[libreoffice-design] Minutes from the UX/design meeting 2025-Oct-16

Present: Sahil, Eyal, Heiko
Comments: Regina, Samuel

Tickets/Topics

 * Make the new Macro Manager dialog non-experimental and enable it
   by default
   + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168623
   + remaining issues probably not fixed (Samuel)
   + dependent to bug 120658, which is not yet resolved (Eyal)
   + some concerns (in bug 120658) (Regina)
   + no harm to make it non-experimental (Sahil)
   + do not make it the default as long features are missing (Heiko)
  => go for it

 * Sort dialog Options tab contents is confusing
   + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168687
   + many issues packed in one ticket; agree with questionable
     labels (Telesto)
   + "Natural Sort" has been redesigned lately
   + "Include formats" could be "Preserve Formatting" (Sahil)
     + "preserving" - users will always want to "preserve" rather than
       "disrupt" or "mess up"; each user would think the behavior they
       want is the "preserving"; need to better express the two legitimate
       interests (Eyal)
     + Preserve is the opposite of Include (Heiko)
   + "Copy results" are clear to me, at least with the tooltips (Heiko)
     + "[ ] Place sort results at:" (Eyal)
     + "[ ] Destination range/cells:" (Sahil)
   + Boundary rows/columns require to read the documentation (and
     might be not working as expected) (Heiko)
  => further bike-shedding on BZ

 * Make Notebookbar Paragraph Style preview iconviews larger, and perform
   dynamic preview of document
   + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168657
   + PS are structural attributes and should not be picked by their
     visuals; IOW heading 1 is used for a certain part of text
     ergo: drop this whole control in favor of the dropdown (Heiko)
   + true but users expect it as known from MSO (Eyal)
   + to get more space we may drop the unformatted style names (Eyal)
   + MSO adjusts the number of items depending on available size, up to a
     dropdown for very small windows, and expands the content to a resizable
     icon view - we should do the same (Eyal)
   + for now it sounds reasonable to expand the UI element to the
     available space (Eyal, Heiko)
 => do it

 * Replace trichotomic language config with list of proofing languages
   + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168624
   + Char dialog bug 104318
   + mockup on the ticket (Heiko)
     + it essentially removes the trichometry and all options are available
       for everyone
     + the mockup assumes the trichotomy is gone, rather than actually removing
       it - it's useful to discuss it as an option for a post-trichotomy
       LibreOffice, but not for current-state LibreOffice (Eyal)
   + While LibreOffice has the meaningful options of enabling/disabling RTL-CTL
     and CJK support, this choice is critical to users and we should not
     entertain the possibility of (effectively) hiding it (Eyal)
     + The two options control aspects of the UI at the character, paragraph and
       page level, particularly in the style/formatting dialogs, and also the
       visibility/usability of the direction toolbar buttons (Eyal)
     + The options will also likely control even more changes to the UI when
       the support for "Start" and "End" alignments is introduced: With RTL-CTL
       support unchecked, we don't need to tell the user about the distinction
       between "align left" and "align start" - but with the option checked,
       we need to alter the UI somewhat to express that (Eyal)
   + mockups are meant to foster the development, to support thinking about
     far-fetched goal, identify bottlenecks in the workflow, etc. - all for the
     average user; usability comes before coding not when everything is done as
     interface set on top of some perfect code (Heiko)
     + Agreed, apologies for focusing only on the applicability of the mockup
       _right now_, am willing to discuss it in the context of a
       "post-trichotomy" future where my points of opposition would
       not hold (Eyal)
 => comment


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