[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Advice on adding Smart-Art related settings

[Mirek M.]

Hi Kendy,

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 4:45 PM, Jan Holesovsky <kendy at collabora.com> wrote:

> Hi Jacobo, Miklos,
>
> Miklos Vajna píše v St 02. 10. 2013 v 14:44 +0200:
>
> > > With the current one, a user can change the shapes
> > > but those changes won't be exported back to docx and that's confusing.
> >
> > Indeed. Read the original rationale here:
> >
> > http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2013-July/054428.html
> >
> > There we agreed that if the objects are modified (search for "mutate"),
> > then these invisible properties should be dropped. (That's not the case
> > ATM, but it should be this way in the long run.) That way if the user
> > edits the shape, it'll be exported as a normal group shape, so the edit
> > of the user is not lost.
>
> I support this approach :-)
>
> > > Finally, maybe we should call this option "SmartArt to LibreOffice
> > > shapes or reverse", since we are not involving Draw in this process.
> > > Besides, Draw exporting is already different: embedded Draw in a
> > > document is exported as a .emf file inside the .docx.
> >
> > Indeed, "shapes" or "group shape" (actually a SmartArt is imported as a
> > group shape) would be a better description than "Draw", you're right.
>
> Just so that this does not lead to confusion - SmartArt being a real
> group shape is a relatively recent fix:
>
>
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=59373b753902f69cd44d183568b084429322e7ab
>
> In the previous versions it has been broken into individual shapes which
> is the worst of all options from my point of view - but having a group
> shape that the user has to explicitly ungroup to do his/her
> modifications + drop the smartart metadata with this ungroup operation
> seems reasonably valid to me (if we have undo for that, that is).
>

The problem is that there's no indication that you lose data with Ungroup.
(In general, the only data I would expect to lose by using Ungroup is
group-related metadata.)

If Ungroup converts the object into shapes, perhaps we can just put it
inside a new toolbar, label it "Convert to Shapes", and make it contextual?

>
> If we want to warn the users, we can use the the InfoBar (search for
> AppendInfoBar) so that it is relatively unobtrusive for them...
>

Wouldn't it be simpler to just create that one toolbar with a single button?
(That still feels like the better solution to me.)

>
> With this - undoable operation, and the user notified, I don't think we
> really need a setting what to do - or do you see any problems with the
> above?


> All the best,
> Kendy
>
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