[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 131920] Full text highlight + shading support

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131920

--- Comment #2 from Bart <bart-dn at tushmail.com> ---
I am one of those who was surprised that I had selected "Light Yellow 3" in a
document, saved it as .doc and to see that the color was changed to "Yellow"
after I had reopened it.

So I had a suggestion. Upon request I'm repeating it here. :)

I hope that this suggestion works well for:
- The Libre Office standard user 
- The Libre Office advanced user
- The Microsoft Word user
- The Libre Office developers (last but not least!)

    I'll start with the functional part (= what the user sees).

When clicking 
   "Highlight Color", 
in LibreOffice, the user first gets a 15-color palette. 
   (This is "1-HighlightedOnly.png")
These Highlighted Colors are supported by other word processors, e.g. Microsoft
Word.

Because most users initially only see the Highlighted Colors, and because of
the sentence "Usually supported by other word processors", I hope to persuade
these standard users to choose a Highlighted Color. That improves compatibility
with Word documents and the user should have less surprises.

After clicking button
   "More Colors (= Shaded Colors)"
the dropdown expands and the user will also see a 120-color palette with
"Shaded Colors".
   (This is "2-HighlightedAndShaded.png")

The sentences
   "Usually supported by other word processors" 
and 
   "Other word processors may not support Shaded 
    Colors, OR they may support them differently.", 
both have a nice undertone. To me they express that LibreOffice is of a higher
technical level, because LibreOffice takes into account that other word
processors may work differently. Very classy. ;)

Advanced users may choose a Shaded Color, but I also expect them to be more
aware of compatibility topics.

Even if Highlighted Colors and Shaded Colors are stored the same way in the
document itself, I hope that users are better aware of the difference between
the two, simply because of showing that difference.

If the user selects a piece of text that already had a "Highlighted Color" and
then clicks button "Highlight Color", it may be logical to show the dropdown
with only Highlighted Colors and pre-select that Highlighted Color in the
palette.
   (This is again "1-HighlightedOnly.png")

If the user selects a piece of text that already had a "Shaded Color" and then
clicks button "Highlight Color", it may be logical to show the dropdown with
both Highlighted and Shaded Colors and pre-select that Shaded Color in the
palette.
   (This is again "2-HighlightedAndShaded.png")

When clicking buttons "More Info" the user can get an explanation and warnings
about exporting and compatibility. The text might also explain how to remove
Shaded Colors in Word. I'm not sure if that's the responsibility of Libre
Office, but if this information is added, there may be less questions on
forums, and that may prevent that users move away from Libre Office. ;) The
text on the buttons could also be "? Help" instead of "More Info".

    Then there's the technical part (= what developers see).

If the user selected a color from the "Highlighted Color" palette, then that
color is stored in the document as Highlighted (and supported by Word).

If the user selected a color from the "Shaded Color" palette, then that color
is stored as Shaded (also supported by Word, but less easy to change there).

I think that under:
   "Tools -> Options -> Load/Save -> Microsoft Office" 
the option:
   "Character Highlighting, Export As Highlighting / Shading" 
is no longer needed.

As a user, I am even happier with less options under:
   "Tools -> Options -> etc.",
because I never know if an option is found there, and if it's there, I never
know where to find it or what the name is.

I suspect there's backward compatibility with LibreOffice version 6.4 and
earlier, but if I'm wrong, I'm happy to hear.

This suggestion is not "carved in stone". It's a suggestion, no more, no less.
I don't know how LibreOffice works internally, or how .doc and .docx documents
are organized internally, so maybe this solution still needs to be polished.

Thanks again to all the developers for all the time and effort they put into
developing LibreOffice.

PS:

I also hope that implementing this suggestion will lead to less confused users,
that less confused users will lead to less bug reports, and that less bug
reports will lead to less work for developers. :) :) :)

I wondered if it would be good to check the "Highlighted Colors" that Google
Docs and Apple Pages offer, besides to Microsoft Word. On second thought,
Google Docs and Apple Pages also have to figure out how to deal with
Highlighted versus Shaded when exporting to Word format, just like we have to
figure it out.

Nevertheless, and just to make sure that we don't have to go back to this topic
later, I would still appreciate to know what the options are that Google Docs,
Apple Pages, and maybe other word processors offer. Are there any users of
Google Docs or Apple Pages here, willing to take a look?

Initially I tried to adapt to the current terminology. In LibreOffice I found
"Highlight Color" , "Highlighting" and "Shading", but after a while I was more
and more going towards "Highlighted" and "Shaded".

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