Bug 159724 - The "No Character Style" list entry should always be offered in the SB "Character Styles" content panel, even if only the "Applied Styles" is the selected UI mode
Summary: The "No Character Style" list entry should always be offered in the SB "Chara...
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.2.2.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Sidebar-Styles
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2024-02-14 21:43 UTC by Adalbert Hanßen
Modified: 2024-09-25 21:15 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
screenshot to dieplay how to use the dialog (64.69 KB, image/png)
2024-02-28 10:16 UTC, Adalbert Hanßen
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Adalbert Hanßen 2024-02-14 21:43:52 UTC
This problem arises in LibreOfficeWriter

Version: 24.2.2.0.0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 46169670ef4031888e143823b263577296d7867f
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.5; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Calc: threaded

But I also encountered it in older versions. (sorry, 24.2.2.0.0 was not offered in the bug report drop-down list, I selected another one close to that). 

Below the F11-function to select character styles, one can select categories, e.g. All Styles, All User defined ones or all Applied Styles shall be displayed for the choice to be taken from.

Of course, Applied Character Styles is the most used one, since one should stay with a few carefully chosen character styles only, almost all formatting should be done by the paragraph styles (and direct formatting should be avoided at all).

In general No Character Style happens "almost everywhere" in a properly formatted document with a few exceptions only, since in the first place the styles from the paragraph styles should be used "almost everywhere".

If one wants to revert an improperly applied character style, unfortunately "No Character Style" is not offered, when "Applied styles" are selected.

This is very cumbersome since one has to temporarily change what shall be offered - and "No Character Style should" always be offered in the selection, no matter what else the selection is restricted to (even in "User defined Styles" is the restriction: despite the fact that "No Character Style" definitely is not a user defined style).
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2024-02-14 22:16:10 UTC
+1

As corollary to the 'Default Paragraph Style' for paragraphs, agree always exposing the 'No Character Style' on the the 'Character Styles' content panel of  Styles SB deck <F11> would be better UX.

Any reason we couldn't?
Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2024-02-15 09:17:43 UTC
+1
Comment 3 Tex2002ans 2024-02-20 23:52:13 UTC
Yep, full agree.
Comment 4 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-02-28 10:16:01 UTC
Created attachment 192844 [details]
screenshot to dieplay how to use the dialog

For those who desperately need this function: You can, for example, associate Shift-Ctrl-M with NoCharacterStyle as shown in the attached screenshot. I think Shift-Ctrl-M is a good choice for this function because Ctrl-M is already associated with Clear (direct formatting). Removing all character styles is something like the more powerful version of it.

Being able to associate it with a shortcut doesn't render the suggestion at the beginning of this thread obsolete: If you are teaching someone LO Writer, you should see this option in the GUI in all situations. Of course, it would be particularly good if the list of character styles also displayed the shortcut after the name of each character style to which a shortcut is assigned - or, like the black box with mouseover, if the buttons on the toolbars also displayed an assigned shortcut next to the function name. Such a black box is already available in the Character Styles selection dialog, but it is redundant: it only repeats the name of the element to which the mouse pointer is currently pointing. Adding the shortcut would give it a real benefit.
Comment 5 John Parker 2024-06-19 07:28:03 UTC
I endorse  Adalbert Hanßen's statement: "No Character Style" should always be offered in the "Applied Styles" "Character Styles" list. It is not satisfactory to have to use workarounds like short cut keys. How is a new user supposed to get started with adding and deleting character styles?
Comment 6 LeroyG 2024-06-19 18:02:13 UTC
Version: 24.2.4.2 (x86) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 51a6219feb6075d9a4c46691dcfe0cd9c4fff3c2
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 6.1 Service Pack 1 Build 7601; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: es-MX (es_MX); UI: es-ES
Calc: threaded
Comment 7 Jason Hopkins 2024-08-27 19:07:31 UTC
As one who uses styles on a daily basis and who trains novices in LibreOffice I agree No Character Style should always be in the list. If you use a filtered list such as "Applied Styles" or "Custom Styles" any time you want to remove a style you much change to All Styles, remove the style, then switch back to a filter. 

It gets tedious very quickly when you are forced to repeat the same sequence every time. In OpenOffice No Character Style was always on the list. 

Technically "No Character Style" is not an applied style, I get it, but for usability it needs to be quickly available and here is a logical place.
Comment 8 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-08-27 20:04:58 UTC
(In reply to Jason Hopkins from comment #7)
Jason, in comment 4 above I mentioned my shortcut Shift-Ctrl-M for this (a bit stronger than already existing Ctrl-M). Unfortunately Tools>Customize>Keyboard is very unintuitive to use: When I looked it up to see how I had done it, it shows me, that a function "Default Character" has been associated. The explanation in the second column of "Shortcut Keys" is ok. But in order to establish it, you have to associate something different: Even selecting "All Categories" does not show "Default Character" in its alphabetically sorted list! You have to associate Syles>Character>No Character Style instead. e.g. to Shift-Ctrl-M, as in my comment 4 above. Afterwards it gets indicated as "Default Character" in the upper part. This is just another minor bug which unfortunately makes teaching LibreOffice Writer more difficult!
Comment 9 LeroyG 2024-08-28 14:42:53 UTC
Same with:
Version: 24.8.0.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 0bdf1299c94fe897b119f97f3c613e9dca6be583
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10 X86_64 (10.0 build 17763); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: es-MX (es_AR); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 10 LeroyG 2024-08-28 17:49:47 UTC
Sorry. My bad with the change of "Version: (earliest affected)" value.
Thanks, V Stuart Foote, for correcting it.
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2024-09-04 07:59:29 UTC
Checked with latest master and "No Character Style" is visible with filter = Applied Styles. => WFM

Version: 25.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 7c50ae543e8750729e9696685caf4afe87c39968
CPU threads: 32; OS: Linux 6.10; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 12 V Stuart Foote 2024-09-04 11:32:05 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #11)

Confirmed => WFM, the 'No Character Style' is there on the Character Styles tab for 25.2 release. 

Would seem a good candidate for backport to 24.8 but I couldn't find its commit, not in StyleList.cxx at least.

Version: 25.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: c52f139b4f7140033144dde29f70a39ebedb6aa0
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10 X86_64 (10.0 build 19045); UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 13 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-09-24 10:04:43 UTC
It looks like a backport to Version 24.8 has not yet happened. I still saw the old behavior in

Version: 24.8.1.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 87fa9aec1a63e70835390b81c40bb8993f1d4ff6
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 6.8; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Calc: threaded
Comment 14 Jim Raykowski 2024-09-25 20:27:01 UTC
Wasn't able to bisect this because it isn't in the most recent bibisect repository yet so I dug in the code and think this is the commit that made 'No Character Style' available in the 'Applied Styles' list:
https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/171096