Bug 167974 - Draw: Menu option to hide the Layers Bar
Summary: Draw: Menu option to hide the Layers Bar
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 90320
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:
Depends on:
Blocks: Layers Draw-UX
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-08-16 11:57 UTC by vicxp0518
Modified: 2026-02-20 09:22 UTC (History)
3 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

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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.
Comment 6 Eyal Rozenberg 2026-02-10 23:53:26 UTC
(In reply to vicxp0518 from comment #0)
> Since we cannot do easy-panning of canvas as of today,

Can't we? The right and left arrow buttons seem to work fine for me for panning in Draw... or - do you mean when you're not using the keyboard at all?

> 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.

TBH - This has not happened to me; but - I use the GTK3 VCL, and I pad with the arrow keys, so maybe that's the reason.

I'll note that even when over 95% of my mouse pointer is on the layers bar, a click still affects the scroll bar rather than the layer bar.


You bring up the issue of the horizontal scroll bar width. Are you sure you want the ability to hide the layer bar over, say, the possibility of making the scrollbar wider?

(there is, of course, the question of why the DE is not offering wider horizontal scrollbars, which one could use to perhaps declare this NOTOURBUG, but that may be kind of unfair.)

> IMO An option to hide the layers bar might solve this (would reside in the
> View menu),

Actually, even ignoring your motivation, It seems to me like a legitimate ability, since I believe users rarely use the layers at all. But - is it accessible in some other ways? Is there a dialog for the visible layers or some kind of sidebar visibility for them? I'm not necessarily saying that's a condition for introducing the toggle you're asking for, but it would be easier to justify that way.


> if it's still difficult to make the canvas panning much easier
> for mouse users.

Is there another bug report asking for making that panning otherwise easier?
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2026-02-19 13:39:44 UTC
The topic was on the agenda of the design meeting.

The scrollbars is a component of the operating system or respectively the desktop environment. Some show the small step buttons on the edges many not. Some hide the scrollbar, sometimes it is large sometimes smaller. We should not tinker with these settings; and given the overall negative response I'll resolve the ticket as NAB.
Comment 8 Eyal Rozenberg 2026-02-19 21:53:01 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7)

So this bug was not only about the scroll bars, but - I respect the design meeting decision... for which reason I've renamed, and opened the brand new bug 170905 :-)
Comment 9 Heiko Tietze 2026-02-20 09:22:29 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 90320 ***