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

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Jacobo,

Jacobo Aragunde Pérez píše v Čt 03. 10. 2013 v 10:24 +0200:

> Extracting some conclusions from the feedback in this thread, probably
> the most reasonable path having mid-term in mind would be:
> 
> 1. SmartArt should be imported in an immutable way by default,
> preserving the original metadata.
> 2. Immutable shapes can be saved to docx with no data loss, but they are
> transformed to a shape group when saved to odt and this process
> introduces some errors.
> 3. A context menu entry or custom toolbar button should present the
> possibility to edit the diagram. If pressed:
>    3.1 User is warned that some data loss could happen.
>    3.2 Original metadata is removed at this point.
>    3.3 Diagram is transformed into individual shapes.
> 4. Edited shapes could be saved back to a docx document but that could
> imply again some data loss.

Regarding 2., couldn't we roundtrip the metadata as some blob in the ODT
too?  Otherwise sounds great to me :-)

> We have already implemented 1 using a bitmap that is placed instead of
> the shapes (do you know some way to "lock" the edition of a shape group?

Nope, not without further searching, unfortunately; if we are lucky,
there is some ReadOnly property or something already, but I don't know.

> That would be really helpful). We have started to take a look at 3.3, it
> implies hot-replacing our bitmaps with the actual shapes and it could
> require some time. The main challenge is 4 because it implies to fix [1]
> so shapes are not completely lost (because metadata is removed in 3.2).
> 
> Finally, would you agree on temporarily adding an entry to the options
> dialog as described at [2] for the short term?

If you commit to further improving as you have described above, I won't
push back on this - I prefer code included early; gets more testing &
feedback that way, and won't bitrot.

Thank you a lot,
Kendy