Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 49197
Unusable formatting (tab group) for Text Box
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:33:17 UTC
There appears to be a “Text box” tab group (and maybe other formatting) defined for the Text Box in a presentation slide, but those tabs never seem to affect any of the text in the box. I've set this as a low priority, because it is obscure, but may cause new/novice users to think that the tabs they've set are "no longer there", if they happen to set the Text box's tabs instead of an active paragraph within the text box. I thought this might be the "default" for new text in the box, but that's not the case either. To view the Text Box's tabs: right-click on the text box without text entry mode being active, select “paragraph”/tabs) To view a text paragraph's tabs: Enter text entry mode: click to place cursor in a paragraph; right-click, select “paragraph”/tabs). NOTE: It's easier to select the text first, then click on the text box outline to select the box. Be careful to have the "Click & Drag" cursor before right clicking on the text box. Example to follow: Text Box is configured with tabs @ 3,6,9 cm. Paragraph inside textbox has tabs @ 7,10 cm.
Created attachment 26080 [details] Single slide w/ a text box (& tab group) and text (w/ different tab group)
It is a bit more complex and difficult to repeat now, but was very frustrating when I was creating a "real" presentation. Here's some more related quirky behavior that I've found: Changes to the Text Box tab group will alter existing text paragraphs, but if there is no text in box, then newly entered text will only inherit the "text box" tabs if text is entered the first time "text entry" mode is activated after the tab change was performed. For example: if I add or delete a tab using the Text Box tabs dialogue box, the next time I click to enter text, those tabs will be present. If I choose not to enter text, click outside the box, then click to enter text in that box again, the tabs will not be there. Also, when changing a paragraphs's tabs, the text box tabs will update only if all text in the box is selected, even though a change to tabs for some text will affect all text in that box. Note that I am using the top box of the "Title Slide" layout, the box that has the "Click to add title" text when a new slide is created. It seems that this is a special box that has only one paragraph, so behavior appears strange, but may be acceptable, once all the dependancies are understood. Except for the lack of inheritance after the first text entry mode, as noted in this post. -- I hope that's not too confusing! I should change the subject of this to "Odd behavour" rather than "Unusable" since I've now figured out how to use them.
Reassigned.
I have seen that this issue is OOo m95 related and that the last entry was in May ... :( @illusion65: Have you tried this with a newer version of OOo like m100 or (better) m104? Does your problem occur there too? If not: Could you close this issue, please? Sorry, that I do not try to reproduce it, but I have not running Linux here ... ;)
I am on holiday in Borneo right now, so I cannot test it on newer versions. This is more of a "confusing" issue than a "defect", so maybe it's better to close the issue. I'll be back in about 10 days, so I'll try to isolate the issue more clearly then. -Doug
@illusion65: Have you tried to isolate the issue? And have you tested it with a newer version of OOo?
I believe other factors that initially clouded this issue were related to a slow degeneration of the program over hours of usage (things like the "Save" icon staying disabled even though changes have been made since the last save) - that's a much more serious issue, but I have not been able to replicate it and have not done hours of work in OOo since m95, so it may be gone. The disappearing tabs issue works for m109: To demonstrate, it may be easiest start from a new Impress slide or document: 1) New Presentation, make sure View Menu / Ruler checked (Ruler displayed). 2) Select "Title Slide" from the "Layouts" in the Task Pane. 3) Click on the "Click to add title" text: note that this selects the text box and places you in edit mode. 4) Exit "edit mode" but keep text box selected: move cursor near to (but not on) a green square outlining the text box; cursor should change to 4-way arrow (Drag icon); Left click to exit entry mode, should keep box selected. 5) With cursor in that position (showing the Drag icon), right click; select "Paragraph..."; then "Tabs" pane. Add some tabs (e.g. 1,3,5 cm or inches). Click "Ok" to dismiss dialog box. 6) Click on the "Click to add title" text again and note that the newly entered tabs appear in the Ruler. 7) Click outside to deselect box, Ruler tabs are cleared as they should be. 8) Repeat Step #6 again and note that tabs are no longer there. If you had entered text the first time entry mode was activated after defining the tabs (during step #6), then the tabs would still be there. I have tried several of these "Special" text boxes ("Click to add title", "Click to add text", Click to add outline"), and they all exhibit this behaviour. I suspect they are all the same code with specialised default formatting and text. Note that this is for the "Special" text boxes only and does not apply to the "Normal" Text boxes added by using the "T" icon on the "Drawing" toolbar. The latter behave as I would expect: Tabs set within the text box menu apply to all paragraphs in the box and each paragraph may be individually changed as needed. Those text box tabs will not disappear either, as described above. This is a small bug, but I hope that helps. Doug
This is not a bug but an enhacement. The Tabs are always 'left aligned'. When the text is not left aligned (centered or right) it looks like the text don't consider the tabs. All other programs I know have the same behaviour when the text is not left aligened. Therefore I don't know if or how we should change this behaviour.
Hi cgu, I'm not sure how your comment relates to this bug report -- this is not about text not responding to tab alignment settings and I don't think that this issue can really be rated an "Enhancement", but that's not my call. This bug report describes lost tab settings for the "Special" text boxes that are used by the various slide layouts in the Task Pane. These tabs are present if one sets them and then enters text into that box the next time edit mode is enabled for that box, but are lost if no text is entered during that 1st edit mode after setting them. Those tab settings no longer exist. I just checked on m122 (FreeBSD/i386) and the action is still there (see my previous comment for steps to reproduce). As I've said before, it's a small issue, but it had me struggling for a while to make sure tabs were set properly in a presentation I created. Doug
OpenOffice.org Issue Tracker - Feedback Request. The Issue you raised is currently assigned to 'Requirements' pending review, but has not been updated within the last 2+ 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
Configuration: - Ooo dev 3.3.0 DEV300m80 (build:9507) English - Windows 7 64-bit This issue still exists and can be reproduced using the steps outlined above. As the OP (original poster) says, the issue here is that Paragraph formatting (ie Tabs) created inside the "special" textbox get removed when the textbox loses focus, unless text is typed in before focus is lost. While reproducing this bug, I noticed that not only is the Paragraph formatting lost in this situation, but any other text formatting is also lost (ie Alignment, size, font, etc). I could log these all as separate bugs, but that seems like a waste of time. The face that formatting of various kinds is lost when the control loses focus (unless text is typed into the control first) suggests that either the loss or the gain of focus resets the control's formatting, which I feel is the real issue here. For example, here is an alternate set of steps which reproduce another loss of formatting when the "special" textbox loses focus - in this case, Text Alignment: 1) Create a new empty presentation in Impress. 2) Select the 'Title Slide' layout from the 'Tasks' pane. 3) Click anywhere in the 'Click to add Title' special textbox. 4) Notice that the cursor is sitting in the middle of the textbox, as the text formatting is set to 'Centered'. 5) Change the text formatting to 'Align Left' by clicking the 'Align Left' button on the 'Text Formatting' toolbar. You may have to make the 'Text Formatting' toolbar visible if it isn't already. 6) Notice that the cursor is now sitting on the left edge of the textbox. 7) Click off the textbox to remove focus. 8) Click on the 'Click to add Title' special text box again. 9) Notice that the text formatting for the textbox has been reset to 'Centered'. This issue should be switched back to "defect" from "enhancement".