Bug 168637 - Vertical tabs with GTK3: Not enough vertical space between tab headers
Summary: Vertical tabs with GTK3: Not enough vertical space between tab headers
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium minor
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Vertical-Tab-dialogs
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Reported: 2025-10-01 10:11 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2025-10-21 13:32 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
LO Writer hyperlink dialog screenshot (38.58 KB, image/png)
2025-10-01 10:12 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
LO Writer Export as PDF dialog screenshot (81.97 KB, image/png)
2025-10-01 10:12 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
LO Writer Edit Paragraph Style dialog screenshot (89.64 KB, image/png)
2025-10-01 10:12 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details

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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2025-10-01 10:11:50 UTC
Consider the vertical spacing between icons on the three dialogs whose screenshots will soon be attached. These are just examples, there are probably a lot of other examples. The spacing between the icons - between the tabs headers - is too small. 

Naturally, we want to avoid the tabs headers 'spilling' out of the overall space the dialog offers, but:

* The default vspacing should be more generous.
* Squeezed spacing should be considered when the overall v-space is limited - either a single squeezed/unsqueezed choice, or a separate choice depending on overall dialog v-space for tab headers.



Observed with:

Version: 26.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 0d986755e4153230670c820dc52cc40cd72dfa87
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.12; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-IL (en_IL); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 1 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-10-01 10:12:11 UTC
Created attachment 203073 [details]
LO Writer hyperlink dialog screenshot
Comment 2 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-10-01 10:12:31 UTC
Created attachment 203074 [details]
LO Writer Export as PDF dialog screenshot
Comment 3 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-10-01 10:12:54 UTC
Created attachment 203075 [details]
LO Writer Edit Paragraph Style dialog screenshot
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2025-10-01 10:15:55 UTC
VTs are drawn natively on gtk3, we have no control over the design. Or rather should not overwrite the system theme. => NOB
Comment 5 Eyal Rozenberg 2025-10-01 10:23:33 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> VTs are drawn natively on gtk3, we have no control over the design. Or
> rather should not overwrite the system theme. => NOB

You _may_ have been able made that claim about some opt-in VCL. But - _we_ choose to draw with GTK3, so _our_ responsibility. This is our bug.

And sophistry aside - I'm certain there are a number of things we could do to circumvent this even if GTK itself cannot be told to add more vspace: We could reduce icon size, we could pad icons, we could perhaps even add "phantom" items to the tab headers which inflate their v-space.