Bug 51119 - EDITING: OLE objects from writer are impossible to manage
Summary: EDITING: OLE objects from writer are impossible to manage
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Impress (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.4.0 release
Hardware: Other All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard: BSA
Keywords: preBibisect, regression
Depends on:
Blocks: OLE-Objects
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2012-06-15 07:32 UTC by Andy
Modified: 2018-05-24 10:02 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
a writer file where you can copy the text that doesnt go well in Impress (21.22 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2012-06-15 07:32 UTC, Andy
Details
LO bug 51119 original text in Writer (13.46 KB, image/jpeg)
2013-05-16 07:56 UTC, Timur
Details
LO bug 51119 text pasted in Impress (52.58 KB, image/jpeg)
2013-05-16 07:57 UTC, Timur
Details
some problems of writer ole objects in impress (31.07 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation)
2015-03-04 10:02 UTC, Andy
Details
Presentation contains an OLE writer object misbehaving (28.68 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation)
2018-05-24 09:59 UTC, Andy
Details

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Description Andy 2012-06-15 07:32:47 UTC
Created attachment 63074 [details]
a writer file where you can copy the text that doesnt go well in Impress

Problem description: 
copying a writer text object (e.g. simply a text paragraph from a writer doc currently open) and pasting it in Impress as is is (i.e. as a writer object) gives you severely unpredictable results. the size of the pasted object, the visibility of its content, its similarity to the original object are all deeply unpredictable.

It is unfortunately very easy to give an example:
1. open the attached "original odt file.odt", and select and copy the large sized title at the beginning
2. open a new impress presentation, and paste what you copied into the first page 
3. You get a rectangular object with nothing visible; if you double click on it, you'll see the text of the original title, but when you click outside to end the edit nothing is visible anymore.
4. To actually see the text in the object, you have to enlarge it a lot; then you see the text in it, but it will likely be split on two lines!
5. when you double click on it after enlarging, the text will be shown on a single line and back at the upper left corner of the object; moreover, while the open object has a grey thick border with some small black handles at its corners, on the right side only you will have also the more common green handles of selected objects, but they will be slightly to the right of the object, as if they were suspended in a vacuum. It is not clear if they make sense (and what sense) or are only a bug.
6. now drag one of the black handles on the right side of the object while open, and resize it making it smaller: while you do it, it seems possible, and the text shrinks as being squeezed. However when you click outside to finish editing, the object returns to its previous size and the last edit described is totally lost.
There are a few more glitches that could be described, but it would make this message really too long. I would say that the whole functionality concerning writer ole objects needs thorough revision.
Notice that, while writer OLE objects behaviour in Open Office has never been fully reliable, things seem to have turned for the worse lately. Right now, the only thing to do if you want to stay on the safe side is to completely avoid using such functionality.
Which is a bit annoying, since a writer object has much more flexibility than an impress text object (e.g. you can get hyphenation, which you don't have in impress text objects). 
Thank you for your patience, Andrea
              
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Comment 1 kitaets 2012-06-29 12:37:36 UTC
It worked until version 3.4. 
So I have to use version 3.3.4.1 :( This is the only way to have writer OLE objects in your presentation :(
Comment 2 bfoman (inactive) 2012-07-05 02:17:13 UTC
Confirmed with:
LO 3.5.4.2 
Build ID: own W7 debug build
Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit

Invisible object in Impress when copied from Writer. When text is enlarged it becomes visible. Other issues as described in comment 0.
Comment 3 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2013-01-29 06:01:47 UTC
"Bug 51508 - WRITER OLE object looses grid lines snap when EDITING" might be a DUP or at least related, it's hard to find out
Comment 4 Andy 2013-01-29 11:49:02 UTC
I am actually puzzled by the fact that the whole of the OLE inter-operability functionality in Libreoffice would need a thorough revision and debugging process, but this seems to be a problem shared by few.
In general I would say that the editing of OLE objects in host modules (e.g. a writer object in Impress) is a completely unpredictable business: very often, after spending half an hour trying to bend it to my needs, I gave up because the appearance of the object turned out to be uncontrollable, and every action performed on it seemed to make things worse.
I know that this observations are too general for a bug report like this, but I still hope to raise awareness on the general problem. Thanks
Comment 5 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2013-01-29 12:08:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)

> In general I would say that the editing of OLE objects in host modules (e.g.
>  a writer object in Impress) is a completely unpredictable business

So it is, I have that on my agenda for March, and I will ping you, may be together we cat that examined some faster.
Comment 6 kitaets 2013-01-30 06:02:40 UTC
Guys, I hope so much because some people like me have dozen of documents with Writer OLE objects included and just can't edit them (OLE objects) with LibO releases newer then old 3.3.4.1.
Comment 7 Timur 2013-05-16 07:53:17 UTC
I couldn't reproduce it with Lo 4.0.3. Can you please add some screenshots? I'll attach mine.
Comment 8 Timur 2013-05-16 07:56:21 UTC
Created attachment 79383 [details]
LO bug 51119 original text in Writer
Comment 9 Timur 2013-05-16 07:57:06 UTC
Created attachment 79384 [details]
LO bug 51119 text pasted in Impress
Comment 10 Timur 2013-05-16 08:01:30 UTC
Sorry, I was pasting text, not an object. Reproducible in LO 4.0.3.
Comment 11 kitaets 2013-05-16 08:15:09 UTC
Yeah... :( It looks like this bug will never be fixed. Until that I can't say that you can use Writer OLE in LibO because it's like hugging a cactus.
Comment 12 QA Administrators 2015-03-04 02:18:25 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 13 Andy 2015-03-04 10:02:06 UTC
Created attachment 113872 [details]
some problems of writer ole objects in impress
Comment 14 Andy 2015-03-04 10:02:36 UTC
Problems are still there, see my new attach
Comment 15 tommy27 2016-04-16 07:22:35 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 16 Andy 2016-04-17 18:26:08 UTC
Hi, as requested, I checked this with LO 5.1.2

Unfortunately, the problem is still there and nothing has changed.
Thanks
Comment 17 kitaets 2016-05-20 12:54:26 UTC
This issue is a REGRESSION.

> kitaets 2012-06-29 16:37:36 MSK
> It worked until version 3.4. 
> So I have to use version 3.3.4.1 :( This is the only way to have writer OLE objects in your presentation :(
Comment 18 Xisco Faulí 2016-09-20 16:10:35 UTC
Adding keyword 'bibisectRequest' to see whether this regression is already present in the oldest build of bibisect-43all repository or not.
In case it's already present, change 'bibisectRequest' to 'preBibisect'.
Otherwise, change 'bibisectRequest' to 'bibisected' and add a comment with the output from 'git bisect log'
Comment 19 Buovjaga 2018-05-23 19:03:59 UTC
(In reply to Xisco Faulí from comment #18)
> Adding keyword 'bibisectRequest' to see whether this regression is already
> present in the oldest build of bibisect-43all repository or not.
> In case it's already present, change 'bibisectRequest' to 'preBibisect'.
> Otherwise, change 'bibisectRequest' to 'bibisected' and add a comment with
> the output from 'git bisect log'

Kitaets said this was already in 3.4, so changing to preBibisect

However, the problems described are gone. The thing described in point 5 already has its own report (something about making the OLE object frame look better).

Arch Linux 64-bit
Version: 6.1.0.0.alpha1+
Build ID: 5956828c88501ef1366e60010b05053a8e1e642e
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 4.16; UI render: default; VCL: kde4; 
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI.UTF-8); Calc: group
Built on May 23rd 2018

Version: 6.1.0.0.alpha1+ (x64)
Build ID: 8fae8a6cd73b7262c3739bd4acc5c72b54934ff1
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0; UI render: default; 
TinderBox: Win-x86_64@42, Branch:master, Time: 2018-05-22_22:52:50
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI); Calc: group
Comment 20 Andy 2018-05-24 09:58:20 UTC
I ave now checked the issue on LO 6.0.4.2
Things are much better and the OLE writer object has become on the whole manageable.
A few glitches remain but these could be considered minor:
- you still have the double handles when you start editing on the lower side (the small black ones on the object actual grey border, and three green larger sized handles immediate below the lower black ones. These latter however seems to have to function, and disappear without changing the object if you try to drag one of them. so this could be considered a really cosmetic prob
- when you open the object to edit it, if the object size is too small to show the whole content, the only way to navigate the object content that is actually shown on the screen is to place the cursor in the text and move it with the arrow keys. This is because you have no scroll bars inside the object itself. Again this is boring but manageable
- the writer ole object is always a page, so when you think you have selected some text in writer and paste it in Impress or elsewhere, what is shown in the object rectangle is starting at the upper left corner of a page. Thus if your writer doc had very large page margins, you could end with the ole object showing nothing because it is actually only the page margins.
- a worse evil is due to the fact that if you have opened the ole object, scrolled the content to see the text, and then scrolled again to the original position so that you see only the page margins in the object rectangle, you may end up with your text being displayed any way OUT of the object shape.
Check this prob in the new attach I am uploading: you see the text "1. Introduction" on the page, but if you click on it nothing happens: the object shape "containing" is actually ABOVE the text and does not contain it.
Moreover, if you select the rectangle of the object (it appears empty but it is the object to which the text below is belonging) and drag it somewhere else on the page, the shown text does not move, apparently staying where it was before.
I say apparently because as soon as the page is refreshed (e.g. try moving to page 2 and then back to page 1) "1. Introduction" will instead change place and go below the ole object in the same relative position it had before moving the rectangle shape.
Comment 21 Andy 2018-05-24 09:59:10 UTC
Created attachment 142261 [details]
Presentation contains an OLE writer object misbehaving
Comment 22 Buovjaga 2018-05-24 10:02:20 UTC
If you wish, you can review the existing OLE object issues and create new ones with proposals on how things could be improved: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=107810&hide_resolved=1