[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Keep-ratio behaviour

[Regina Henschel]

Hi all,

Astron schrieb:
> HI Thorsten, everyone else,
>
>>> Should it be?
>>>
>> Well, you tell me? ;)
>
> The way I see it, the feature could be implemented in two very different ways:
>
> 1.  Apply "keep ratio" on image import, the setting is saved with the
> file. Unless the users explicitly unticks "keep ratio," the setting is
> persistent.
> pro:
> * requires active user intervention to disable
>
> con:
> * requires non-standard ODF extension (but might become standard in
> the future), handling problems for documents edited with other ODF
> software
> * would only work for newly imported images
> * would only work in ODF documents
> * might necessitate adding "keep ratio" to the context menu
> * requires active user intervention to disable
>
>
> 2. Apply "keep ratio" when trying to resize an image displayed at the
> original aspect ratio (or an aspect ratio very close to the original
> [1]) with the corner handles. The setting is not actually persistent,
> but appears so in many circumstances.
> pro:
> * works inside all document types (even doc/wps/...)
> * turns on/off automatically
> * no new UI necessary
>
> con:
> * user can't explicitly turn it on/off
> * using side handles to override ratio setting might not be very
> apparent to users
>
> I am almost convinced now that 2 is better... at least, if the second
> con can be resolved.
> There are of course different ways to go in between these two
> extremes, but I didn't see any that I found very appealing.
>
>
> Astron
>

It seems to me, that some things are mixed up in this thread.
(1) There is a "keep ratio" checkbox in the Position%Size dialog. This 
checkbox controls only, whether the other height/width setting in this 
dialog is automatically adapted, if the user changes one of the values. 
It is not a property of the picture, but a behavior of the dialog. It 
has no influence on dragging with the mouse.
(2) Whether dragging with the mouse keeps ratio or not depends on 
pressing Shift key or not while dragging.

One problem is, that the behavior is not consistent throughout the modules.
Calc: Pictures are inserted in original size. Writer/Draw/Impress: 
Picture is resized to inner page area (without margins). Do you know 
cases, where the ratio is not kept in this resizing?

Draw/Impress have a setting "Snap position - When creating or moving 
objects" which effectively toggles the meaning of the Shift key. 
Calc/Writer do not have this grid option, but Shift key alway sets 
dragging to "keep ratio" mode.

My suggestion: In all modules the objects have a setting 
'Protect-Position' and 'Protect-Size'. As far as I see, this belongs to 
'style:protect' in ODF. I suggest to propose an additional value 
'ratio', which is then set for all picture-kind and OLE objects as default.

Kind regards
Regina