Bug 168562 - show outlines around selected objects like shapes, charts etc
Summary: show outlines around selected objects like shapes, charts etc
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.8.1.1 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Object-Selection-Alignment
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-09-26 14:20 UTC by Sahil Gautam
Modified: 2025-09-30 17:19 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
chart without an ant-line border (13.70 KB, image/png)
2025-09-26 14:20 UTC, Sahil Gautam
Details

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Description Sahil Gautam 2025-09-26 14:20:03 UTC
Description:
when a shape/chart is selected in writer, no outline is drawn around the shape/chart, just eight dots around it's boundary. it would be nice to have an ant-line boundary around it so that the user has some idea of the shape/chart's boundary.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open a new document in writer and insert a shape
2. select the shape and rotate (say you inserted a square, make it into a dimond after rotation)

Actual Results:
the resize handles are all placed in open space around the shape without any visual clue about what they are related to. the handles being scattered, it's hard for the user to find what point the one he's looking at currently leads to, say from left handle to the right handle.

if there were an ant-line, it would be much more intuitive.

Expected Results:
the handles should be connected with an ant-line.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes

Additional Info:
Version: 25.8.1.1 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 580(Build:1)
CPU threads: 32; OS: Linux 6.16; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
25.8.1-2
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 Sahil Gautam 2025-09-26 14:20:41 UTC
Created attachment 202975 [details]
chart without an ant-line border
Comment 2 Regina Henschel 2025-09-27 13:54:07 UTC
Boundaries are drawn for tables, frames and Math-objects. There are no boundaries for images, charts and shapes. I agree, that if View > Boundaries is enabled, boundaries should be drawn for _all_ objects.

What does UX think about it?
Comment 3 V Stuart Foote 2025-09-27 20:40:26 UTC
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #2)

> What does UX think about it?

Agree. +1
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2025-09-29 08:51:13 UTC
The marching ants are an indicator for a copied object and not suited for a selection. The chart, likewise any other object, may have a border that clashes with the envisioned frame - whether with marching ants or not. Yet we could exchange the straight border against a dashed - and accept the rare cases when this wont work.
Comment 5 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-09-30 17:19:02 UTC
1. Is this really a Writer-specific issue?
2. I assume this would also regard sets of multiple selected objects?
3. Will the outline be the rectangle on which the resize handles are now drawn?
4. Are the edges to be maximally sharp?
5. What will the selection look like when the objects are on different pages?