Bug 163017 - Autofilter buttons should look like better, less dated, and not anti-aliased
Summary: Autofilter buttons should look like better, less dated, and not anti-aliased
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: AutoFilter
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Reported: 2024-09-17 19:59 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2025-09-11 14:33 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Autofilter buttons vs UI buttons (LO 25.02 nightly) (26.75 KB, image/png)
2024-09-17 19:59 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
screenshot (15.27 KB, image/png)
2024-12-17 20:45 UTC, BogdanB
Details
AutoFilter dropdown in Google Sheets (29.51 KB, image/png)
2024-12-20 19:52 UTC, Rafael Lima
Details

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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2024-09-17 19:59:43 UTC
Created attachment 196514 [details]
Autofilter buttons vs UI buttons (LO 25.02 nightly)

The down-arrow buttons we get when AutoFilter is in effect look "custom-drawn", and remind me of Windows 95 or even Windows 3.x down-arrow buttons. Be that as it may - they are certainly different than the buttons we see on combo-boxes, and the down-arrow is not even like the ones we see on toolbar menubuttons.

It would be more visually pleasing if the buttons, and the down-arrows, looked like (or actually were) native widgets.
Comment 1 Rafael Lima 2024-09-18 18:18:47 UTC
I'm not sure about the feasibility of using native widgets here, specially because of zoom levels.

However I agree with you about the need to redesign this button... it feels old to me as well.

I like the minimal design in Google Sheets.
Comment 2 BogdanB 2024-12-17 20:45:23 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 3 Rafael Lima 2024-12-20 19:52:23 UTC
Created attachment 198194 [details]
AutoFilter dropdown in Google Sheets

(In reply to BogdanB from comment #2)
> Google Sheet dropdown mentioned by Rafael.

Actually your screehshot shows a data validation dropdown in Google Sheets.

I've just attached an example from Google Sheets where you have the AutoFilter dropdown. TBH I like them because they're clean and light on the eyes.
Comment 4 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-08-23 08:34:36 UTC
A user on Reddit was complaining about the "UI sharpness" the other day:

https://www.reddit.com/r/libreoffice/comments/1mw57v9/comment/n9y23m3/
Comment 5 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-08-23 08:35:09 UTC
Bogdan, Rafael - would you mind confirming?
Comment 6 BogdanB 2025-08-23 11:21:44 UTC
Lets have more opinion here

UX Team -- please take a look at this enhancement. Thanks!

I marked this bug as new for the moment.
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2025-08-25 08:39:21 UTC
Another issue is that this triangle does not respond to zoom.

And in fact it is drawn manually at ScDPFieldButton::drawPopupButton().
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2025-09-11 09:15:34 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting.

Native controls are desirable not least because of accessibility. The implementation is probably close to impossible (and should therefore be filed in an extra ticket) but drawing an icon or some other indicator could be a low hanging fruit. The aim is less anti-aliasing issues, adequate zooming, and more appealing design. We may try with horizontal lines similar to the GSheet example.
Comment 9 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-09-11 14:33:24 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #8)

Changed the bug title accordingly.

The benefit of the "triangle of lines" approach is that it looks _very_ different from the arrows on native widgets, so that it doesn't feel like a crassly-reproduced native widget, but something intentionally different.

We had also discussed the possibility of using the cached bitmaps used for rendering toolbars, and maybe even adding such caching for more zoom levels, so we would get more decent scaling. But - doers decide: Some alternative drawing which looks better is what we'll settle for right now.

But anti-aliasing is important regardless. Lines drawn on exact pixel boundaries will feel very jagged and mispleasing.