As you know, LibreOffice 4.1 contains an experimental sidebar. It can be activated by enabling the option in Tools > Options > LibreOffice/Advanced > Enable experimental sidebar After that, you need to restart LibreOffice, and currently *bam* things look exactly like before you closed LibreOffice, since you still have to unhide the sidebar via View > Sidebar I have the feeling that we should try to remove the last step here, since it is a bit frustrating to have to enable this feature twice to try it.
Just the opposite. The View > Sidebar should remain the activation control for the Sidebar. It is the "Enable experimental sidebar" check box that should ultimately be dropped *when* ESC declares the Sidebar feature fully implemented and accepted into LibreOffice. In the mean time--the double activation--to show the View > Sidebar menu item, while a bit of a nuisance seems appropriate.
Stuart – you misunderstood me (no wonder, though, given how I articulated myself). I was only arguing that the "View > Sidebar" toggle should default to being on, when you have already enabled the toggle in the Options dialogue. And of course, the Options toggle should go some day (soonish).
Stefan, Kind of think behavior of the Sidebar should follow other major framed panels that pop-up when menu selected, or activate with an accelerator key--but that are off by default. Having Sidebar active by default for all components, as upstream AOO has done, is not my preference for UX.
Hi, Well it's more of an issue of people wanting to try the sidebar in 4.1 – but it won't immediately be available, which will frustrate them, etc. I'd really like to avoid this bug report/support question. Also, if we do decide that the sidebar should become an integral part of LibreOffice UX (and I don't we have done that yet) – it will have to be on by default. Frankly it doesn't take a lot of space either (30px?), as long as it's collapsed. Also, in a way, I'd equate the collapsed sidebar to the turned-off panels you mentioned.
It does not make sense to me that one need to tick two check boxes located in wildly different places in order to enable the Sidebar.
(In reply to comment #5) > It does not make sense to me that one need to tick two check boxes located > in wildly different places in order to enable the Sidebar. The Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice -> Advanced check box will likely be dropped once Sidebar is accepted as more than an experimental feature. So only the View -> Sidebar to select or unselect would remain if it is accepted and moves forward--likely. (In reply to comment #4) @Stephan, > Also, if we do decide that the sidebar should become an integral part of > LibreOffice UX (and I don't we have done that yet) – it will have to be on > by default. Really? Seems to behave fine when enabled, but not selected--or when selected but not shown. And upstream in AOO, while enabled by default--has no problems when not selected from menu. So why would it have to be on by default? > Frankly it doesn't take a lot of space either (30px?), as long > as it's collapsed. Probably less than that with the Show & Hide edge buttons as implemented. But Sidebar currently does not have to be selected active. Do you think we need to move toward setting active by default? In either case, the underlying menus and panels don't go away, they just have alternative GUI delivery consolidated onto the sidebar.
Commit by Kendy: "Enable sidebar by default when the Experimental Sidebar is put to 'on'." http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=114edb760079ca6ad0791db30c75394cf6f634e9