LO allows setting the background of a drawing object (or a page) to an image. However - the workflow is, that LO maintains a gallery of background images - by default, a bunch of geometric or natural-surface patterns - and we can: * Add an image to the gallery * Set the background image to one of the images in the gallery Now, the gallery of patterns is nice-to-have, I guess, but it's a bit of a baroque ornament over the basic feature: Set the background to an image. I believe it should be possible to perform that action, "straight", and not go through an addition to the gallery. The main reasons are: 1. 'Conceptual friction': Very often, the background image the user wants to add is not the kind of image that would fit on a gallery: It's not some pattern, it is bespoke, would fit just one document/one page, and will not be re-used frequently, or ever. Examples: A scanned form; or a photo of a certain event or person. We should not force the user to add such an image into a gallery, and then have to remove it from that gallery again. 2. Privacy, or at least the user's concern for it: The user may want to use an image which they do not want others to see later. Even if the gallery is only visible to the same user account on the user's computer - it might be an account used by family members or guests. Leaving an image in the gallery is a strong marker of "hey, here is what I put in my document". A possible third reason is an objection raised on bug 169329 regarding whether or not it is appropriate/legitimate to use gallery images as backgrounds by link rather than by embedding. IMNSHO, it's fine either way, but if it is decided that gallery images always get embedded, then this would also be the route for using non-embedded images as backgrounds.
+1, the current workflow for Page -> Area -> Image 'Add/Import' passing through the Gallery is awkward. IIUC it embeds the image into the current document, but leaves a file system path to the image (non-portable and path from local system) pinned in the SB Gallery Images as otherwise populated from the installed share/gallery/backgrounds A different system receiving the document does not record the background image to SB Gallery deck. But its fs link does remain on the originating system until user profile is cleared. I could not find the handling in source for that link, but it seems like it could be made more explicit without leaving it hanging around in the Gallery -> backgrounds per profile.
Ok, so, what should the split look like, UI-wise? Two possibilities I can think of: 1. Add a separate category to the row of buttons at the top of the Background bar. Right now we have: None, Color, Gradient, Image, Pattern, Hatch We could split "Image" into "Gallery" and "Image File" or just "Gallery" and "Image". 2. Change the Image sub-tab: Add some kind of selection mechanism, e.g. a radio group, at the top left, with the first option having a label + button, e.g. "From file: [ Browse ]", and the second option being "From gallery". And it would probably make sense to gray-out the gallery when we're not using it.