One of the important features of a ribbon-like interface is the use of _contextual_ ribbon tabs, which appear when focusing or selecting various entities. Microsoft Office makes extensive use of these, for anything from shapes through tables to charts. Unlike with the menus system, where (basically) all functionality has to be laid out in a single static hierarchy, this would reduce the pressure on us to fit all commands in the always-visible tabs, on the one hand, but not lose visibility of any commands, when they're usable, on the other. And the reduced pressure to fit everything in should also allow us to increase the sizes and perhaps the spacing of existing commands on tabs, etc. I'm marking this as meta bug from the get-go, because it makes sense to request individual contextual tabs in separate dependent bugs. Note: This bug is _not_ about the "contextual groups" UI mode.
and again, let's point out that unlike MS Office which implements native Windows Ribbon API, and a port to native macOS API, for its supported os/DE, that the LibreOffice MUFFIN UNO assemblages used for the Notebook Bar UI(s) are not native controls--they are XML assemblages of UNO controls with some wrappers in VCL. Asking for contextual behavior in any of the NB or even the SB deck remains limited to what can be achieved reusing UNO widgets (as supported in each VCL backend). Believe initial steps require movement on bug 163988 to fully "Weld" the NB controls so the VCL backends cope better with theming the UI.
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #1) > and again, let's point out that unlike MS Office which implements native > Windows Ribbon API, and a port to native macOS API, for its supported os/DE, > that the LibreOffice MUFFIN UNO assemblages used for the Notebook Bar UI(s) > are not native controls--they are XML assemblages of UNO controls with some > wrappers in VCL. That is an implementation detail (albeit an important one), and I don't believe it has bearing on this bug. > Asking for contextual behavior in any of the NB or even the SB deck remains > limited to what can be achieved reusing UNO widgets (as supported in each > VCL backend). Well, if that limitation prevents us having contextual tabs, then that limitation needs to be overcome somehow. I'm not an LO developer, I'm just saying how the app needs to behave, not how we go about achieving that. > Believe initial steps require movement on bug 163988 to fully "Weld" the NB > controls so the VCL backends cope better with theming the UI. Perhaps... I saw that bug, and since I'm not familiar with what "welding" means, I don't quite understand how that bug would affect this one.