Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] Advice on adding Smart-Art related settings

Hi Kendy,

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 4:45 PM, Jan Holesovsky <kendy@collabora.com> wrote:

> Hi Jacobo, Miklos,
>
> Miklos Vajna píše v St 02. 10. 2013 v 14:44 +0200:
>
> > > With the current one, a user can change the shapes
> > > but those changes won't be exported back to docx and that's confusing.
> >
> > Indeed. Read the original rationale here:
> >
> > http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2013-July/054428.html
> >
> > There we agreed that if the objects are modified (search for "mutate"),
> > then these invisible properties should be dropped. (That's not the case
> > ATM, but it should be this way in the long run.) That way if the user
> > edits the shape, it'll be exported as a normal group shape, so the edit
> > of the user is not lost.
>
> I support this approach :-)
>
> > > Finally, maybe we should call this option "SmartArt to LibreOffice
> > > shapes or reverse", since we are not involving Draw in this process.
> > > Besides, Draw exporting is already different: embedded Draw in a
> > > document is exported as a .emf file inside the .docx.
> >
> > Indeed, "shapes" or "group shape" (actually a SmartArt is imported as a
> > group shape) would be a better description than "Draw", you're right.
>
> Just so that this does not lead to confusion - SmartArt being a real
> group shape is a relatively recent fix:
>
>
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=59373b753902f69cd44d183568b084429322e7ab
>
> In the previous versions it has been broken into individual shapes which
> is the worst of all options from my point of view - but having a group
> shape that the user has to explicitly ungroup to do his/her
> modifications + drop the smartart metadata with this ungroup operation
> seems reasonably valid to me (if we have undo for that, that is).

The problem is that there's no indication that you lose data with Ungroup.
(In general, the only data I would expect to lose by using Ungroup is
group-related metadata.)

If Ungroup converts the object into shapes, perhaps we can just put it
inside a new toolbar, label it "Convert to Shapes", and make it contextual?

> If we want to warn the users, we can use the the InfoBar (search for
> AppendInfoBar) so that it is relatively unobtrusive for them...

Wouldn't it be simpler to just create that one toolbar with a single button?
(That still feels like the better solution to me.)

> With this - undoable operation, and the user notified, I don't think we
> really need a setting what to do - or do you see any problems with the
> above?


> All the best,
> Kendy