Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 28481
Dockable Dialog Boxes
Last modified: 2017-05-20 09:26:17 UTC
This is a proposal to convert all floating dialog boxes (character format, paragraph format, navigator, stylist, gallery) to a format that will allow them to be dockable. This is similar to how the gallery works now (using the <ctrl> key to dock on the sides or top in the toolbar area). What this allows a person to do is to quickly use a dialog box without having to open and close it. MS Office is moving this direction for most of its programs. This will work fine on large screens. The default behavior will be for the dialogs to float for the benefit of those working on smaller screens. What I propose is to take the gallery and strip out all of the gallery specific code (placing it in its own dockable dialog box). Then give it the ability to accept different dialog boxes, stacking them up in tabs similar to how the current Mozilla does with the sidebars. Clicking on the tab will open up the dialog. A button to undock the tab and a button to close the tab will be included. When docked, the dialog's OK and Cancel button will become Apply and Undo, respectively. A person could then place the dialog dock anywhere on the program that a toolbar can be placed (with the little button to hide it) or it could float, which is how the Gallery dialog works now. A similar scheme is used by GTK+ 2.x for dockable tabs (and if OOo goes GTK+, could use the actual code). An example of how the dock would work is when formatting text in a Writer document. You would select text and in the open dialog that is docked to the side (or top) choose bold, red and Helvetica. You would then click the Apply button. Then instead of selecting more text and doing the same (such as when you would use the font name, bold and the font color buttons in the toolbar), you would just select some more text and click Apply again. This makes formatting quicker and easier to understand. I know that this would be a lot of work. Dialogs such as Paragraph format would need the ability to become narrower (they are currently fixed width), and tabs at the top of a dialog will have to automatically arrange themselves. But the benefits of making OOo a more flexible and easier-to-use suite would be more that worth the effort.
Created attachment 14844 [details] This is a picture mockup of how dockable dialog boxes would work
reassigned to bh
After thinking about the third paragraph that I wrote, I realized that you would not want the properties that you set to be "sticky" unless you specifically told the dialog box to remember the settings. There would have to be a button of some kind (probably with a lock icon) that you would toggle to have it remember the settings in the dialog box, otherwise the settings in the box will change to the settings of the text that is currently selected. So if you want to select text, then click apply, select some more text, click apply again, you will need to click on the Remember Settings button.
Created attachment 14879 [details] Updated mockup with the "Remember Settings" button
OpenOffice.org Issue Tracker - Feedback Request. The Issue you raised is currently 'Unconfirmed' pending review, but has not been updated within the last 3 years. Please consider re-testing with one of the latest versions of OOo, as the problem(s) may have already been addressed. Either use the recent stable version: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html or consider trying the new OOo 3 BETA (still in testing): http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/ Please report back the outcome so this Issue may be Closed or Progressed as necessary - otherwise it may be Resolved as Invalid in the future. You may also wish to search for (and note) any duplicates of this Issue that may have advanced further by checking the Issue Tracker: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/query.cgi Many thanks, Andrew Cleaning-up and Closing old Issues as part of: ~ The Grand Bug Squash, pre v3 ~ http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/announcementbeta.html
Just checked the latest stable release 2.4, and one can still not dock many dialog boxes (such as the paragraph dialog) to the side of the window, like the Styles and Formatting dialog box can be docked. Me liketh to still to have this feature.
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on my owner to the owner "requirements".
Obsolete with new AOO 4.x and sidebar