[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 140702] It disappeared "To page" item from Anchor drop-down widget on Frame toolbar in Writer

Wed Apr 21 22:59:42 UTC 2021

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140702

--- Comment #15 from Tomasz Sztejka <sztejkat at yahoo.com> ---
To comment #14

Maybe it is a problem because it never worked as it should work?

It seems, from links You have posted and my experience with users at work, that
most people expect that:

1.Object anchored to paragraph moves with paragraphs keeping a specified offset
from beginning of it. 

This works roughly as expected. They tap enter and image moves.

Except it is getting messy if You try to anchor image to a certain paragraph
which is NOT right above an image. Any attempt to move anchor moves an image
and any attempt to move image moves an anchor. Trying to arrange two or more
images aside of each other is a real pain. This is covered by what You kindly
pointed out (tdf#141161, tdf#141162) so nothing more needs to be said.

2.Object anchored to character moves together with a character.

This doesn't work at all as expected. Image does not keep offset from a
character as character moves. Behaves exactly as "to paragraph". And by looking
at Image->Properties->Type->Position it does what it is told to do. Be like "to
paragraph" with the only difference is where the anchor icon is shown. I can't
follow the idea behind it. 

I think that restriction of the set of possible selections in Position based on
anchor mode is done incorrectly and chaotic and unnecessarily removes some
possibilities. For an example if I do select ->To page and then ->To character
then a possible selection set is different if I do ->As character and then ->To
character. 

3.Object anchored as a character is just a custom letter. 

This works always in a consistent way. Great option for my job, where I need to
often use custom graphics to say: "press that key" in manuals I write.

4.Object anchored to page stays in it's relative position to page corner.

This is in fact a bit problematic because it is hard to guess to "which page
corner". This, as far as I remember from an old OpenOffice, used to work fine
with manual page breaks, but now it seems to ignore it what is confusing. 

In my opinion maybe the LibreOffice team rather than focusing on encouraging or
dis-encouraging use of certain options because we, users do not understand it,
should focus on making it right?

The obvious question is "what is right?"

The primary source we, users may look at is the HELP. So what is in there?

https://help.libreoffice.org/7.0/en-US/text/shared/01/05260100.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=UNIX

and almost the same, but in more vague way is repeated at:

https://help.libreoffice.org/7.0/en-US/text/swriter/01/05060100.html?System=UNIX&DbPAR=WRITER&HID=modules/swriter/ui/frmtypepage/width#bm_id3150761

(I do use 7.0 version, but a quick check on
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/ shows no difference)

1.To paragraph:
"Anchors the selected item to the current paragraph.
The anchor icon is displayed at the left page margin at the beginning of the
paragraph."

No single word is said if it moves with text or not. Nothing. Null. Zero.

2.To character:
"Anchors the selected item to a character. This command is only available for
graphic objects"

followed by enigmatic:

"To align a graphic relative to the character that it is anchored to,
right-click the graphic, and then choose Properties. Click the Type tab, and in
the Position area, select Character in the to boxes."

No single word again how it moves when character moves. The enigmatic hint
however may enlighten some of us how we can achieve what we like. That is that
the "anchor" is just the "anchor icon" while the actual flow in text is
controlled by Image->Properties->Type where all possible tricks may be set. 

3.As character:
"Anchors the selected item as a character in the current text. If the height of
the selected item is greater than the current font size, the height of the line
containing the item is increased."

Again, no single word how the image should move if text is edited.

4.To page:
"Anchors the selected item to the current page.
The anchored item remains on the current page even if you insert or delete
text."

This option is, surprisingly most clearly explained. The image stays on page if
you add or delete TEXT. There is no single word about how it should behave if
You add or remove a MANUAL PAGE BREAK. In my opinion it should move then.

Sorry, guys, but I'm totally not surprised that people understand it
incorrectly because.... there is no much to understand. 

How I look at is the problem is NOT in users not understanding how do things
work, but in users NOT HAVING A WAY to find how it was meant to work.

Cleaning up and clarifying help is an important step which needs to be done.
Users can understand only that what is presented to them. LibreOffice is quite
well documented, in fact much better than many commercial software, but still
lacks tooltips in far too many places. As far as I can observe a good tooltip
is often a key to success. A context sensitive hinting system (check the status
line in Inkscape for an example) is also a great way to direct users to some
less obvious options. Help is usually a last resort for users, but if help
fails to explain what is what then what a poor lad can do?

On the other hand I think that maybe a slightly better selection of what is set
in Image->Properties->Type->Position when anchor changes may straighten most of
confusions. Surprisingly a functional "To Page" asked by users You quote is in
fact "To Paragraph" with "Position" in Image->Properties->Type set "to entire
page". It stays at position relative to page, but if page is inserted either
due to large text edit or page break insertion it moves as expected.

And, by the way @comment #12, yes, good point, You are right. Most silly people
are expecting that conversion is done well, and because most of them are
silly... well... on the other hand I'm frequently considered to be a bit off
the side with the sanity too. ;)

But they do think that only for the first time.

They do quickly learn that it doesn't work with anything more complex than a
short letter. Microsoft Office is especially annoying in this manner because it
tends to hijack odt/ods on each update and many of my coworkers don't notice
they did open odt with Word. I can hear the swearing and cursing an hour later
when they found out that some subtle but important stuff got broken and what
they did during that time needs to be re-done again from a backup copy. If they
have such, that is.

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