Description: Most of the UI strings on the "Text along Path" dialog in Draw and Impress are IMO quite confusing and inconsistent. I think they could be improved as follows (listed here in the order they appear in the UI): * "Style": quite vague and not related to the concept of styles in general in LO, change to e.g. "Character Orientation and Skew" (see below for reasoning). * "Baseline Off": this actually disables all Text along Path formatting, so a better name would be "Disable Text along Path". * "Rotate": a more descriptive name would be "Characters Perpendicular to Path", as this affects each character individually and is not a general option for arbitrary rotation. * "Upright: change to "Characters Upright", as this also affects each character individually. * "Slant Horizontal": change to "Skew Characters Horizontally". Again, individual characters and "skew" describes the function here better than "slant" * "Slant Vertical": as above. * "Adjust": change to "Orientation and Alignment", less vague that way. * "Orientation": change to "Flip", as flip is all it does. * "Align Left": no changes. * "Align Center": no changes. * "Align Right": no changes. * "AutoSize Text": okay, I suppose. * "Position and Indent": change to "Vertical and Horizontal Offset", as "position" usually means a X/Y coordinate position in LO (and elsewhere) and this is just a simple offset, not really related to the indentation of paragraphs etc. * "Shadow": change to "Path, Contour and Shadow", see below. * "Contour": change to "Show Path", as this is about showing the path along which the text is formatted. * "Text Contour": no changes. * "No Text Shadow": no changes. * "Add Text Shadow": change to "Drop Shadow", as that's what this kind of effect is usually called: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_shadow * "Text Shadow Slant": change to "Slanted Shadow" for the sake of better English. * "Shadow Offset": no changes. * "Shadow Color": no changes. Relevant Help page: https://help.libreoffice.org/24.8/en-US/text/shared/01/05280000.html Steps to Reproduce: 1. In Draw or Impress, draw a line, enter text on it and select Format -> Text along Path. Actual Results: The terminology used on the dialog is needlessly confusing and inconsistent. Expected Results: The terminology is more to-the-point and more consistent. Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: n/a
OK, sure. No functional change, just UI labeling. Of course these would incur cost to i18n translation efforts and documentation for what are just string changes. +1
Created attachment 195181 [details] Screenshot The dialog has changed recently with https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/162056 for bug 94535.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #2) > Created attachment 195181 [details] > Screenshot > > The dialog has changed recently with > https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/162056 for bug 94535. Expect OP was aware of that, was reported against 24.8 and linked the 24.8 Help, or did you just want to have the visual of the screenshot for discussion?
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #3) > ...did you just want to have the visual of the screenshot for discussion? Yes, it's on the agenda for the meeting next week.
It is not clear when taken from the Help article, but the dialog (as all dialogs) bundles a mix of string "Labels" and "Tooltips" Other than their i18n demands on translators the tooltips are no issue to adjust as suggested. However any rework of the Labels ('Style', 'Adjust', 'Position and Indent', 'Shadow', 'Shadow Offset' 'Shadow Color') shown on the dialog present the UX UI-design challenge, as they must remain of *reasonable length*. "Character Orientation and Skew" would not fit and a label on the dialog can't take its own tooltip (just the Extended Tips of the help if user sets that enabled)[1]. Likewise for "Orientation and Alignment", "Vertical and Horizontal Offset", "Path, Contour and Shadow". Not only would such long text labels be a translation challenge, they would force a resize of the dialog--reshaping it from being a button toolbar into a dialog that would actually obscure the text and path of sd object being edited. Tooltip, Extended Tips for the labels--sure; Labels--not so much... =-ref-= [1] The "Text along Path..." dialog Labels now expose the 'Simple tool for putting text along a curve without any fancy effects.' extended tip when they are enabled from Tools -> Options -> General.
The dialog had in its beginning the term "text baseline", that still occurs in help and tips. But the term "baseline" has a special meaning in typography and should therefore not be used here as term for the path. So in all cases use 'path' instead. The dialog has no section headings in LO 7.6. Do we really need so many section headings? The current tooltip "Baseline Off" is wrong. Not the "Baseline" (the path) is turned off, but the entire effect is turned off. I suggest a simple "Off". The initial dialog had a clear distance between the "Off" button and the four buttons that determine the type of the effect. That is missing here. The dividing line is not clear enough. Is it possible to have a wide distance between the 'Off' button and the other four buttons? Or align the "Off" button with the left edge of the dialog window and the group of the four type buttons with the right edge of the dialog window? Instead of heading "Style" the term "Type" might be better. I think, that the terms "Rotate", "Upright", "Slant Horizontal" and "Slant Vertical" are correct. They describe, which transformation is applied to the individual characters. A text like the suggested 'Characters Perpendicular to Path' instead of 'Rotate' is too long for a tooltip. It would be good for an extended tip, but such does not yet exist for the buttons in the dialog window. In content, the suggested heading 'Orientation and Alignment' is correct, but it might be too long. Perhaps only 'Alignment'? I disagree with 'Flip' instead of 'Orientation'. In all places in LibreOffice I know, 'flip' is used synonym to 'mirror'. But the button here means, "Use the path so as if the path had the inverted orientation." and that is unrelated to mirroring. I agree with changing "Position and Indent". Instead of the suggested 'Vertical and Horizontal Offset' I would use only 'Offset'. The suggested text is too long for the compact design of the dialog window. Instead of the suggested heading 'Path, Contour and Shadow' I would divide the buttons in two groups, one with heading 'Path and Contour' or only 'Path', and the other with heading 'Shadow'. The tooltip should not be 'Show path' instead of 'Contour' but 'Hide path', because that is the action when the button is pressed. The tooltip for the pressed button should then be 'Show path'. Is it possible to have a tooltip depending on button state? I agree with 'Add Text Shadow' -> 'Drop Shadow' and 'Text Shadow Slant' -> 'Slanted Shadow'. When the buttons are divided in two groups, the heading "Shadow offset" could be removed. It is clear then, that it is a setting for the shadow. Using 'offset' in the heading does not fit to shadow kind 'slanted shadow'. Icons change when the shadow type changes, but the tooltips currently do not change. In case of 'slanted shadow' it needs to be 'angle' and 'length', currently it is 'distance'. The extended tip has an 'or'. That is not ideal. Only the part that belongs to the respective shadow type should be used. Is it possible to show one group of icons, fields and tooltips for case 'drop shadow' and a different group at the same position in case of 'slanted shadow'?
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #6) > The dialog had in its beginning the term "text baseline", that still occurs > in help and tips. But the term "baseline" has a special meaning in > typography and should therefore not be used here as term for the path. So in > all cases use 'path' instead. +1 > Instead of heading "Style" the term "Type" might be better. It's better than 'Style' for sure. > I think, that the terms "Rotate", "Upright", "Slant Horizontal" and "Slant > Vertical" are correct. They describe, which transformation is applied to the > individual characters. A text like the suggested 'Characters Perpendicular > to Path' instead of 'Rotate' is too long for a tooltip. It would be good for > an extended tip, but such does not yet exist for the buttons in the dialog > window. I'm not sure why four words would be too long for tooltip? Applying effects per-character is not common in LO, so I thought it would need clarification. > I disagree with 'Flip' instead of 'Orientation'. In all places in > LibreOffice I know, 'flip' is used synonym to 'mirror'. But the button here > means, "Use the path so as if the path had the inverted orientation." and > that is unrelated to mirroring. I agree about 'Flip'. Maybe 'Invert Orientation' would be better? > I agree with changing "Position and Indent". Instead of the suggested > 'Vertical and Horizontal Offset' I would use only 'Offset'. The suggested > text is too long for the compact design of the dialog window. 'Offset' is fine too.
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #5) > However any rework of the Labels ('Style', 'Adjust', 'Position and Indent', > 'Shadow', 'Shadow Offset' 'Shadow Color') shown on the dialog present the UX > UI-design challenge, as they must remain of *reasonable length*. Suggestions welcome for shorter labels. Or maybe we could reduce the need for labels through better design as Regina suggested, but that obviously goes beyond just string changes.
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. To summarize the discussion: Style => Orientation Baseline Off => move out of the toolbar and make it a checkbox "[x] Enable" Rotate => Follow Path Orientation => Inverse, and move into the currently named Style section Shadow Offset => tooltip "Distance X/Y" is unclear
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #9) Some more thoughts/elaboration beyond that summary: * The "Off" toggle does not really belong next to the four orientation/skew options; and the separator is insufficient. Since it toggles _everything_, it needs to be separate. Moving it also legitimizes changing the group title to "Orientation" * The change of title will "contribute" a word towards the phrase formed with the tooltip. So: "perpendicular " would be "Upright orientation", "skewed left" would be "Orientation that's skewed left", "Invert" would be "Invert Orientation" (see below) etc. * The button we want to rename from "Orientation" to "Inverse" (or perhaps "Invert"; IMHO the noun is better if it's a stateful button, otherwise the verb) is the button with the opposing arrows, under the "Adjust" group title. As what's being affected is the orientation, we'll put it in the Orientation group above. * About "Distance X" and "Distance Y" - reading the text, it's unclear which axis is X and which is Y. One can deduce this by playing with the settings and seeing how the layout changes. * It seemed to us that the "Contour" button should be located in the "Shadow" group