Bug 153777 - FLUID page number indication option: on / off
Summary: FLUID page number indication option: on / off
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.6.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
: 158526 159921 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Statusbar
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2023-02-21 20:53 UTC by peter josvai
Modified: 2024-05-06 14:00 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
viewing a document "in between" pages (146.87 KB, image/png)
2023-04-14 12:12 UTC, peter josvai
Details

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Description peter josvai 2023-02-21 20:53:53 UTC
hi,

I appreciate the new page number indication system...
I was surprised, so intelligent!

but it's not that good on the long run.

It is good in that people don't have to place their cursor in the document in order to see where that page is... 

But it's not so good when two pages are on the screen...

cause you'll read the info like this:

"pages 3 and 4 of 4"

this will always require a second glance at the screen..

when someone is rushing over 100 pages... cool..

but when you're writing those 100 pages, its not so cool anymore...

including that you have endnotes, too...

and your mind is simply incapable of keeping in memory all 2 data:

if you have or don't have endnotes (already)
if you are viewing the upper or lower part of the screen at the very moment...

and then, you'll have to decide if 3 or 4 is your actual number...
EVERY time..

instead of an indication, it gives you two numbers to choose from, basically :)


it would be good if the fluid feature could be toggle switched... on / off

but I'm sure this will (again) fit 90% of the users, so, maybe people who actually write, using Writer, should adapt to the masses, cause it would be unfair the other way around -- wouldn't it?
Comment 1 Dieter 2023-03-06 21:10:26 UTC
Peter, just for clarification: It's about the page numbers in status bar, correct? But I don't see the problem. Could you please specify or add a sample document, that makes it more clear? Thank you.

=> NEEDINFO
Comment 2 peter josvai 2023-04-14 12:12:55 UTC
Created attachment 186664 [details]
viewing a document "in between" pages
Comment 3 peter josvai 2023-04-14 12:19:23 UTC
(In reply to Dieter from comment #1)

hi Dieter, 

yes, the number in the status bar,

and the problem is: difficult access to info,
(I attached a screen capture for illustration...)



it should be direct access to the page number, but we don't have it...
we have to examine the document, and examine the number(s)...

cause it is now 1 number, and now two...

now it is "page 1"
now it is "pages 1 and 2"...

in the latter case, you mind will correct its first reading...

"1"... "no, two"... 


you don't see the problem...
but I don't see what was the problem that made this change necessary or even desirable :)

I seems that the intelligence of the "user" is being really lowly estimated these days... 
I mean, what could happen in the worst case? :)
"OMG, I thought it was page 7 but it's page 8 cause I scrolled further"?

I don't think this is a great threat :) 

In contrast to this, 
when you want to see where you're at, especially when writing... 
it is an annoyance that instead of direct access to the info you've got to correct your first reading...

Yes, you've gotto correct it... and gotto read is twice...

cause "pages 1 and two" reads as 
"page 1, no, page 2, page 1 and 2"...

And this is not all...
"page 2" of a 15 page long document reads as
"page 2 and ... 15, what?, oh, okay, page 2 clearly"

cause when you see two numbers your mind will adapt and "add 1"...
"pages 1 and 2" will mean "2"
so, page 2 will read 
"3, oh no, only 2 cause it's a full page" :)

now you have to add 1, now you don't ...


.............

BUT forget all these details...

let's focus on accessing info
if it could be done directly, in 1 step, it is preferable then having to do it in 2 steps... I mean, that's what I think...


BUT the improvement has happened, and I'm sure there's no way back...
that's why I think this should be improved so it would finally nearly as much sense as before :)

in the next comment I'll list my suggestions
Comment 4 peter josvai 2023-04-14 13:06:10 UTC
(In reply to Dieter from comment #1) 
my second reply with suggestions on how to improve the new functionality...


1. it would be great if this could be turned off in preferences


2. also, if only 1 page number would be displayed when the cursor is within view... 

(I mean, the "user" knows exactly where s/he is at, and when looking at the page number s/he'll want to get that number..)


3. some alternative message format could be used... 

for example:

"Pages: 1, 2"

"Pages: (1) 2"

the colon is a good separator :) they "eye" learns to jump over to the number
Comment 5 QA Administrators 2023-04-15 03:27:22 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 Dieter 2023-04-25 06:58:50 UTC
Peter, thank you for clarification. Let's ask design-team. We should also take into account bug 90150. Personally I don't see a need for a change.
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2023-04-25 09:01:33 UTC
We could change the label to "Page 1-2 of 3" or "Page 1-4 of 5", dropping the many variants and making the text a bit more concise. Does it look better?
Comment 8 Jim Raykowski 2023-04-26 06:26:09 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7)
> We could change the label to "Page 1-2 of 3" or "Page 1-4 of 5", dropping
> the many variants and making the text a bit more concise. Does it look
> better?
Using a dash is the way it was originally implemented:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/attachment.cgi?id=179177

Suggestion that gave change to current behavior:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90150#c14

Concern at end of comment here may be the same as Peter's.
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90150#c17
Comment 9 Heiko Tietze 2023-05-11 07:06:51 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting.

The statusbar gives a precise feedback of the current _view_ (not the page where the cursor is; MSO does and we may consider it too) and reading "1 and 2 of 3" is easy to understand. So the decision is to keep the current implementation.
Comment 10 Heiko Tietze 2024-05-06 13:59:29 UTC
*** Bug 159921 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Heiko Tietze 2024-05-06 14:00:57 UTC
*** Bug 158526 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***