Bug 95329 - Could the status bar report the number of comments, please?
Summary: Could the status bar report the number of comments, please?
Status: VERIFIED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Heiko Tietze
URL:
Whiteboard: target:24.2.0
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Statusbar Writer-Comments
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2015-10-26 11:45 UTC by Luke Kendall
Modified: 2024-01-29 11:21 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Comment number feedback UI problem screenshot (19.61 KB, image/png)
2017-04-26 10:50 UTC, Luke Kendall
Details
Screenshot (39.17 KB, image/png)
2023-07-28 10:46 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details
Screenshot of my version (37.20 KB, image/png)
2023-07-28 16:04 UTC, Luke Kendall
Details

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Description Luke Kendall 2015-10-26 11:45:44 UTC
It would be helpful to know how many comments there are in a document.  It would also be nice to know how many words and/or kb of text within the comments taken as a whole.

Thanks for considering...

luke
Comment 1 Buovjaga 2015-11-03 08:56:30 UTC
Sounds good -> NEW.
Comment 2 Dieter 2017-04-26 08:23:27 UTC
There is an easy way to see the number of comments
1) open the navigator
2) move your cursor to "comments" => the number of comments is displayed
Comment 3 Buovjaga 2017-04-26 08:31:40 UTC
(In reply to Dieter Praas from comment #2)
> There is an easy way to see the number of comments
> 1) open the navigator
> 2) move your cursor to "comments" => the number of comments is displayed

Good point. Yet, the stats tab of properties does contain information on things shown in the Navigator. The question is do we map these views one to one (including Hyperlinks, Sections, Bookmarks etc.)?

Asking design team for an opinion.
Comment 4 Luke Kendall 2017-04-26 10:30:48 UTC
Thanks. That suffices.  I will note, though, that the discoverability of the feature seems very low to me.

In contrast, I expected the "File Properties" panel to contain that information, since it seems an important property of the document.

But, now that I know, I probably won't forget.  Thank you.
Comment 5 Luke Kendall 2017-04-26 10:50:01 UTC
Created attachment 132853 [details]
Comment number feedback UI problem screenshot

What it looked like when the number of comments failed to be displayed, within a minute.
Comment 6 Luke Kendall 2017-04-26 10:50:28 UTC
I'll just note a problem, related. trying out the feature on a large file (novel) with many comments, opened up as a .docx file: there's no indication as to when you can trust the number displayed.

After waiting for a minute or so for LO to become responsive, opening the file (all menus drawn and operational, number of pages displayed at the bottom of the window), I opened the navigator and hovered the cursor over the comments field. It said 193.  (I knew that was wrong.)  Puzzled, I checked again, and saw that the number had increased.  There was no indication that the number was stil l being calculated.

Checking back some minutes later, I see the number is now saying 970.  (And now, a minute later, 1016.)  There's no indication as to how long I need to wait to get the final number.  I suppose I'll check back every minute or so until the number remains unchanged.

The usability of this feature seems a little poor, for the case of someone working with an editor on a novel.

I'll add that I also had to move the mouse over the "Comments" word and wait for approx 25 seconds before the current total appeared. (1068.)  If one didn't know that the number would appear, one would easily assume that there was no balloon text.

In fact, I had trouble making it appear this last attempt. I clicked on the word Comments and left the cursor hovering over it, but nothing had changed after waiting 75 seconds.  I tried again, and a small grey-dashed rectangular outline appeared, but was not then rendered with the number.  I have attached a screenshot. I then tried click on the first comment and hovering the cursor back over the word comment, and it finally (and quite quickly) appeared. (Total was unchanged, at 1068.)

I just thought these problems might not have been mentioned.
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2017-04-28 09:02:30 UTC
(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #3)
> Asking design team for an opinion.

This info could be shown at the status bar along with the word count (ideally optional enabled per checkbox in the wc dialog). Or just added to the word count dialog. -> EASYHACK (or maybe not since the tooltip in the Navigator might be based on the UI control).

About the missing feedback on load it's better to file another ticket.
Comment 8 Luke Kendall 2017-04-29 09:24:09 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7)
> (In reply to Buovjaga from comment #3)

> 
> About the missing feedback on load it's better to file another ticket.

I feel that the missing feedback after load won't matter, if the number of comments is reported in the file properties panel.

So unless this ends up being resolved as Won't Fix, I'll hold back from doing that.
Comment 9 Xisco Faulí 2020-03-09 13:28:10 UTC
Please add keyword 'needsUXEval' and CC 'libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org' if input from UX is needed.
Comment 10 Luke Kendall 2023-06-22 13:55:52 UTC
Noticing that a document I'm editing has slowed down enormously (Writer is becoming unresponsive), I wanted to know the number of comments.

Notes:

1) I would not have found the method of Navigator + Comments selection without coming back to this bug and finding Dieter's helpful note. BUT:

2) I think the number displayed there is very wrong. I'm on page 283, averaging a few comments on every page (maybe higher!), yet the number displayed is 283. My estimate is the true number of comments is between 600 and 1200.

Yes, confirmed. If I move to another page, the number displayed in the Navigator field is the current page number . That's pointless, since I can also see it on the page footer, or on the status bar.

Surely adding the comments total to the Statistics tab of the file properties would be simple? More importantly, it would be far more user friendly and discoverable for the non-expert user.

It would be good of course to actually have the total number of comments displayed in the Navigator+Comments pane, as Dieter thought it did already.
Comment 11 Commit Notification 2023-07-26 08:38:19 UTC
Heiko Tietze committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/90e3af16c12f94f487ff7516048a239db1d2ff7d

Resolves tdf#95329 - Number of comments in word count dialog

It will be available in 24.2.0.

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 12 Heiko Tietze 2023-07-26 08:39:06 UTC
The number of comments in the document is now shown in the word count dialog. It pops up when you click on the word count panel in the statusbar.
Comment 13 Luke Kendall 2023-07-26 09:10:57 UTC
Sounds great, thank you!
Comment 14 Luke Kendall 2023-07-27 14:09:35 UTC
I'm just now running 24.2.0.0
Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 24d0a62bd75b9a895c419aa165da648ab18f134d
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.18; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

I can't see the number of comments in the Properties/Statistics panel.
When I opened the Navigator (took about two minutes, locked my entire desktop so I was wondering whether I'd need to reboot), and opened the Comments entry, there was nothing that showed the total number of comments.
It doesn't appear near the word count and character count info on the status bar.

Am I looking in the wrong place?

I opened the Navigator's Comments list and clicked on the bottom-most comment, thinking that perhaps the number in the text field to the right of the "Comments" button in the Navigator might show the number of the last comment, so I could find it out that way, but it didn't change. The Up and Down arrows to the right of the Comments button (drop down Navigator menu item) also had no visible effect on anything, and didn't change the number (which was always 22, FWIW).

Oh, that number seems to relate to something to do with the page number - but not the page number you're on. I think it's a page number you might choose to jump to by using the + or - button to its right. It doesn't display the page number you're actually on.

Oh, I just now also found the Window/Word Count menu item, that pops up a panel, but it doesn't have an entry for number of comments either.

I just can't find it, sorry.
Comment 15 Luke Kendall 2023-07-27 14:11:20 UTC
Oh, and on the document I tested it on, performance was excruciating.
Just hitting Page Down, took about ten seconds to actually do so.
I think after performance was improved for documents with many comments, the performance has regressed again.
Comment 16 Luke Kendall 2023-07-27 14:16:41 UTC
Oh, part of the problem may be that it's flooding the terminal I started it from with messages like:

warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphZone'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphNoLastWord'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphZone'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphNoLastWord'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphZone'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphNoLastWord'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphZone'
warn:linguistic:2093986:2093986:linguistic/source/lngprophelp.cxx:632: unknown property 'HyphNoLastWord'


Large numbers of such lines appear if I move forward a page in my document.

BTW, sorry, I meant Tools/Word Count...
not Window/Word Count as I mistakenly wrote in my previous comment.
Comment 17 Heiko Tietze 2023-07-28 10:46:59 UTC
Created attachment 188607 [details]
Screenshot

(In reply to Luke Kendall from comment #14)
> Am I looking in the wrong place?

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #12)
> The number of comments in the document is now shown in the word count
> dialog. It pops up when you click on the word count panel in the statusbar.

Hope the screenshot makes it more clear. Regarding the performance I suggest to find a ticket where this is being discussed or create a new ideally with a test document. Developers likely also needs some details on your environment.
Comment 18 Luke Kendall 2023-07-28 16:04:40 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 19 Buovjaga 2023-07-28 16:46:42 UTC
(In reply to Luke Kendall from comment #18)
> Created attachment 188612 [details]
> Screenshot of my version
> 
> As you can see, it's not included in the version I have installed, running
> on Linux, for a document with thousands of comments.
> 
> Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
> Build ID: 24d0a62bd75b9a895c419aa165da648ab18f134d
> CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.18; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
> Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
> Calc: threaded

Your build is not new enough.
Comment 20 Heiko Tietze 2023-08-16 15:01:58 UTC
Please try the nightly build again now.
Comment 21 Dieter 2023-11-04 16:53:38 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #12)
> The number of comments in the document is now shown in the word count
> dialog. It pops up when you click on the word count panel in the statusbar.

VERIFIED with

Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: c0c8cffd3541e3cd616c96791b04e7ebf2b2ed03
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: de-DE (de_DE); UI: en-GB
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 22 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2024-01-26 11:50:47 UTC
Heiko, shouldn't this belong to "File > Properties > Statistics" rather than "Tools > Wordcount" ?
Plus, the current implementation doesn't give a number for the "Selection" column.
Comment 23 Heiko Tietze 2024-01-29 10:03:59 UTC
(In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #22)
> Heiko, shouldn't this belong to "File > Properties > Statistics" rather than
> "Tools > Wordcount" ?
Sure, if you mean in addition. (Don't think this statistics is used much.)

> Plus, the current implementation doesn't give a number for the "Selection"
> column.
Is there a use case for number of comments in a selection?
Comment 24 Luke Kendall 2024-01-29 10:56:30 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #23)
> (In reply to Stéphane Guillou (stragu) from comment #22)
> > Heiko, shouldn't this belong to "File > Properties > Statistics" rather than
> > "Tools > Wordcount" ?
> Sure, if you mean in addition. (Don't think this statistics is used much.)
> 
> > Plus, the current implementation doesn't give a number for the "Selection"
> > column.
> Is there a use case for number of comments in a selection?

Which version of Writer is this in? I don't see it in 7.5.3.2. (Is version 24.x.y some other versioning system?)

I personally have never needed to know how many comments there were in a selection. I wouldn't expect to find that under file>properties>statistics.

If the no. of comments were reported in the Tools>Word Count then I can imagine there might be rare cases where knowing the number of comments in a selection was helpful.

One simple use case might be a large selection, and wanting to know whether there were zero comments within that selection. (Your workflow might involve deleting each comment as it's addressed, for example.)

Although maybe you could Find/Replace with comments to find a comment within a selection?

Just my 2c. HTH.
Comment 25 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2024-01-29 11:21:07 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #23)
I'm not advocating for knowing how many comments there are in a selection, my point was: it feels out of place in Word Count, I think it would make more sense to only have it in Document Statistics.

(In reply to Luke Kendall from comment #24)
> Which version of Writer is this in? I don't see it in 7.5.3.2. (Is version
> 24.x.y some other versioning system?)
This is the next version, to be released in a few days.
You can test pre-releases and daily builds to check features before they are released, see https://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/