Bug 34398 - Writer HELP: add tooltips to FORMATTING of tables changing borders of cells
Summary: Writer HELP: add tooltips to FORMATTING of tables changing borders of cells
Status: ASSIGNED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version: 3.3.0 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: sophie
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-02-17 07:47 UTC by sasha.libreoffice
Modified: 2013-12-06 10:07 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Description sasha.libreoffice 2011-02-17 07:47:31 UTC
When I working with tables in Writer, I often change borders for cells. But it is hard to understand how to do it.

I select some cells, open dialog Table Format, on it tab Borders. Then appears "User defined" on left. There are some bars that represent borders of cells. When clicking on it bars become black, grey, white, with dotted border or without it, with arrows on ends or without. But no tool-tips to explain, what it means. And help not explains it. And when I change border of cell, I can not delete it from adjacent cell. I now, that it is feature of Libre and Open Office, but for other people it is not so easy.

Please, do it more understandable, descriptive and demonstrative. To beginner more easy to use. Add tool-tips and more help with pictures about changing borders in cells in Writer.
Comment 1 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2011-03-19 07:33:42 UTC
After having read the report, I did several tests. My first impression was that UI here really is hard to understand, and also my experience seemed to say that UI for table borders might be a little crude.

But the longer I tested, the better I understood the system, and now everything seems crystal clear to me, and I do not have any idea how to improve UI, except, may be, by a possibility to select borders by mouseclick directly in the table.

@sasha:
Can you contribute some hints how that could be improved? Also, for example how competitors do it in a better way?
Comment 2 sasha.libreoffice 2011-03-21 01:29:56 UTC
UI itself is OK. But in Help is almost no explanations. No screenshots with explanations what it UI means and how use it. And no tooltips in UI itself. User can understad how use borders only experimentally. By trying many variants.
Therefore new users can not use all abilities of this powerful interface because lack of documentations and explanations.
Comment 3 sasha.libreoffice 2011-03-29 05:17:52 UTC
Using function find in Help I found this:
User Defined Borders in Text Documents
it is explanation which is needed. But I can not find any link to this place. Therefore needed only link from page about table to this page. And from some other pages too.
And some tooltips my be useful in dialog window itself.
Comment 4 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2011-07-19 09:06:35 UTC
On <http://help.libreoffice.org/Writer/Inserting_Tables> I now see a link to 
<http://help.libreoffice.org/Writer/User_Defined_Borders_in_Text_Documents>, in  LOCALHELP I get the corresponding page with 1 more click from the page I reach with the Help button from the dialog, it seems there has been some improvement. If nobody objects I will close this bug as WFM.
Comment 5 sasha.libreoffice 2011-08-02 03:14:07 UTC
Thanks for improvements. It will more handy to use Writer.
But I propose 2 improvement:
add tooltip to "User-defined" field
add link to this page in in local help in bottom of page of help (among other 4 links), so it will duplicate link from inside of text
Comment 6 Björn Michaelsen 2011-12-23 11:47:01 UTC
[This is an automated message.]
This bug was filed before the changes to Bugzilla on 2011-10-16. Thus it
started right out as NEW without ever being explicitly confirmed. The bug is
changed to state NEEDINFO for this reason. To move this bug from NEEDINFO back
to NEW please check if the bug still persists with the 3.5.0 beta1 or beta2 prereleases.
Details on how to test the 3.5.0 beta1 can be found at:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugHunting_Session_3.5.0.-1

more detail on this bulk operation: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/RFC-Operation-Spamzilla-tp3607474p3607474.html
Comment 7 Björn Michaelsen 2011-12-23 17:01:55 UTC
needinfo keyword redundant by needinfo status.
Comment 8 sasha.libreoffice 2012-01-20 01:41:10 UTC
Please, add 2 improvements:
- add tooltip to "User-defined" field (Properties of table, tab "Borders")
- add link to this page in in local help in bottom of page of help (among other 4
links), so it will duplicate link from inside of text (for all useful links will collected in one place)
Comment 9 A (Andy) 2013-05-08 20:51:12 UTC
@Andras: Could you maybe take a look at this?
Comment 10 sophie 2013-09-15 09:54:19 UTC
Assigned to me - Sophie


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