Revision as of 20:44, 18 March 2009

Usability Issues at Daily Work with OpenOffice.org

This page is under construction.

I'm working with (and spreading the word about) OpenOffice.org at work and found some issues that make it harder to work with the applications as it should be. I talked with Frank Loehmann from the User Experience Team a few times - thank you for your sympathetic ear, Frank! Also I reported most of the issues at IssueZilla. I hope this wiki page will call more attention to these issues and maybe some developers will fix it in the future.

Full List of Issues

• 3545 Easier Cropping and rotating of images (in Writer)
• 10459 Template Association (apply templates to existing documents)
• 10865 Moving/Copying - Single-Cell using click-n-drag
• 12989 Allow Page Templates to be linked
• 15530 Default filename for PDF export
• 18771 MSInteroperability-18: watermarks
• 20073 Q-PCD Enhance usability of the OpenOffice.org Template Manager
• 22405 An easy way to create watermarks with text
• 32141 manual page break with style change in masterdocument ignored
• 49754 loading pragraph styles removes outline numbering (FIXED 3.1)
• 52783 change templates for a document
• 64484 Option to remove all hard formatting controls from the UI (my issue)
• 65055 Keep small bullets as default in old documents (like sxw) (my issue)
• 73060 Multple Data Sources in one Database File
• 80664 Implement Language Control for Draw/Impress Status Bar
• 80665 Implement Language Control for Calc Status Bar
• 85076 Calc won't print/preview documents containing only cell borders (maybe patch for 3.2)
• 88714 Find & Replace: keep the "More Options" dialog open when item is selected (my issue)
• 88716 Page Up and Page Down doesn't scroll a full page the first time (my issue)
• 88718 Show quantity of selected cells in the "Name Box" of the Formula Bar (my issue)
• 90173 Icons of the new Startcenter should be grayed out when loading a document (my issue)
• 91001 Side-by-side view with synchronous scrolling (my issue)
• 92154 show accept/reject comments as notes
• 93938 Calc loses selected range in a sheet when going to another sheet (my issue)
• 94285 Writer crashes when applying template page break styles to document (my issue)
• 94809 Copying column to another with different width doesn't reposition pictures correctly (my issue)
• 95647 Allow to start presentation in fullscreen and window modes from ActiveX control
• 97150 Bookmarks not visible if Windows task bar is higher than standard and with second monitor (my issue)
• 97151 Space between paragraphs filled with paragraph background color (my issue)
• 97364 Page numbering should not be touched from paragraph style in (my issue)
• 99536 Scaling factor slider lacks displaying factor number (my issue)
• 99955 [german] Update warning without scrollbar (my issue)
• 99963 Wrap with text in line missing (my issue)
• 100262 "Restart Numbering" on first list item not preserved (my issue)
• 100263 Highlight more than 32 cells in Calc (my issue)

Serious Usability Issues

Issue 3545 Easier Cropping and rotating of images (application: Writer)

It's very common that people want to edit images that they fit into the page structure. My collegues do that every day (with MS Word). Copying the image into Draw, cropping it, and copying it back to Writer is not a solution! The solution in Draw should be available in Writer too. I read in the Issue that OD is working on that maybe for OOo 3.2.

Issue 10865 Moving/Copying - Single-Cell using click-n-drag (application: Calc)

The current behavior of moving/copying one cell using the mouse is not intuitive (click on a cell, hold the mouse button and move the cursor to another cell, go back to the first cell and loose the mouse button; then move the cell to another position in the sheet). Some people said that patents hold back the implementation of a solution for this issue. Is there no workaround for this patent(s) possible?

Issue 85076 Calc won't print/preview documents containing only cell borders (application: Calc)

Very bad impact of a modification of the Calc print preview long time ago.

Issue 88714 Find & Replace: keep the "More Options" dialog open when item is selected (application: Calc)

If you use the "Find & Replace" dialog and if you select an item of "More Options" (backwards, regular expressions, etc.), next time you open the "F&R" dialog the "More Options" part will be not shown - but the item will be still selected.

It is not visible to the user that the "More Options" item is still selected, so it can (and will) be forgotten. Therefore the user can't find what s/he wants and doesn't know why.

Suggestion: When opening the "Find & Replace" dialog, keep the whole dialog open as long as an item of the "More Options" part is selected.

• 88718 Show quantity of selected cells in the "Name Box" of the Formula Bar (application: Calc)
• 93938 Calc loses selected range in a sheet when going to another sheet (application: Calc)
• 94285 Writer crashes when applying template page break styles to document (application: Writer)
• 94809 Copying column to another with different width doesn't reposition pictures correctly (application: Calc)
• 97151 Space between paragraphs filled with paragraph background color (application: Writer)
• 99536 Scaling factor slider lacks displaying factor number (application: Calc)

Non-serious Usability Issues

• 15530 Default filename for PDF export (application: all applications)
• 18771 MSInteroperability-18: watermarks (application: Writer)
• 20073 Q-PCD Enhance usability of the OpenOffice.org Template Manager (application: Writer)
• 22405 An easy way to create watermarks with text (application: Writer)
• 64484 Option to remove all hard formatting controls from the UI (application: all applications)
• 80664 Implement Language Control for Draw/Impress Status Bar (application: Draw, Impress)
• 80665 Implement Language Control for Calc Status Bar (application: Calc)
• 88716 Page Up and Page Down doesn't scroll a full page the first time (application: Writer)
• 91001 Side-by-side view with synchronous scrolling (application: Writer)
• 92154 show accept/reject comments as notes (application: Writer)
• 95647 Allow to start presentation in fullscreen and window modes from ActiveX control (application: Impress)
• 97364 Page numbering should not be touched from paragraph style in (application: Writer)
• 99955 [german] Update warning without scrollbar (application: all applications)

Other serious Issues

• 32141 manual page break with style change in masterdocument ignored (application: Writer)
• 73060 Multple Data Sources in one Database File (application: Base)

Other non-serious Issues

• 10459 Template Association (apply templates to existing documents) (application: Writer)
• 12989 Allow Page Templates to be linked (application: Writer)
• 52783 change templates for a document (application: Writer)
• 65055 Keep small bullets as default in old documents (like sxw) (application: Writer)
• 90173 Icons of the new Startcenter should be grayed out when loading a document (application: all applications)
• 97150 Bookmarks not visible if Windows task bar is higher than standard and with second monitor (application: Writer)
• 99963 Wrap with text in line missing (application: Writer)