Bug 80934 - START CENTER: A GUI means to filter the thumbnail view list of MRU recent documents by module
Summary: START CENTER: A GUI means to filter the thumbnail view list of MRU recent doc...
Status: VERIFIED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Heiko Tietze
URL:
Whiteboard: target:7.5.0 inReleaseNotes:7.5
Keywords: needsDevEval, topicUI
: 72671 86753 140921 143593 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Recent-Document-List Start-Center
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2014-07-05 02:38 UTC by Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired)
Modified: 2023-12-27 08:59 UTC (History)
15 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Mockup Start Center with view and module filter (61.18 KB, image/jpeg)
2018-10-29 13:46 UTC, Roman Kuznetsov
Details

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Description Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-07-05 02:38:26 UTC
The start center presently lists all previously opened documents of all types. This is fine when you have a few documents listed, but once you are able to scroll the list, it would be very useful to be able to filter the list by application, so i could only documents that will load in writer, if i chose.
Comment 1 tommy27 2014-07-05 03:08:36 UTC
valuable enhancement request. status NEW.
Comment 2 V Stuart Foote 2014-07-05 19:27:30 UTC
Initial design work of Start Center thumbnail view representation of recent documents included a tab based motif--as retained in the current Template Manager.

That design was dropped, and Design team reasoned that as only 25 recent documents would be rendered, filtering by component was not an especially necessary feature.

Would tend to agree on need to retain a clean & navigable UI on the Start Center. However, rather than creep in the GTK+ UI Widget GUI, the work could be done efficiently on the Recent Document List menu which directly drives rendering on the Start Center thumbnail view panel.  Review bug 61174.
Comment 3 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2014-07-05 20:36:49 UTC
Here is a possible suggestion that will retain the clean & navigable UI. When i move my mouse over the entries in the left column for 2 or more seconds, it disable/dim all the non-related documents. It will enable all the documents again if the mouse returns again within the left column.

I agree with you that if i am in writer and open up the recent documents list, it shouldnt be showing me non-text document files.
Comment 4 V Stuart Foote 2014-07-05 21:32:53 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> Here is a possible suggestion that will retain the clean & navigable UI.
> When i move my mouse over the entries in the left column for 2 or more
> seconds, it disable/dim all the non-related documents. It will enable all
> the documents again if the mouse returns again within the left column.

THAT is a neat UI idea! Using the mouse over "hover" event when pointing to one of the create new document buttons on the left bar to momentarily filter the display of thumbnails to just documents of that flavor. UI would hold that selection for several seconds or until a selection is made (single or double click as with OS / DTE norm). Either a timed revert, or perhaps an <Esc> to release back to display of the full Recent Document list.

> 
> I agree with you that if i am in writer and open up the recent documents
> list, it shouldnt be showing me non-text document files.

As to that, I more often find I am in a Writer document, and need something from out of a Calc spreadsheet--defaults now allow me to choose it from the File -> Recent Documents list.
Comment 5 V Stuart Foote 2014-11-26 22:15:13 UTC
*** Bug 86753 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Adolfo Jayme Barrientos 2015-01-04 10:48:45 UTC
I am skeptical we deeply need this, as the Recent Documents list is not aimed as being a complete history of documents (what would be next, mimicking a file manager?) It’s a list meant to be brief, just for the user’s convenience.

Anyway, this is essentially the same request as the one in bug 56696.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 56696 ***
Comment 7 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2015-01-04 11:48:57 UTC
Sorry Adolfo but this isnt a duplicate of bug 56696 as this is about filtering the entries in the start center and not the filtering of recent document list found in File > Recent Files when you are in a module.
Comment 8 V Stuart Foote 2015-01-04 14:02:49 UTC
Agree, as in comment 3 comment 4 -- this is UI enhancement to Start Center to graphically represent by module selection content of the recent documents list held in registrymodifications.xcu

Very likely will require other aspects of bug 61174, but it is not the same as bug 56696-- to enhance the Recent Documents list with resort and list of just currently active module--rather this GUI work is to select a module and suppress the thumbnail views of all other documents displayed StartCenter.
Comment 9 Adolfo Jayme Barrientos 2015-01-04 15:03:49 UTC
Jay: the document list in the menu and in the Start Center are the same, haven’t you noticed? If you remove a document from the latter, it also disappears from the former.

Both bug 56696 and this request the very same thing (filtering by app), although they refer to different UI elements. But the list is one, so we’re talking about the same thing in the end.
Comment 10 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2015-01-04 15:19:55 UTC
Adolfo: Yes i am aware that the document list shown in the menu and start center are the same. Yes both bugs do request the filtering of the list but how its done in these different UI elements is different, because even if bug 56696 was set to filter the document list when opening File > Recent Documents that wouldnt be affecting the start center.
Comment 11 V Stuart Foote 2015-07-01 13:03:36 UTC
Back for ux-advise design discussion. EasyHack-a-ble?

So, expanding on GUI ideas of comment 3 comment 4 what would be involved. Seems like some of this already is coded. But what new UNO pieces would be needed?

1. detect mouse over duration greater than 1 or 2 seconds
2. assign desired module to display
3. redraw thumbnail views canvas showing only documents of that module
4. respond to a selection from thumbnail views
5. revert to display of full MRU in thumbnail views
Comment 12 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2015-12-13 11:23:54 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 13 Adolfo Jayme Barrientos 2016-02-25 00:53:31 UTC
*** Bug 98161 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 14 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2016-08-25 05:49:18 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 15 Sibit 2017-02-02 23:14:07 UTC
In our office, we have hundreds of documents we access and they are frequently located on different volumes on the network. For us, a huge benefit that MS Office has is that the recent list from the file menu and the previously opened list on its startup screen are not the same list and therefore the functionality is not redundant.  Both have their own uses.  Having a start screen that lists ALL previously opened documents allows a very efficient method to filter and search for files that you can't remember the exact name of or where in the world they are located on your network. It's like a smart folder that keeps all your previously opened documents in one virtual location for quick reference and an easy way to search / filter them.  Personally, I think the idea of the Recent List and the Start Center being the same list is severely limiting the potential of what the Start Center could be.  I have several employees who are not extremely computer literate and hunting files over the network is beyond their abilities; however, once they (or I) open a file once, they would never have to hunt for it again as it would be sitting in the Start Center ready to go.
Comment 16 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2017-02-04 11:46:05 UTC
It would be useful to implement the same functionality in the recent files view that will be implemented in the templates view (bug 101141), of a top bar which has a search field and application filter drop down, which can be seen in the template manager dialog.
Comment 17 Roman Kuznetsov 2018-10-29 13:46:58 UTC
Created attachment 146136 [details]
Mockup Start Center with view and module filter
Comment 18 libre.office 2020-04-15 12:17:02 UTC
The start center should also contain a text edit field to perform a quick filter of documents and templates. 

The filter should be applied immediatly when entering characters (maybe after a short delay of max. one second). 

The filter should be applied to recent docs and(!) templates at the same time, and the result should contain both types of documents (no need to switch between recent documents and templates.)

The text field should receive the focus (on first start), so that the user may start filtering immediatly.
Comment 19 Heiko Tietze 2021-08-09 13:40:43 UTC
*** Bug 143593 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 20 Heiko Tietze 2021-08-09 13:41:37 UTC
*** Bug 72671 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 21 Heiko Tietze 2021-08-16 13:56:15 UTC
Would like to bring this forward. To summarize the comments:

   + hovering over the modules button could grey out documents that 
     open with other modules (Jay)
     + to allow scrolling the UI might keep this filter for some
       seconds or until escape is pressed (Stuart)
   + more demands from bug 143593 (search) and bug 72671 (filter)
   + using 100s of documents and having the same list as for the 
     recent document MRU is a limitation (Sibit)
   + show dedicated UI elements (Roman)
     + has some advantage for a11y (Heiko)
   + if the controls clutter to much we could hide it until some 
     button is pressed and/or also provide functions via context menu

Some of the solutions are easy to implement, other a bit more demanding. Volunteers are welcome to discuss further.
Comment 22 Commit Notification 2022-09-16 08:32:36 UTC
Heiko Tietze committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/164a1f4c3315fc44161128d3d9ca886f767f7d30

Resolves tdf#80934 - GUI means to filter thumbnails in start center

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.
Comment 23 steve 2022-09-17 08:39:31 UTC
Follow-up items:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151016 (low contrast for hambuger menu icon)
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151017 (font color not respecting dark mode)
Comment 24 steve 2022-09-24 11:10:37 UTC
Follow-up items:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151159 (StartCenter: Document Filter: rename from `All Applications` to `All Documents`)
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151161 (StartCenter: Document filter: add tooltip instead of permanent description in UI)
Comment 25 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2022-12-22 08:40:59 UTC
fix verified in:

Version: 7.6.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: ad387d5b984c6666906505d25685065f710ed55d
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Added to release notes:

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/index.php?title=ReleaseNotes%2F7.5&type=revision&diff=602690&oldid=601035

Thanks Heiko!
Comment 26 Buovjaga 2023-04-27 08:10:50 UTC
*** Bug 140921 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***