Bug 168930 - UX Improve NB Tabbed UI with textboxes, a new "Draw" tab
Summary: UX Improve NB Tabbed UI with textboxes, a new "Draw" tab
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Impress (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.8.2.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Notebookbar-Tabbed
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-10-18 02:32 UTC by Coarse Rosinflower
Modified: 2025-10-20 11:23 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Comparison of toolbar/ribbon in the context of shapes resp. drawing objects (148.86 KB, image/png)
2025-10-20 07:08 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details

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Description Coarse Rosinflower 2025-10-18 02:32:34 UTC
Description:
EDITING: In Office PowerPoint and Google Slides, clicking a textbox allows you to use the ribbon/top-bar to edit things about the text therewithin (font family, size, weight, etc.), but this behaviour is not present in LibreOffice.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click a textbox
2.

Actual Results:
The top bar is not populated with settings pertaining to the textbox.

Expected Results:
The top bar should be populated with settings pertaining to the textbox.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
why do i have to fill in bug-related things when filing a non-bug report
Comment 1 raal 2025-10-18 08:51:00 UTC
Maybe you want View > User interface > Contextual single? Also you can expand sidebar
Comment 2 V Stuart Foote 2025-10-18 13:45:19 UTC
Yes, the sd Textbox object properties are fully available in the MUFFIN Notebookbar NB Tabbed UI, incorrectly called a "Ribbon", from the Sidebar decks: Properties and Styles.

The SB decks are exposed in UI by clicking the "Show" button on right edge of app frame. Or cycling open with the <Ctrl>+<F5> sequence.

Also, by default when editing a Text box object (but not its text) the pop-up but docked 'Drawing' toolbar has controls.

Alternatively, as noted pick one of the other MUFFIN Notebookbar UI's, multiple combinations of tools to support a comfortable workflow.

The MUFFIN Notebookbar UI assemblages remain rather static, they are not "native" desktop environment widgets and each control of the assemblage has an associated UNO action.

Feasible, and possibly desirable, to compose an additional "Tab" for the Tabbed UI to hold more of the Textbox related controls in the NB
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2025-10-20 07:08:53 UTC
Created attachment 203450 [details]
Comparison of toolbar/ribbon in the context of shapes resp. drawing objects

I agree with the OP: we do not show the interactions that users needed. It offers a lot of functions to manipulate (complex) objects with at best second rank focus actions (for example "Toggle Point Edit Mode").

In order to improve things we need a widget for Drawing Styles (see Navigator > Styles / alt+2). And it still wont be acceptable as we collect styles for different types of drawing objects under this category - and the Default Drawing Style, for example, is best for text boxes but not for shapes where Graphic > Shapes are better suited. In contrast to other applications we want to keep the flexibility where users can add or edit styles in any fashion.

However, "clicking a textbox allows you to use the ribbon/top-bar to edit things about the text therewithin (font family, size, weight, etc.)" is neither available in Powerpoint and IMO a shortcoming of ribbons. You need to switch to another tab to access font properties. Google Slides works differently and could rather be compared with the classic toolbar or the alternative notebookbars (as others have commented before).

So yes to the need for major improvements but a question mark to the particular request.