Bug 158601 - Page direction not the same as sheet direction
Summary: Page direction not the same as sheet direction
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Calc-Styles Sheet RTL
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Reported: 2023-12-08 17:45 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2024-08-04 23:02 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2023-12-08 17:45:13 UTC
Changing the direction of a worksheet, e.g. from LTR to RTL or the other way around, does not change the Page Style's text direction setting, and vice-versa.

AFAICT - this is a bug, and the two settings should be one and the same. Am I wrong? If not, please explain why you believe know they should differ.
Comment 1 ady 2023-12-08 18:54:05 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #0)
> Changing the direction of a worksheet, e.g. from LTR to RTL or the other way
> around, does not change the Page Style's text direction setting, and
> vice-versa.
> 
> AFAICT - this is a bug, and the two settings should be one and the same. Am
> I wrong? If not, please explain why you believe know they should differ.

If you are referring to the RTL/LTR setting for the worksheet tab (a UI setting) vs. the Page Style for the worksheet, I think that recent bug reports have proven that users do not agree that they are the same.

Some users might want both to be synced, but others do not. IMO, UI elements should not be automatically synced or unified with other settings, but rather we should have options/alternatives for the behavior/location of RTL UI elements (which may or may not include some kind of syncing). We have these diverse/conflicting opinions and desires expressed in bugs 157784, 158552, 100584, 157961 and others.
Comment 2 Eyal Rozenberg 2023-12-08 18:58:39 UTC
(In reply to ady from comment #1)
> If you are referring to the RTL/LTR setting for the worksheet tab (a UI
> setting) vs. the Page Style for the worksheet, I think that recent bug
> reports have proven that users do not agree that they are the same.

No, I'm not talking about where the worksheet tab is placed. I'm talking about whether the worksheet _itself_ has cells progress from left to right or vice versa.
Comment 3 ady 2023-12-08 23:51:12 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #2)

> No

If I may, I would have a request then. Would you please post the exact steps in order to arrive to the 2 different settings (in the UI) you are asking about?
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2023-12-11 15:56:17 UTC
(In reply to ady from comment #3)
> If I may, I would have a request then. Would you please post the exact steps
> in order to arrive to the 2 different settings (in the UI) you are asking
> about?

And please include the locale and UI language settings.
Comment 5 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-02-07 23:09:53 UTC
(In reply to ady from comment #3)
> If I may, I would have a request then. Would you please post the exact steps
> in order to arrive to the 2 different settings (in the UI) you are asking
> about?

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> And please include the locale and UI language settings.

1. Start LO Calc (locale en-IL, UI en-US)
2. Note the sheet direction
3. Open the Format | Page Style... dialog and note the text direction
4. Switch the sheet direction, by toggling Sheet | Direction (it's on the bottom of the menu
5. Open the Format | Page Style... dialog again and note the text direction

Expected results:
At (2.), sheet direction is LTR.
At (3.), text direction is LTR.
At (5.), text direction is RTL.

Actual result:
At (2.), sheet direction is LTR.
At (3.), text direction is LTR.
At (5.), text direction is LTR.


Full version info:

Version: 24.2.0.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: b1fd3a6f0759c6f806568e15c957f97194bbec8f
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.6; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-IL (en_IL); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2024-02-08 08:27:40 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #5)
> 1. Start LO Calc (locale en-IL, UI en-US)
> 2. Note the sheet direction
...
Without setting the default for "Default Languages for Documents" the locale settings wont affect any style. But even when using "English (Israel)" plus "Hebrew" below in CTL does not make new documents start in RTL mode.

What you can do, is to configure everything as needed, save as template and make this the default for new documents.

The question about Page / Sheet direction is confusing to me, I don't see any difference in my setup. But you seem to have found a bug - what could UX contribute here?
Comment 7 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-02-08 08:54:26 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #6)
> Without setting the default for "Default Languages for Documents" the locale
> settings wont affect any style. But even when using "English (Israel)" plus
> "Hebrew" below in CTL does not make new documents start in RTL mode.

This bug is not about making new documents start in RTL mode.

> The question about Page / Sheet direction is confusing to me, I don't see
> any difference in my setup. But you seem to have found a bug - what could UX
> contribute here?

1. Verification that the behavior I saw is not intentional and not desirable.
2. A discussion of how the sheet direction should relate to the page style text direction - whether they should be the same thing, and if not - when they should diverge.
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2024-02-15 09:36:54 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting.

The request is probably to bind the UI-only setting Sheet > RTL to the document attribute Page Style > Text Direction (the superordinate setting of the text direction in cells). This would not be a good solution.

What users expect is rather some kind of automatic detection whether the text is LTR or RTL and the text direction to follow consequently. It makes not much sense (but should still be possible) to run text from left for Arabic or Hebrew and vice versa.

The issue has been reported before, and either this ticket is a duplicate or wontfix in respect to the envisioned solution.

In all this situation the superordinate setting for cells taking the value from the page setting seems buggy since switching from LTR to RTL has no effect.