Bug 167974 - Draw: Menu option to hide the Layers Bar
Summary: Draw: Menu option to hide the Layers Bar
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Draw (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.8.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium minor
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Layers Draw-UX
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-08-16 11:57 UTC by vicxp0518
Modified: 2026-02-04 13:58 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot KDE/Breeze (10.78 KB, image/png)
2026-02-04 08:57 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description vicxp0518 2025-08-16 11:57:29 UTC
Description:
Since we cannot do easy-panning of canvas as of today, we have to mouse drag the horizontal scrollbar often. However, it always, yes always, finished with the layers bar mis-clicked, which lies closely below the narrow scrollbar, causing the Insert Layers dialog pops up.

IMO An option to hide the layers bar might solve this (would reside in the View menu), if it's still difficult to make the canvas panning much easier for mouse users.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Zoom in.
2. Try to pan the canvas horizontally using the scroll bars.

Actual Results:
Always mis-clicking on the layers bar.

Expected Results:
Scroll the canvas happily without meditation.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes

Additional Info:
NA
Comment 1 Regina Henschel 2025-08-16 23:56:05 UTC
I cannot see such problem in Version: 25.2.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 03d19516eb2e1dd5d4ccd751a0d6f35f35e08022
CPU threads: 32; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: de-DE (de_DE); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Please provide the info in Help > About. Click on the button to put the info into the clipboard. You will something similar as above.

Please provide your settings in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Appearance.

If possible, attach a screenshot of the problematic situation.
Comment 2 vicxp0518 2025-08-17 03:04:55 UTC
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #1)
> I cannot see such problem in Version: 25.2.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice
> Community
> Build ID: 03d19516eb2e1dd5d4ccd751a0d6f35f35e08022
> CPU threads: 32; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render:
> Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
> Locale: de-DE (de_DE); UI: en-US
> Calc: threaded
> 
> Please provide the info in Help > About. Click on the button to put the info
> into the clipboard. You will something similar as above.
> 
> Please provide your settings in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Appearance.
> 
> If possible, attach a screenshot of the problematic situation.

Hello Regina, it's not a problem of LO indeed, the actual reason relies in the height of the horizontal scrollbars, which is way too narrow (guess <= 20 px, eg. in KDE Plasma) for any quick, eye-happy mouse operations. And I understand it's system-wise GUI configuration bound, not the problem of LO.

However, en-widening the scrollbar isn't something ideal, esp. when user tries to maximize the canvas area within small laptop screens.

For me, it happens about 7 out of 10 (when you are very concentrated on your graph), not just occasionally. I'm having no similar trouble elsewhere, so I think it's human-ability irrelevant. Dunno about others.

The option to hide the layers bar isn't nice, but for user like me who never toggle between layers, to hide that layers bar could not only solve this mis-clicking problem, but also could save laptop screen space in the meantime.

About Info:
Version: 25.2.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 520(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.12; UI render: default; VCL: kf6 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: zh-CN (zh_CN.UTF-8); UI: en-US
25.2.5-2
Calc: threaded
Comment 3 QA Administrators 2025-11-25 15:39:46 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2026-02-04 08:57:31 UTC
Created attachment 205351 [details]
Screenshot KDE/Breeze

There are much worse application, but anyway.

I could imagine to make the layer bar a true toolbar that provides docking capabilities, eg. on top or the side, or to be hidden.
Comment 5 Regina Henschel 2026-02-04 13:58:20 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> I could imagine to make the layer bar a true toolbar that provides docking
> capabilities, eg. on top or the side, or to be hidden.

I would not try it. The LayerTabBar in Draw is of the same kind of object as the TabBar in Calc. Defined in
https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/sd/source/ui/inc/LayerTabBar.hxx
https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/include/svtools/tabbar.hxx

Impress has layers same as Draw, but does not show a layer tab bar. (That was changed from OOo1.1 -> OOo1.2). So that might be a way to go.

However, I would make the scrollbar thicker, so that it can be more easily dragged, instead of hiding the layer tab bar.