Created attachment 191074 [details]
Video showing the shape is gone

Created attachment 191075 [details]
The Calc document I used on my video

E.g., if you insert a text in the shape even with the shape 100% transparent you can click on the text to select.
With nothing visible, looks fine for me, that it can't be selected. Which can be needed in some situation, like using macros to show/hide shapes.
In any case, it is always possible to select through the navigator.

(In reply to m.a.riosv from comment #3)
> E.g., if you insert a text in the shape even with the shape 100% transparent
> you can click on the text to select.
> With nothing visible, looks fine for me, that it can't be selected. Which
> can be needed in some situation, like using macros to show/hide shapes.
> In any case, it is always possible to select through the navigator.

Thanks for your reply:

1. I didn't think about the navigator: the rectangle is, in fact, there.

2. The navigator, however, is a tool for advanced users, and I still think it makes sense for the shape to be accessible with the mouse, especially right after setting the transparency to 100%. Otherwise, you are working on a shape, you change one setting, you change another, and suddenly the shape isn't there any more.

About the navigator, for me it is a basic tool, easily accessible.

OTOH how the user know where the object is, if it is not visible?

I'll put a different example. Let's say that the background of a cell (where you've typed a number) is white, and you decide to set the text colour to white too. Should the text be gone or should it still be there, even if it's invisible? If you know there's a number in cell C5, the number should remain in cell C5 and you should be able to click on it.

I know a number in a cell isn't the same as a shape, but for me there's a similar reasoning. You're working on your shape, trying different levels of transparency and, at some point, you set it to 100%. You know the location of your shape, because you're currently working on it, and yet it's not clickable any more.

This is the same for a shape with no border and no fill.
MS Office (I tested online) draws a dashed outline when hovering over the object's border, whereas LO Calc has no indication that the cursor is above the border.
At least, Writer and Impress have the cursor change when hovering over the invisible border: from caret to pointer in Writer, from pointer to hand in Impress.

In Calc, the object can still be selected, but the user would have to entirely guess where exactly the border is, or use the Navigator.

My suggestion would be:
- Calc: change cursor when hovering over border, like in other modules
- all modules: (add option to) draw a temporary dashed outlines to denote the object size

Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha1+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 5589659829f8a1cef8ca1c8a468732105bbe231b
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #7)
> MS Office (I tested online) draws a dashed outline when hovering over the
> object's border
This is true for Powerpoint. In Excel, only the cursor changes.

As another workaround: use the Select tool in the Drawing toolbar, and drag around the shape.

A third workaround: Select a visible shape, and press Tab.

It could be useful to think of some situation/s in which the proposed behavior would collide with the expected response of a click: i.e., to select a cell, or a visible shape just below/behind (?) the invisible one.

The second workaround didn't work for me, but the third one did.

(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #7)
> - Calc: change cursor when hovering over border, like in other modules
> - all modules: (add option to) draw a temporary dashed outlines to denote
> the object size
Sounds good to me. But I don't see a reason why 100% transparent objects should not be clickable (in fact a gradient from a very high value like 99% to 100% is still clickable).

Armin, any insights?

Let's treat this as a bug. I don't get why 100% transparency should be handled differently, and if needed Stephane had a good idea.

Reproducible in LO 25.8.3.2.

Version: 25.8.3.2 (X86_64)
Build ID: 8ca8d55c161d602844f5428fa4b58097424e324e
CPU threads: 16; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (build 26200); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: es-ES (es_ES); UI: es-ES
Calc: CL threaded