[Libreoffice-ux-advise] 2 Suggestions for improving the handling of Pictures in LO

[Ralph Aichinger]

Hello!

I hope it is not impolite to post UX suggestions to this list. LO has been
improving quite a lot since the split from OOo, to me it feels as if there
was a completely new culture and focus on UX improvements, where
before there was lots and lots of specification, but little change.
One area in my own use, where I think that LO currently lacks is
handling of images (photos, frames, etc.). Things that drive me
crazy:

1) It is much too easy to change the aspect ratio of a picture.
There is really no scenario where you want to distort a photo
by changing width and height out of sync, except maybe making
gimmicky jokes and possibly neutral page backgrounds. Rare is
the occasion that I really want to distort people's heads or figures in
a picture, just because I grab it at the wrong handle.

This holds even if I choose Picture->Type->Size->Keep ratio
is selected manually.

My suggestion: Make "Keep ratio" ticked by default, and
never ever change the aspect ratio by dragging the picture
handles as long as this is ticked. In the unlikely situation
that somebody wants to distort pictures, he or she can
always remove that tick mark. I very much doubt this
is more often than one in a thousand cases.

2) There are four anchor types: To page, to paragraph, to
character and As character. What bothers me, is that
the picture moves if I click through these selections. Except
in the last case, this should not be necessary. If I switch
say from "To page" to "To paragraph", LO could "transform
coordinates" and simply keep the object on the same place,
and fill in new values for coordinates accordingly. Would that
be too complicated? I don't think there is a situation where
you want to change the position (let's say the picture to jump
into the left top corner) when you switch anchor type. I really
do not know the complexity of calculating the coordinates
from paragraph/page/character, but if this is possible, I
think keeping the position and changing coordinates would
be more intuitive and the thing I expect.

These are my two main nits with LO at the moment, and after
stepping down from my soapbox, I want to thank you for
your great UX work, it is very welcome. It might be baby
steps here and there, but all together the work is really
noticeable.

Thanks,
Ralph Aichinger.