Bug 65473 - FORMATTING: paragraph alignment options position is unintuitive
Summary: FORMATTING: paragraph alignment options position is unintuitive
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.0.2.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Heiko Tietze
URL:
Whiteboard: target:7.5.0
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Paragraph-Dialog
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2013-06-06 18:14 UTC by Paolo Benvenuto
Modified: 2022-09-15 10:41 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot (36.33 KB, image/png)
2019-04-08 09:54 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details

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Description Paolo Benvenuto 2013-06-06 18:14:05 UTC
format, paragraph, alignment tab

options sequence is now
- left
- right
- center
- justified

and they are arranged vertically.

Vertical arrangement is unintuitive, beacause these options refer to _horizontal_ alignment. Every time I must set this option I must _think_ what I have to select.

I think it would be far better arranging them horizontally, and in this order:

- left
- center
- right

The justified option should be separate, in a new line.

Besides that, a little icon for every option like those in the toolbar would make all the stuff far better again.
Comment 1 Roman Kuznetsov 2018-11-05 17:43:28 UTC
UX- team, what do you think about this old enhancement?
Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2018-11-08 15:45:40 UTC
The options now list Left/Top, and Right/Bottom to cover special conditions. In those cases the argument doesn't count anymore. Plus, Horizontally arranged controls fail in most cases due to localization and inconsistent design. So let's keep it as it is.
Comment 3 Paolo Benvenuto 2018-11-08 16:23:21 UTC
Well, at least, the vertical order could be

- left
- center
- right
(a bit of spacing)
- justified

which is surely better than

- left
- right
- center
- justified

Why not trying

- left
 - center
  - right
(a bit of spacing)
- justified
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2018-11-08 21:22:04 UTC
(In reply to Paolo Benvenuto from comment #3)
> Well, at least, the vertical order could be
> 
> - left
> - center
> - right
> (a bit of spacing)
> - justified

Ideally lists are sorted by the importance of items. That's why Left/Top is on top followed by Right/Bottom (for languages written in the opposite direction). But I can live with the new order too. Other Opinions?


> Why not trying
> 
> - left
>  - center
>   - right
> (a bit of spacing)
> - justified

Nah, that's bad UI. Might look meaningful for the few items but clutters the UI. indentation is reserved for those objects that belong together, eg. section headline and below the checkboxes or other controls with some pixels indentation.
Comment 5 Xisco Faulí 2018-11-09 15:11:02 UTC
@Heiko, fine if we move this one to NEW ?
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2019-04-08 09:54:31 UTC
Created attachment 150605 [details]
Screenshot

Request is to change the order of radio buttons in this tab. I vote for WFM.
Comment 7 V Stuart Foote 2019-04-08 16:07:17 UTC
For both a Draw Text Box object and other Paragraph text controls, the graphical representation on Sidebar Properties deck -> Paragraph content panel differs from the Paragraph dialog's Alignment tab.  

On the Sidebar and the Notebook bar the GUI button layout is Left, Centered, Right, Justified in the horizontal; and Top, Centered, Right in the vertical.

While I agree with Heiko in comment 4 that the list order (the radio buttons here) should normally be sorted by importance--in this case, where we present both dialog panels and MUFFIN button widgets, consistency trumps that. 

Visible order in GUI of Left - Center - Right (or Top - Center - Bottom depending on locale) is visually correct.

The order on the dialog panel(s) should be made the same as the button order.

Agree with the sequence change, but should be no change to grouping of the Justification radio button and its "Last line" handling. It belongs with the other controls, on the dialogs and in the button sequences on Toolbars, Sidebar and Notebook bar.
Comment 8 Thomas Lendo 2019-04-08 20:51:41 UTC
I'm fine with Stuart's comment.
Comment 9 Heiko Tietze 2019-04-11 12:24:34 UTC
Okay, so let's do. Smells like an easyhack.
Comment 10 Commit Notification 2022-08-17 05:42:08 UTC
Heiko Tietze committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/16f01f82a765fc51a19be2e370a69eb7819c9ce4

Resolves tdf#65473 - Unintuitive paragraph alignment options

It will be available in 7.5.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.