Bug 166406 - Direction buttons placed one on top of the other in NB Tabbed UI
Summary: Direction buttons placed one on top of the other in NB Tabbed UI
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.5 all versions
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Justin L
URL:
Whiteboard: target:26.2.0 target:25.8.2.2
Keywords: difficultyMedium, easyHack, skillDesign, topicUI
Depends on:
Blocks: Notebookbar-Tabbed RTL-UI
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-04-30 12:36 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2025-09-30 13:52 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of the tabbed notebookbar in Writer, LO 25.8 nightly (43.18 KB, image/png)
2025-04-30 12:36 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details

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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2025-04-30 12:36:13 UTC
Created attachment 200617 [details]
Screenshot of the tabbed notebookbar in Writer, LO 25.8 nightly

In the notebookbar tabbed UI mode, the RLT and LTR paragraph directions are placed one above the other - with a "toggle formatting marks", which also uses the pilcrow image, placed right next to the top button. That's confusing and kind of silly.
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2025-04-30 16:31:22 UTC
Yep, the over-under for the controls seems a little awkward, but only for the NB Tabbed UI.

NB Tabbed Compact, Single Toolbar, Contextual Single places them side-by-side, while the Grouped and Grouped Compact place them onto the drop list menu of 'Paragraph' controls--top of the lb.

Seems like the Tabbed UI Paragraph block could packed a little different to end up with them side-by-side? 

Andreas, Justin any thought?
Comment 2 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-04-30 17:03:22 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #1)
> Seems like the Tabbed UI Paragraph block could packed a little different to
> end up with them side-by-side? 
> 
> Andreas, Justin any thought?

The simplest thing, though not good enough IMO, is to put both directions on the top row, and move the non-printing characters toggle on the bottom row - a super-localized change. But it would be better to actually separate those somewhat. In fact, I'm not sure that the choice of a pilcrow for the non-printing characters is even appropriate, given how much that looks like the paragraph direction buttons.
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2025-05-16 06:51:48 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. And agree with Eyal's suggestion

(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #2)
> ...put both directions on the top row, and move the non-printing characters
> toggle on the bottom row

Easy hack:

Edit per Glade or any text editor ./sw/uiconfig/swriter/ui/notebookbar.ui (no C++ knowledge required) the position of SectionButtom93, SectionButtom130, and Home-ControlCodes1 in SectionButtom81
Comment 4 Commit Notification 2025-09-19 19:55:02 UTC
Justin Luth committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/369b726d308270679b792aa21c92bd0b308ec171

tdf#166406 sw nbb: position LTR and RTL side by side

It will be available in 26.2.0.

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 5 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-09-19 20:32:32 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #3)
> 
> Easy hack:
> 
> Edit per Glade or any text editor ./sw/uiconfig/swriter/ui/notebookbar.ui
> (no C++ knowledge required) the position of SectionButtom93,
> SectionButtom130, and Home-ControlCodes1 in SectionButtom81

Justin Luth's patch says:


> The worst thing to do to a bug
> is to mark it as an easy hack.
> That just means it will never be solved.
> 
> With the increased push to spotlight the NBB,
> these papercuts should be solved ASAP
> instead of languishing forever.
Comment 6 Buovjaga 2025-09-19 20:47:57 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #5)
> (In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #3)
> > 
> > Easy hack:
> > 
> > Edit per Glade or any text editor ./sw/uiconfig/swriter/ui/notebookbar.ui
> > (no C++ knowledge required) the position of SectionButtom93,
> > SectionButtom130, and Home-ControlCodes1 in SectionButtom81
> 
> Justin Luth's patch says:
> 
> 
> > The worst thing to do to a bug
> > is to mark it as an easy hack.
> > That just means it will never be solved.
> > 
> > With the increased push to spotlight the NBB,
> > these papercuts should be solved ASAP
> > instead of languishing forever.

I don't get the point of such statements when we can do a search query like Keywords: easyHack, Whiteboard: target:25.8 Resolution: FIXED and get the result: 44 bugs found.

At the moment we have 212 open reports with easyHack, skillCpp, so if the rate of fixing remained the same and no new hacks were to be defined, we would run out of single-hacker tasks within a handful of release cycles. Yes, the turnaround for the hacks should be better, I don't like seeing ancient hacks lingering, but "it will never be solved" is simply wrong as we could instead be running out of hacks without active defining work.
Comment 7 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-09-19 20:56:12 UTC
(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #6)

Just to clarify - I'm not adopting Justin's position, I was just quoting him.
Comment 8 Buovjaga 2025-09-20 06:11:53 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #7)
> (In reply to Buovjaga from comment #6)
> 
> Just to clarify - I'm not adopting Justin's position, I was just quoting him.

Sure, I got it. But to add to the previous, nabbing an easy hack away from the pool is fine, if it's considered an urgent issue, there's no need to even argue about it.
Comment 9 Commit Notification 2025-09-21 17:46:23 UTC
Justin Luth committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-25-8":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/a6091a34e6adcd5780564f55abba40ffd279faa9

tdf#166406 sw nbb: position LTR and RTL side by side

It will be available in 25.8.3.

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 10 Commit Notification 2025-09-29 14:47:10 UTC
Justin Luth committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-25-8-2":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/3e2e55f53c121a9289b742c55cf578c91fa2bc7a

tdf#166406 sw nbb: position LTR and RTL side by side

It will be available in 25.8.2.

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 11 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-09-29 19:16:30 UTC
Thanks, this is better. The fact that we have a paragraph mark right underneath is still somewhat confusing, but out of scope here.