[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Advice required on auto text resize (Impress)

[Thorsten Behrens]

Hi there,

several partial answers to points from various people. Disclaimer:
I'm the original author of this feature, so at least I can tell you
the reasons for why the feature behaves as-is today. ;)

Muthu Subramanian wrote:
> Currently the text font size box in the toolbar displays the
> originally set font size even when the font size is reduced because
> of 'Auto fit'
> One of our users requested the behavior where the text font size is
> changed when the autofit size changes the text size.
> 
For me the most important reason for the _status quo_ is the fact
that indeed the text stays formatted with the font size as stated in
the drop-down.

When you resize the text box, the text grows larger - but *only* up
until the font size as you see it in the UI. When you copy & paste
the text, again it will bear the font size as shown in the
drop-down. So it is at least useful information (bear with me a
little bit, on whether it is necessary information as well).

Muthu Subramanian wrote:
> Just to brainstorm a little more: How would it be if autofit was an option 
> rather than a property? E.g. Users click on autofit - it fits the 
> text accordingly, but when users add more text or remove text it 
> just behalves normally?
>
Of course, autofit can also be implemented on-request, i.e. a text
overflows the box, user clicks "auto-fit", Impress calculates
necessary font size shrink & applies hard formatting.

That is a bit lacking, at least for power users, since:

 * reading the document on another machine that does not have the
   font used might end up with wrapped lines or overflow again
 * the text now bears hard formatting, and will no longer adapt to
   style changes in general, and applying different master pages in
   particular. this currently works very nicely, when in crunch mode
   in front of a presentation, having to apply the new Corporate
   slide template - if your text has auto-fit on, you get nicely
   fitting content (albeit at potentially different sizes)
 * we'd at least have to internally be able to round-trip that stuff
   for PowerPoint, i.e. the code for treating this as a property will
   have to stay, anyway.

Jean-Baptiste Faure wrote:
> I think this autofit feature is very disturbing if you are not aware of
> it.
>
Granted - so how to best display that? PowerPoint has a little icon
next to the textboxes that have this enabled.

> From my point of view it should be removed because if what you are
> writing does not fit in the available room, you should write less words
> or add room (split the text on another slide), but not write smaller
> when what you are writing is intended to be viewed on a projection screen.
>
I'm afraid but trying to educate users by taking away options might
end you up simply being replaced by another, more feature-full
offering these days ....

Before getting deeper into the rather broad question of which
features are useful or not, for this thread, I think it would be most
helpful to improve the existing feature towards better usability. :)

Cheers,

-- Thorsten
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