" is confusing, since changing this property does *not* change the text direction of the actual cells. What it does, instead, is change the direction of the *table*, so that, for example, tab moves to the left cell in RTL mode vs. the right cell in LTR mode. I propose relabeling this option as "table direction" instead.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set Complex Text Layout to LTR.
2. Create a table.
3. Open Table Properties.
4. Click the Table tab.
5. Change the "text direction" to "Right-to-left (RTL)."
6. Start typing in a cell. Notice that the actual text direction is still LTR.
7. Hit tab. Notice that the next cell selected follows the logical direction of RTL.

Actual Results:
Label is confusing and doesn't change the actual text direction.

Expected Results:
Label should reflect what is actually happening -- that the *table* direction is changing and *not* the text direction.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 7.5.3.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 9f56dff12ba03b9acd7730a5a481eea045e468f3
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 6.1 Service Pack 1 Build 7601; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 1 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2023-07-13 23:46:00 UTC
Reproduced in:

Version: 7.5.4.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 36ccfdc35048b057fd9854c757a8b67ec53977b6
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Same in OOo 3.3, so inherited.

I also note that writing a word, then pressing space will make the cursor jump to the left, then continuing typing will append back to the right.

Khaled, what's you opinion on this?
Comment 2 ⁨خالد حسني⁩ 2023-07-16 03:20:03 UTC
Sounds reasonable, as it indeed changes the layout direction the table cells not the text direction of their contents.
Comment 3 Maxim Monastirsky 2023-07-16 21:32:33 UTC
(In reply to William Friedman from comment #0)
> 5. Change the "text direction" to "Right-to-left (RTL)."
> 6. Start typing in a cell. Notice that the actual text direction is still
> LTR.
I can't reproduce this. For me, text direction is also switched to RTL (can be easily seen by looking at the state of the RTL toolbar button). It just doesn't switch paragraph alignment from left to right in addition. As direction and alignment are really separate things, I wouldn't expect the table dialog to change both. This is unlike that toolbar RTL/LTR buttons which attempt to provide a convenience method of changing both settings at once.

(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #1)
> I also note that writing a word, then pressing space will make the cursor
> jump to the left, then continuing typing will append back to the right.
... which means that the direction was actually switched to RTL, and is consistent with my observation.
Comment 4 ⁨خالد حسني⁩ 2023-07-17 08:50:06 UTC
(In reply to Maxim Monastirsky from comment #3)
> (In reply to William Friedman from comment #0)
> > 5. Change the "text direction" to "Right-to-left (RTL)."
> > 6. Start typing in a cell. Notice that the actual text direction is still
> > LTR.
> I can't reproduce this. For me, text direction is also switched to RTL (can
> be easily seen by looking at the state of the RTL toolbar button).

This is because the default direction for Table Contents paragraph style is set to “Use superordinate object”. If table content direction is set explicitly (either using direct formatting or in the paragraph style), changing the table direction does not change the table content direction.

But thinking more about it, this is similar to the “Text direction” in page settings, which also does not only change the text direction. So we either change both or none at all.
Comment 5 ⁨خالد حسني⁩ 2023-10-20 18:19:35 UTC
*** Bug 157819 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Eyal Rozenberg 2023-10-20 18:40:28 UTC
Wouldn't this by easy to hack?