Re: [libreoffice-design] Improving printing UX

Hey Katarina and all,

Not sure if this is 100% relevant, but was something i was thinking 
about last week.

I've been wondering why we dont rely on the OS's print dialog rather 
than LO's internal one. It was something that came to mind as Heiko and 
I discussed dialogs for the HIG and the general rule is that dialogs 
should always utilize the OS's default dialogs, so that it LO integrates 
better with a user's OS.

In LO 3.4ish, we moved from using LO's internal file management dialogs 
to the OS's, so why didnt we do the same with the print dialog? I also 
couldnt find an option in the Options dialog to tell LO to use the OS's 
print dialog.

Regards,
Jay

On 07/07/2015 07:35 PM, Katarina Behrens wrote:
> Hey there,
>
> tl;dr - I'm looking for ideas how to improve $subject
>
> So I've recently tried to fix tdf#91362 [1] but I'm not really happy with the
> solution I was able to come up with and I'd like to have some more input from
> real humans :) how to improve printing experience in LibO ...
>
> In the past, there was tdf#61186 [2] that addressed some LibO printing
> nastiness, such as
>
> * File -> Printer settings used to contain the settings of the last page that
> happened to be printed and not the actual settings of the printer
> * Whatever was set in File -> Printer Settings didn't stick
> * There was no way to say that we actually want to override document settings
> and print on a paper size specified by a printer
>
> tdf#91362 now complains about the following scenario:
> * Format -> Page -> set paper format e.g. to Legal
> * Go to File -> Print -> Properties
> * Howl, because you see e.g. US Letter here (or whatever's default on your
> printer, in your locale) and not what is actually going to be printed instead
> * Click Print and see the printer asking you to insert a paper in Legal format
>
> Basically whatever the user sets in File ->Print -> Properties (unless they
> specify in File -> Print -> Options tab, that they want to use only the paper
> size from the printer prefs) is going to be ignored and the page settings are
> going to be used instead.
>
> I tried to address those issues by
> * actually showing the settings of current printing job in File -> Print ->
> Properties -
> * but only if it is not specifically overridden by the user going to File ->
> Printer Settings and saving their own settings there [3]
> * disabling paper and orientation list boxes if 'use only paper size from
> printer preferences' is not specified [4]
>
> But even after all this (or maybe thanks to all this *grin*) the printing in
> LibO is rather confusing, off-putting user experience and it is totally unclear
> what's actually going to be printed.
>
> I'd be grateful for any input and ideas -- maybe we can somehow rearrange UI?
> Change its behaviour slightly? (I can think e.g. about moving this 'use only
> paper size from printer' checkbox away from 'Options' tab page to some more
> prominent place, as it is rather well hidden there, for example)
>
> How do other office suites do it?
>
> Thanks
>
> [1] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91362
> [2] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61186
> [3] https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/#/c/16716/
> [4] https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/#/c/16812/

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