Bug 161436 - Support viewing and editing comments in a bottom pane
Summary: Support viewing and editing comments in a bottom pane
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Comments
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2024-06-05 21:43 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2024-10-25 08:51 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
A document with numerous comments to its side (484.26 KB, image/png)
2024-06-06 23:12 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
Document for the screenshot in attachment 194569 (70.04 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2024-06-06 23:16 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
An older MS Word's review pane (12.13 KB, image/png)
2024-06-24 21:52 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details

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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2024-06-05 21:43:53 UTC
I don't want to see comments as bubbles. I don't want to see silly dashed arrows. I want to read comment text across the full viewport width, not some tiny vertical strip which fits almost no text (nor a sidebar either).

So, what is it that I expect to see? A secondary pane to the main window, on the bottom, displaying the comments for reading and editing.
Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2024-06-06 22:04:08 UTC
And I don't want to see how you annoy, at least me, all the time, and I put up with it. Please, if you can, think twice before you write what you WANT.
Comment 2 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-06-06 23:12:11 UTC
Created attachment 194569 [details]
A document with numerous comments to its side

This is not an appealing way to read comments, nor to write them...
Comment 3 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-06-06 23:16:37 UTC
Created attachment 194570 [details]
Document for the screenshot in attachment 194569 [details]

Writer document with which I generated the screenshot in attachment 194569 [details].

Note: I'm using  build

Version: 24.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 92815f3a464b447898ecf52492247335228e4a72
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.6; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-IL (en_IL); UI: en-US
Comment 4 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2024-06-21 12:05:55 UTC
The only way I can imagine this is by having the new comment sidebar being undockable to be placed wherever the user wants, like the navigator. I can't imagine contributors developing and maintaining a _third_ way to view comments.

Some questions:
- the comment panel is now resizable, so can accommodate more text - isn't that sufficient?;
- how do you envisage a bottom panel linking comments to their anchor in the document? Or by "I don't want to see silly dashed arrows", you mean you don't want to see _any_ linking?
- do you have an example / screenshot of an application that does it this way?
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2024-06-24 13:55:40 UTC
This is work in progress during one of the current GSoC projects. Please find the duplicate and annotate this ticket yourself.
Comment 6 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-06-24 21:47:11 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #5)
> This is work in progress during one of the current GSoC projects. Please
> find the duplicate and annotate this ticket yourself.

I searched all of the Writer-Comments bugs and could not find a proper dupe. But - bug 38295 is about the same problem; with this bug arguing for a particular solution. Would you like the discussion to be moved over there? Also, GSoC project link please?

(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #4)

> The only way I can imagine this is by having the new comment sidebar being
> undockable to be placed wherever the user wants, like the navigator.

I think I'm opposed to this. You see, the sidebar never holds part of the document; and comments are part of the document. So I don't think it's legitimate to edit comments in the sidebar.

(Although I can't deny that a vertical area for commet editing will have appeal for many.)

> I can't
> imagine contributors developing and maintaining a _third_ way to view
> comments.

1. Then just this way please :-)  Why? Because bubbles are alredy placed vertically. Horizontal is what's really missing.
2. Actually, development-work-wise, the extra work for another mode should be far less than the work for the second mode.

> Some questions:
> - the comment panel is now resizable, so can accommodate more text - isn't
> that sufficient?;

No, just try resizing the comment area in the document I've attached. There's still basically just as much overhead due to the bubbles; and each comment gets scrolled separately; and you get large mostly-empty bubbles so, space is wasted; plus if you enlarge significantly you may not be able to see the entire width of the actual document etc. So no.

> - how do you envisage a bottom panel linking comments to their anchor in the
> document? Or by "I don't want to see silly dashed arrows", you mean you
> don't want to see _any_ linking?

Highlighting: The commented area highlight color changes when you're editing its comment and perhaps vice-versa. Configuration for turning this off perhaps for those who find it distracting. And no dashed lines from balloons to the comment.

> - do you have an example / screenshot of an application that does it this
> way?

MS Word's reviewing pane (at least, what it used to be at some point). Will add a screenshot.
Comment 7 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-06-24 21:52:18 UTC
Created attachment 194936 [details]
An older MS Word's review pane

Notes about this screenshot:

1. The same pane shows many kinds of content - mostly tracked changes - with comments being just one. There's also changes to Headers & Footers, to textboxes, to footnotes, to endnotes etc.

I'm not super-happy about the aesthetics of this pane (gray rectangles, showing empty items; but it's a pane. That's where I got the idea from.
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2024-06-25 08:49:06 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 106316 ***
Comment 9 Eyal Rozenberg 2024-10-24 22:10:21 UTC
It's really not the same ask, Heiko. I realize it clashes with the comment sidebar idea, so you might mark it as WONTFIX, but - have a look at my opening comment; the two complaints are:

* Dashed lines from comments to their origin can be annoying
* Narrow area for reading comments is bad

the comments sidebar will not address this second issue.
Comment 10 Heiko Tietze 2024-10-25 08:51:23 UTC
We will for sure not add another way to deal with comments. => WF