Revision as of 14:46, 7 October 2010

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Read Only files should be open in R/W mode

In OOo, read only files are open in a Read Only mode, where a lot of actions are not possible. Even though it sounds logical, it's useless and creates many different problems.

UX drawbacks

Read only files are quite frequent, for instance when you open an attachment from the preview pane in Outlook. Even if you don't want to save the document, you'll probably need to perform operations that will be considered as modifications (like filtering data in a spreadsheet, modifying width of columns, etc.)

Which UX advantages?

I can't think of any advantages for this behaviour. I assume there must be some for some niche situations, and it would be good to identify them to address them properly.

Code complexity

• Apparently, it also brings more complexity to the code, as for every UI feature, you have to handle two cases (RW / RO)

• "Edit File" function is buggy.

Proposed behaviour

The correct behaviour should be to open the file normally, and to propose a "Save As" action when the "Save" icon or file menu entry is chosen (and proposing the original file name).

Focus under MS Windows XP

When opening an OOo file from a message in Outlook, it opens often in background. A significant amount of users then believe, that the file is not open.

Strangely, an issue seems to report the opposite i113902

(two other issues are actually Linux only : i108696 i110545

See also i105167

PDF generated by OOo are printed upside down when "Autorotate and center" option is checked" in PDF readers

This is very problematic when printing several pages on one sheet or merging an OOo PDF with other PDFs.

This option is checked by default and is actually necessary most of the time. Happens with Acrobat Reader, Foxit reader, etc.