Currently, the file-open dialogs (regardless of whether Tools > Options... > LibreOffice > General > "Use LibreOffice dialogs" is enabled) have a checkbox for "Read-only" in the lower-left corner. The "Open" button is in the lower-right corner. This makes it un-ergonomic to open a file read-only. There are situations when a person often opens files read-only. For example: When a document is opened read/write by LO, a lock file is written next to the document; when the document is closed, the lock file is removed. This causes the filesystem to update the directory's modification time to when the lock file was removed. This can cause some backup algorithms to detect that the directory has been changed since the last backup and to back up the whole directory even though no changes have been made. This can be undesirable when backing up to a USB thumb drive, due to the comparatively small write lifetime & low speed of the drive. So the user may get used to opening files read-only to avoid making the unneeded lock files. Another case is that the user frequently gets files by e-mail and wants to be able to open them read-only before bothering to set the files read-only at the filesystem level. Please consider enhancing the file-open dialogs to make it easier to open files read-only. One way to do this would be to change the Open button to a split button with an "Open read-only" option.
Hi dg, thanks for the clear description and use case. (In reply to comment #0) > Please consider enhancing the file-open dialogs to make it easier to open > files read-only. One way to do this would be to change the Open button to a > split button with an "Open read-only" option. Sounds fine, as long as that does not interfere with the behaviour of Enter as OK.