Bug 163426 - notes pane: slides switching hotkeys
Summary: notes pane: slides switching hotkeys
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Impress (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.8.0.1 rc
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Sarper Akdemir (allotropia)
URL:
Whiteboard: target:25.8.0
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Shortcuts-Accelerators Notes-View
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2024-10-14 11:44 UTC by Moritz Duge (allotropia) (a.k.a. kolAflash)
Modified: 2025-04-16 15:54 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Moritz Duge (allotropia) (a.k.a. kolAflash) 2024-10-14 11:44:52 UTC
When focus is outside the notes pane, slides can always be switched by pressing PgUp or PgDown. Inside the notes pane PgUp and PgDown scroll the text.

The following criteria should be fulfilled:

- slides can be switches with the keyboard

- keyboard shortcuts don't depend on which UI element is in focus (at least one shortcut should always works to switch slides)

- Impress having (mostly) the same keyboard shortcuts as Powerpoint, so users can easily switch over from MS Office

A common use case might be, when a user has created all slides and is then looking trough all of them, adding notes for holding the presentation. In this case the user will add a note to a slide and then move to the next slide.


The current behavior was introduced by this commit to resemble the behavior of Powerpoint.
https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/168008


Some information on keyboard shortcuts in Impress and Powerpoint.
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/shared/04/01010000.html
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/simpress/guide/keyboard.html
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/simpress/04/01020000.html
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-keyboard-shortcuts-to-deliver-powerpoint-presentations-1524ffce-bd2a-45f4-9a7f-f18b992b93a0

Impress behavior:
One other important bit of information might be, that when focus is inside a text element in the middle "content pane", pressing CTRL-PgUp / CTRL-PgDown makes the cursor scroll. While pressing only PgUp / PgDown in that situation switches to the previous / next slide.
Comment 1 Sarper Akdemir (allotropia) 2024-10-14 11:53:49 UTC
Confirmed the behavior.
tagged as needsUXEval, and cc'd Heiko Tietze.
Comment 2 Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) 2024-10-15 13:28:04 UTC
Current keyboard navigation inside the Notes Pane matches that of PP: pgUp/pgDown scrolls the NP, not the slides.

Changing the behavior to scroll slides instead would make scrolling the note text more inconvenient (using up/down arrows or mouse wheel).

For me the current state is fine, NAB.
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2024-10-16 11:53:38 UTC
If I press PgUp/Down in the Notes view it jumps to the next slide whether the text editing mode is active or the slide is in focus. Can you provide some STR?
Comment 4 Sarper Akdemir (allotropia) 2024-10-16 13:17:00 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #3)
> If I press PgUp/Down in the Notes view

The report is about the Notes Pane (the docking window that appears on the bottom) and not Notes View (the editing mode)

Notes Pane is enabled via View->Notes Pane
Comment 5 Cor Nouws 2024-10-22 18:35:04 UTC
(In reply to Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) from comment #2)
> For me the current state is fine, NAB.
What do you use to move to another slide, when in the Notes Pane?
I do not notice any combination with PgUp/PgDwn that works for me.
(Ubuntu 24.04.1 GNOME)
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2024-10-24 08:38:32 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. 

It boils down to how users understand the notes pane: as part of the primary UI with all flexibility from UNO or as a system-driven control. We have controversial opinions whether the notes pane needs interactions but the majority agrees with the request. And actually adding the functionality bears no harm beyond implementation and maintenance effort.
Comment 7 Moritz Duge (allotropia) (a.k.a. kolAflash) 2025-04-07 16:16:50 UTC
Some notes:

Microsoft Powerpoint shortcuts when in editing mode.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-keyboard-shortcuts-to-create-powerpoint-presentations-ebb3d20e-dcd4-444f-a38e-bb5c5ed180f4
Powerpoint 2021 seems to have no shortcut to switch slides while the focus in in the Notes Pane. But that website doesn't mention that.

In LibreOffice pressing "F6" successfully escapes the Notes Pane context. After pressing F6 twice PgUp / PgDown can be used to switch slides. But you then can't easily get back to focus the Notes Pane.
Comment 8 Commit Notification 2025-04-09 09:48:12 UTC
Sarper Akdemir committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/b6a4f372f971a1664bd63158c2b0d41fc9d6c33b

tdf#163426 sd: notes pane: use ctrl+pgup/down for slide navigation

It will be available in 25.8.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 9 Sarper Akdemir (allotropia) 2025-04-09 09:51:35 UTC
now Ctrl+PgUp/PgDown work for all views as next/previous slide (alongside PgUp/PgDown).

Notes Pane still uses PgUp/PgDown for scrolling the view, but Ctrl variant can be used for changing slides.
Comment 10 Moritz Duge (allotropia) (a.k.a. kolAflash) 2025-04-16 15:49:12 UTC
(In reply to Commit Notification from comment #8)
> Sarper Akdemir committed a patch related to this issue.
> [...]
> https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/
> b6a4f372f971a1664bd63158c2b0d41fc9d6c33b
> tdf#163426 sd: notes pane: use ctrl+pgup/down for slide navigation

Keyboard shortcuts work perfectly! :-)

I realized, that "Slide Pane" and "Notes Pane" both use the mnemonic "P" in the menu. At least in an English GUI. Is this intended?
Comment 11 Moritz Duge (allotropia) (a.k.a. kolAflash) 2025-04-16 15:54:42 UTC
(In reply to Moritz Duge (allotropia) (a.k.a. kolAflash) from comment #10)
> [...]
> I realized, that "Slide Pane" and "Notes Pane" both use the mnemonic "P" in
> the menu. At least in an English GUI. Is this intended?

Sorry, this was the wrong ticket for that comment. (see bug 163444 instead)

Everything fine with this ticket!
Ctrl+PgUp/PgDown works perfectly now.