Bug 37932 - Support for Editing and Creation of SmartArt
Summary: Support for Editing and Creation of SmartArt
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Draw (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: high enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 60320 68707 82271 104993 116524 127799 140550 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: OOXML-SmartArt ImpressDraw-Enhancements
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2011-06-04 15:19 UTC by xenhu134
Modified: 2023-12-09 08:26 UTC (History)
28 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Edit Drawings in Basamiq (33.51 KB, image/png)
2019-08-21 21:56 UTC, andreas_k
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description xenhu134 2011-06-04 15:19:42 UTC
I would suggest on developing smart art feature for LibreOffice.

Smart art tools are meant for separating content from presentation. The feature commonly takes a tree of items defined by user and presents it using pre-set rules. The benefit for users is that they can focus on creating conceptual parts of content production, and the manually very time consuming drawing part is automated. The feature is extremely powerful in several situations. Also it would be possible to theme, change the used template on the fly, and convert it into ordinary drawing object group for slight touching.

Common examples:
* Organizational charts
* Matrix diagrams
* Venn diagrams
* Process diagrams
* Weighted network diagrams

For more examples please visit for instance 
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/05/06/smartart-diagram-improvements.aspx or 
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/powerpoint-help/learn-more-about-smartart-graphics-HA010039537.aspx or 
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/working-with-smartart-graphics-HA010239392.aspx?CTT=1#BM4 or 
http://office.microsoft.com/fi-fi/powerpoint-help/valitse-grafiikka-jarkevasti-RZ010177295.aspx?section=2
Comment 1 gleppert 2011-06-05 11:13:26 UTC
More information can be found here: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Crazy_Ideas#Intelligent_groups_.28alias_SmartArt.29

Furthermore, Thorsten started a while ago some work regarding SmartArt support: http://blog.thebehrens.net/2009/03/11/smartart-import-and-more/
Comment 2 Korrawit Pruegsanusak 2011-10-07 23:44:37 UTC
*** Bug 39722 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 Björn Michaelsen 2011-12-23 12:06:45 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 4 gleppert 2012-03-19 01:50:35 UTC
This enhancement request is still valid for current versions of LibreOffice
Comment 5 ign_christian 2013-08-30 18:38:50 UTC
*** Bug 68707 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Joel Madero 2014-08-07 05:14:40 UTC
*** Bug 82271 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Michael Green 2015-01-11 16:51:55 UTC
This enhancement request is still valid for current versions of LibreOffice...

Does anyone have the skills and interest to implement this? I would love the feature myself but lack the skill to contribute with code. I would be more than willing to test the heck out of it though! :)
Comment 8 Óvári 2015-06-08 06:16:55 UTC
It would be helpful if SmartArt (of equivalent) would also work in LibreOffice Writer and LibreOffice Calc, in addition to Draw. Thank you.
Comment 9 Rex Djere 2015-06-16 17:24:00 UTC
NOTE: The opinions expressed below are my own only.  I do not speak for or represent my employer, or any other organization.

In my experience, Smart Art is being used extensively in the creation of new Power Point Lectures.  In my opinion, this needs to be a major priority for inclusion into LibreOffice if LibreOffice is going eventually going to become a viable alternative to MS Office in the business environment.  Not to mention that Smart Art is a VERY useful feature.  It does drastically decrease the amount of time required to create a lesson plan.  Exporting a PowerPoint file to .odp format does not always work.  I took a .pptx presentation created in MS PowerPoint 2010, exported it as .odp, and opened it in LibreOffice Impress 4.3.3.2 and it crashed on a slide near the middle of the presentation.  It crashes on the same slide every time, a slide that is very heavy with Smart Art events. 

I recommend not trying to copy Microsoft's vision of Smart Art, but to try to introduce a clean room implementation of a hierarchical separation of structure from content in Impress presentations.  I envision mind maps, and other similar advanced organizational techniques.  Since the organization of information by context is prior art (e.g. xml, css, etc.) I do not think that the LibreOffice Foundation would run into any patent issues implementing such features, even if MS has patented Smart Art in some way.  I believe that separating content from structure has been so widely implemented that it is a concept that is really impossible to monopolize through patents.  

I have experience in C++ programming, but not enough to code this change to LibreOffice.  However, I would be willing to help in other ways, if necessary.
Comment 10 Richard Neill 2015-08-05 13:04:46 UTC
What is really painful is trying to edit a presentation in LO when the original author used SmartArt to generate it in MSO. 

The import function isn't smart enough to preserve the full automation, but it does leave enough "hooks" that editing doesn't work easily as if the objects were simple text + background images. For example, if I want to edit the text, I sometimes get an editing box which is 4 characters wide, and 100 lines tall.

The result is that if a slide was generated in smart art, it is much easier to re-do it from scratch than to edit it.
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2016-05-01 19:18:38 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 12 Tomaz Vajngerl 2016-05-12 11:13:54 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 13 Heiko Tietze 2017-01-02 13:29:49 UTC
*** Bug 104993 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 14 Xisco Faulí 2017-03-15 10:50:03 UTC
*** Bug 60320 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 15 raal 2018-03-20 20:13:47 UTC
*** Bug 116524 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 16 Dakov 2018-04-18 07:33:30 UTC
Here are some extensions that might be useful in this regard but aren't really full SmartArt replacements.

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/smart

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/templates/smartart-objects-workaround-template
Comment 17 Heiko Tietze 2019-02-02 15:14:11 UTC
Blocking tickets are resolved so closing this too. There has been a lot of improvements regarding smartart related bugs though we have meta bug 106547 and bug 92902 for further issues.
Comment 18 Gerry 2019-02-02 15:18:50 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #17)
> Blocking tickets are resolved so closing this too. There has been a lot of
> improvements regarding smartart related bugs though we have meta bug 106547
> and bug 92902 for further issues.

Hi Heiko, I thought bug 37932 is not only for SmartArt viewing but also SmartArt editing and SmartArt creation. This means we cannot close this bug. Or do we have another bug entry for SmartArt editing/creation?
Comment 19 Heiko Tietze 2019-02-02 15:33:26 UTC
(In reply to Gerry from comment #18)
> I thought bug 37932 is not only for SmartArt viewing but also
> SmartArt editing and SmartArt creation. This means we cannot close this bug.
> Or do we have another bug entry for SmartArt editing/creation?

Haven't checked all other issues. But as kind of a meta ticket it makes not much sense to me to keep an issue alive when all dependent topics are closed. However, you are right with editing and saving. So feel free to reopen.
Comment 20 Gerry 2019-02-02 16:54:29 UTC
Following Heiko's input in comment 19, I reopen this enhancement request to support SmartArt editing and SmartArt creation.

As Heiko describes, there are many improvements in opening and viewing SmartArt. The meta bug 106547 links to a number of issues that are related to opening and viewing SmartArt (usually created with MS Office).

To make this bug distinct (in line with the description of the original poster) from those other bugs, I renamed this bug to explicity address "Support for Editing and Creation of SmartArt".
Comment 21 andreas_k 2019-08-21 21:56:54 UTC
Created attachment 153560 [details]
Edit Drawings in Basamiq

About SmartArt editing I suggest to have a look at Basamiq (user experience app) where it's very easy to edit drawings, cause an simple text window open where you can customize everything in text mode. 

Fore sure there are some templates needed but nothing is faster than write text and the developer of an smartart element didn't have to thing how the edit dialog will have to look like.

Text window can be an element in the properties sidebar deck. some simple syntax and everything is possible from an flowchart with - to sql queries shown as diagram.
Comment 22 Miklos Vajna 2019-08-22 07:13:47 UTC
CC Grzegorz, who did lots of SmartArt improvements recently.
Comment 23 andreas_k 2019-08-22 08:14:05 UTC
Is there some definition done how to package smartart elements in libo

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/developer/office-2007/dd439460%28v%3doffice.12%29

Would be useful to know cause the gallery files are an binary block and I prefer something more flexible and easier to maintain so would be nice if we can make some specifications.
Comment 24 Heiko Tietze 2019-10-11 07:24:12 UTC
*** Bug 127799 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 25 Xisco Faulí 2019-12-02 12:55:41 UTC
Changing enhancement priority to 'high' since the number of people in CC is higher than 20
Comment 26 R. Amb 2020-01-21 19:36:08 UTC Comment hidden (me-too)
Comment 27 Emersson Augusto Suarez Ortiz 2020-07-18 22:11:51 UTC
You can start with the Smart Art extension, I believe it did work until version 3.3.
Comment 28 Heiko Tietze 2021-02-23 13:59:48 UTC
*** Bug 140550 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***