Bug 169189 - CALC - multiple cell comments for a single cell can be inserted when the middle mouse button is clicked
Summary: CALC - multiple cell comments for a single cell can be inserted when the midd...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All Linux (All)
: medium minor
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Calc-Comments
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-11-01 12:31 UTC by BDF
Modified: 2026-02-01 21:35 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
CALC - bug - cell comment duplication with middle mouse button (3.56 MB, video/webm)
2025-11-01 12:33 UTC, BDF
Details
the feature in LibO 25.8.2.2 (231.46 KB, image/gif)
2025-11-02 04:39 UTC, nutka
Details
the feature in LibO 3.3.0.4 (435.77 KB, image/gif)
2025-11-02 04:39 UTC, nutka
Details

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Description BDF 2025-11-01 12:31:15 UTC
Description:
When you create a cell comment, constantly display it with the right click menu and click somewhere in the program you can create multiple cell comments.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create cell comment
2. Set it to be always displayed with the right click menu
3. select the cell comment with left click and *middle click* with your mouse somewhere on the screen 

Actual Results:
A new comment field is inserted for the current cell (see attached video)

Expected Results:
I wouldn't expect to have multiple comment windows per cell.

(But to be honest, I'm not sure at this point if they are a bug -> See other Information)


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
My guess is that this is related to Linux as on many Linux distros middle mouse click is bound to "insert". So I'm not sure if this is a bug or nor.

Contra:
- On https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/scalc/guide/note_insert.html there is no indication that this is possible.
- Under Preferences > LibreOffice Calc (> View) I couldn't find a setting about this.
- The comments are not listed in the navigator (Alt + 4) 

Pro:
- Yet, I can edit all comments, give them a different content
- Their size, background colour and content are saved to and correctly loaded from a file.

I am confused. If this is intentional, the feature should be improved. 

Operating System:
Operating System: KDE neon User Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.1
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0
Qt Version: 6.9.2
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-34-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

LibreOffice:
Version: 25.8.2.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: d401f2107ccab8f924a8e2df40f573aab7605b6f
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 6.14; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-AT (de_AT.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Flatpak
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 BDF 2025-11-01 12:33:19 UTC
Created attachment 203659 [details]
CALC - bug - cell comment duplication with middle mouse button
Comment 2 nutka 2025-11-02 04:39:24 UTC
Created attachment 203678 [details]
the feature in LibO 25.8.2.2
Comment 3 nutka 2025-11-02 04:39:58 UTC
Created attachment 203679 [details]
the feature in LibO 3.3.0.4
Comment 4 nutka 2025-11-02 04:42:57 UTC
Reproducible on Windows 11 and LibreOffice 25.8.2.2 with the function of middle mouse button set to "Paste Clipboard"
(Tools ⟶ Options ⟶ LibreOffice ⟶ View).

Help topic "View"
https://help.libreoffice.org/25.8/en-US/text/shared/optionen/01010800.html?DbPAR=SHARED#hd_id310720161614431319

When a Calc document is reloaded, comment arrows are displayed with "companions" (cf. the attached .gif recording).

Version: 25.8.2.2 (X86_64)
Build ID: d401f2107ccab8f924a8e2df40f573aab7605b6f
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (build 26200); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (fr_FR); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

The multiple cell comment "feature" was already available in LibreOffice 3.3, although it behaved slightly differently (see the attached .gif recording).
Comment 5 BDF 2025-11-02 16:20:53 UTC
(In reply to nutka from comment #4)
> [...]
> 
> The multiple cell comment "feature" was already available in LibreOffice
> 3.3, although it behaved slightly differently (see the attached .gif
> recording).

Well, is it an intentional _feature_ or is it in fact a bug?
Comment 6 nutka 2025-11-03 07:08:54 UTC
(In reply to BDF from comment #0)
>
> My guess is that this is related to Linux as on many Linux distros middle
> mouse click is bound to "insert". So I'm not sure if this is a bug or nor.
As per source code, the function of middle mouse button
(Tools ⟶ Options ⟶ LibreOffice ⟶ View) is set to "Paste clipboard" on Unix systems, and to "Automatic scrolling" on Windows.


(In reply to BDF from comment #5)
> 
> Well, is it an intentional _feature_ or is it in fact a bug?
Well, that's a very good question for… the LibreOffice developers.
You presented pros and cons and wrote:

> I am confused. 
So am I.
AFAICT, the documentation doesn't specifically discuss this "feature" (LibreOffice Help, Guides, The Document Foundation wiki).

> If this is intentional, the feature should be improved. 
Definitely.
I just discovered that it leads to a crash in Draw…
Comment 7 Buovjaga 2026-02-01 21:32:36 UTC
The main point that favours removing this "misfeature": there can be only one comment per cell! If you try to insert another comment to a cell that already has one, you can't - the menu item is disabled.

As seen in attachment 203679 [details] the earliest known behaviour was that only one comment was shown in the Navigator, but after saving and reloading, all the objects were displayed.

There were various permutations between that and the current state, but it doesn't seem useful to investigate them all as the point will be to disable middle-click paste when a comment is selected. I'll mention the first change in case it has some value:

Bibisecting with linux-41max, I got into a point where crashes prevented finding the exact commit, but using `git bisect visualize`, this seems relevant: 545737df40880875304bffc3f49800d1d2e99723
fdo#59056: Re-calculate cell anchor position of a pasted drawing object.

The change was that after saving and reloading, the Navigator displayed no comments and the original comment had vanished. The remaining pasted ones were also displaced a bit.
Comment 8 Buovjaga 2026-02-01 21:35:11 UTC
(In reply to nutka from comment #6)
> I just discovered that it leads to a crash in Draw…

I don't get a crash in Draw. It was a bit tough to figure out how to middle-click paste a Draw comment, but having it selected in Navigator did the trick. After saving and reloading, all the cloned comments had vanished. If you still get the crash, do report it.

Arch Linux 64-bit
Version: 26.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64)
Build ID: 19f943f13485918d35597be1dcae48c0fbecd0e3
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 6.18; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Built on 31 January 2026