Bug 78156 - FORMATTING: Make slide Layouts editable; allow to create custom slide Layouts
Summary: FORMATTING: Make slide Layouts editable; allow to create custom slide Layouts
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Impress (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum...
Whiteboard: BSA
Keywords:
: 112002 145629 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Slide-Layout 157019
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2014-05-01 14:09 UTC by Máirín Duffy
Modified: 2023-11-17 07:56 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of the 12 slide layouts currently provided by LO Impress (15.79 KB, image/png)
2014-05-01 14:10 UTC, Máirín Duffy
Details

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Description Máirín Duffy 2014-05-01 14:09:29 UTC
Problem description: 

The 12 default slide layouts that ship with LibreOffice don't cover all the situations a user might run into when trying to present their content. It would be a very nice feature if users could create custom slide layouts for presentations - this would be especially valuable to designers creating slide deck templates that need to cover a variety of different situations.
Operating System: Fedora
Version: 4.2.3.3 release
Comment 1 Máirín Duffy 2014-05-01 14:10:36 UTC
Created attachment 98296 [details]
Screenshot of the 12 slide layouts currently provided by LO Impress
Comment 2 Cor Nouws 2014-05-01 14:22:50 UTC
Hi Máirín,

thanks for writing. What you want is already possible: View > Master > Slide Master.
Pls refer to Help or user support if needed :)
Cheers
Comment 3 Máirín Duffy 2014-05-01 14:32:04 UTC
Hi Cor, I think you're confusing slide layouts with slide masters. They are not the same thing. Different slide layouts can be applied to multiple slides that use the same master. Creating a slide master does not solve the problem.

Reopening.
Comment 4 Máirín Duffy 2014-05-01 14:37:03 UTC
Maybe to elaborate a bit more - I would love to see the ability to create custom slide layouts by allowing slide template designers to be able to add AutoLayout fields / objects to a slide design in any number desired, perhaps combining them with custom editable fields (see RFE BZ#78155.)
Comment 5 Cor Nouws 2014-05-01 15:05:14 UTC
Hi Máirín,

(In reply to comment #3)
> Hi Cor, I think you're confusing slide layouts with slide masters...

Ah, right, initially. Sorry.

I do know the difference between the two.
And I know one can change the position (and IIRC the size) of the placeholders on the master pages. So there is some flexibility, but limited indeed.
Comment 6 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-09-18 12:24:25 UTC
Setting this to NEW rather than REOPENED as that is the incorrect status.

Came across a user today on twitter who is looking for this same enhancement who stated, "no ability to change the default Impress layouts ... actually changing the layouts themselves, not just switching between them." < https://twitter.com/_Lyude/status/512515709826777088 >

Was planning to submit a new bug report but found this from a search. Seems this feature has been wanted from 2007, according to the following OOo links.

https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=570
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=62979
Comment 7 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-09-18 18:02:58 UTC
Would like to suggest a means of how to implement this.

In the properties sidebar panel, we create a new section called 'Custom Layouts', which will list layouts that are outside of the standard 12 layouts. When empty, the section will have an blank entry with a '+' sign in it, symbolizing that the user can press that button to add a new custom layout.

When the new button is pressed, impress goes into 'create new layout' mode and a prompt appears asking the user whether to use the current displayed layout as the basis of the new layout one or to start with a blank layout. Once they have chosen their preference, a 'create new layouts' toolbar will appear, if not already visible, with the following buttons :-

1) Create Layout
2) Add AutoLayout Text
3) Add AutoLayout Bullet or Object
4) Discard Layout
5) Save Layout

Note: If the toolbar is visible and impress is not in 'create new layout' mode, buttons 2 to 5 are disabled.

Once the user is finished with the creation, he can either discard the layout (button 4) or save it (button 5). If he/she decides to save it, a dialog appears asking them to name it. Once named, a suitable thumbnail showing the layout is prepared and added to the 'Custom Layouts' section. After the layout is saved or discarded, impress exits 'create new layout' mode and the toolbar is hidden if it was previously hidden.

Once a custom layout is added to the section, a user should be able to right-click on it and the context menu has options to rename, delete, and export.

It would be great if a user was able to set what exact type of content will be placed in the each 'AutoLayout Bullet or Object' (ex. bullets, table, chart, image, sound/video), as after all it is a custom layout that a user is building.

It would also be useful for a user to be able to import custom layouts, so that customized layouts could be shared with others and this could also spur up a new section in http://extensions.libreoffice.org/
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2022-04-05 08:57:54 UTC
*** Bug 145629 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Cor Nouws 2022-04-05 10:29:33 UTC
*** Bug 112002 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Cor Nouws 2022-04-05 10:47:30 UTC
I worked on trying to untangle the various issues around layouts and master slides. There are only three categories:

=1= Make slide Layouts editable; allow to create custom slide Layouts
(see bug 78156)

=2= Allow to assign Layouts to Master Slides, effectively creating a new "Master Slide+Layout combination" for presentations in Impress
(bug 62332)

=3= Make another layout available by default
Example of that category: [FORMATTING] there is no slide layout 'Comparison' available (bug 147289)
Comment 11 student 2023-08-31 12:16:19 UTC
I would like to expand. These features are missing in impress layouts:

Request: Add Layout Editor (save changes to custom layout).
E.g. I wish to change the *style* of *all* title boxes in my presentation. I currently have to do it manually on every page...

Proposition: Add a *Layout Editor* to Impress. Here, we can edit layouts and duplicate them. The custom layouts can be applied via "View > Slide Layout".


Request: Add Automatic text transfers
----------
Another related issue: When I change the layout, Impress does not copy the contents from the old boxes to the new ones. It would be great, if there would be a pop-up window where each text box from the old and the layout had an ID. In the window you could then assign the text boxes to each other, e.g. Old_1 -> New_3, Old_2 -> New_1, empty -> New_2. You would see a live preview of the new layout while assigning the transfers.

These changes would finally allow for seamless switching of custom layouts for an arbitrary selection of slides!