I use fields a lot in my documents (references, variables). The Insert Fields dialog use to cover my text and makes multiple field insertion cumbersome. If the Insert Fields could be moved inside the sidebar as was the gallery and styles & formatting, that will take the dialog out of the text area and field insertion more agile.
(In reply to Olivier Hallot from comment #0) > I use fields a lot in my documents (references, variables). > > The Insert Fields dialog use to cover my text and makes multiple field > insertion cumbersome. Not sure that the Fields dialog could easily be added as a new sidebar tab as the dialog has multiple tabs and changing controls between those tabs, but guess those could be the sections of the tab, though it still wouldnt be easy. Likely its something that the design team can try out in one of the friday design sessions. > If the Insert Fields could be moved inside the sidebar as was the gallery > and styles & formatting, that will take the dialog out of the text area and > field insertion more agile. With gallery and styles & formatting, they were moved into the sidebar without any changes. :D
We're replacing our use of the 'ux-advise' component with a keyword: Component -> LibreOffice Add Keyword: needsUXEval [NinjaEdit]
Meanwhile we have a fields dropdown in the toolbar that offers quick access to the frequently used fields. That works for me, you too Olivier?
The Icon emulates the Fields menu and shows only the most common used fields such as date, page number , author, etc... So, yes it works. But the subject of this bug goes beyond: When one has to insert references in many places of the document, to build an automated document. (An example would be a contract document where the parts names are inserted as fields, and referenced in many other places/pages of the document.)
Olivier: Please provide a mockup oh how this sidebar will look and work as including the entire dialog into the sidebar would be quite complicated to use.
I am poor in handling drawings on computer, but my original idea was +Fields main pane + Variable sub-pane (widgets) + Document sub-pane (widgets) + Doc Info sub page (widgets) + Function sub page (widgets) + Database sub page (widgets) + References sub page (widgets) Buttons, text areas, and other widgets are repositioned inside the sub-panes. or... on another approach, make the Fields dialog box dockable.
The topic was raised again in the design meeting. There is no good reason to have access to everything in the sidebar, actually only the frequently used properties are accessible from this control. Field management is also a all-in-one decision, meaning you cannot iterate through the fields in your document and change the reference type. The proper workflow is to use a modal dialog, modify everything at once, and apply it to the document. So the decision is to tag this as WF.