Is a blunder a bug?

users
#1

List Ahoy:

As the subject line suggests, this report is not of a secretive bug, discovered by happenstance.

Under LO 4.3.6.2, and 4.0.6.2 (portable), Curtains 7/64 bit, on the "Tools" pull-down menu, there are 2 (count them: two) entries that start with "A":

"AutoCorrect Options" and "Address Book Source".

Although the initial A is underlined in both cases, neither can be selected by keystroke, due to the obvious ambiguity.

As far as I can tell, only the rodent can advance the user in this context.

OO 3.2.1 and 4.1.1 do not have the "Address Book Source" item on their "Tools" menus, and so a simple A works there for AutoCorrect. That leads one to presume that the LO Address Book item was spatchcocked onto pre-existing OO code, without much thought being given.

It is hard to imagine that this defect, of long-standing, is unknown in higher circles, and so the presumption must be that there is not much interest in it, at least not as contrasted with more urgent concerns.

I propose posting a bug, however futile, for form's sake, and am soliciting any comments that might rescue me from a potential embarrassment.

trj

#2

Interesting observation, I'd never noticed. It's not quite true that neither can be selected by keystroke. Both can be selected, one at a time, by typing A repeatedly, and entering Return invokes the one that is currently selected.

I don't know if it's intentional. A bug report might be appropriate, or an enhancement request. Or a discussion here about what people prefer, one more keystroke or a less obvious shortcut key.

#3

Hello marianne-x,

Although the initial A is underlined in both cases, neither can be
selected by keystroke, due to the obvious ambiguity.
As far as I can tell, only the rodent can advance the user in this
context.

As a result of tests here, I concur with Robert's findings; Pressing A
toggles between "Address Book Source" & "AutoCorrect Options" - then
<Return> selects whichever is highlighted. Maybe the highlighting is
too subtle with your chosen colour palette or because of, possibly,
shortcomings with the display device, IDK (just putting it out there).
As "Address Book Source" is only displayed when in LO Writer perhaps it
should have its choice letter changed.

To my way of thinking, this isn't a bug per se, because both can be
chosen without resorting to mouse, albeit with extra key presses, so
you'd have to create a 'bug' report with a status of 'enhancement' or
'feature request' to get the selection letter changed.

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
Yeh, i think that is the sort of thing that normal users would call a bug
but it doesn't cause anything to crash or leak memory or anything like that
(at least that is not the main problem) = so i think post as a "feature
request" using the drop-downs in the bug-reporting system.
Good luck!
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

Hello everyone,

Thank you for bringing clarity to this issue. I have 2 suggestions at this stage :

* ensure there is no existing bug/rfe report already filed for this topic before filing your existing report

* try to follow up on this with our design team or ask someone here willing to do it. As it looks to me this is an User Experience problem and not a developer one. The design team may want to jump in then.

Best,

Charles.

#6

@trj, *,

Actually there is no issue with the repetition in this case as these
Accelerators in Writer module (as opposed to Short-cuts *) do not have any
conflicting actions. Another example of a benign configuration is on the
main Tools -> Options menu where in English we have Appearance,
Accessibility and Advanced--since they are single action buttons as in this
post, they cause no issue.

But, for an example of a conflicting assignment (e.g. multiple accelerators
assigned, to split lists) see tdf#65021
<https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65021> --in that case
"C" is assigned as accelerators to three different split list menu items.

So, there is no blunder or bug--in this instance--but there is always the
potential and why we appreciate active participation in the QA process so
any actual issues can be identified early in a release cycle and rectified.

Stuart

*Accelerators are adjusted during i18n Pootle translations. Shortcuts are
hard coded and non-language dependent.

#7

V Stuart Foote wrote:

But, for an example of a conflicting assignment (e.g. multiple accelerators
assigned, to split lists) see tdf#65021
<https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=65021> --in that case
"C" is assigned as accelerators to three different split list menu items.

I was going to say that can be worked around by using the left-arrow key to close the sub menu, but there's still a problem in that case... e.g.:
   press "C"; Change Case menu opens
   press left arrow; Change Case menu closes
   press "C"; Cell menu opens
   press left arrow; Cell menu closes
   press "C"; Change Case menu opens; it is not possible to select "Caption" even after closing the sub-menus which open

Perhaps this should work similarly to the menu bar when there are conflicting accelerators, where pressing the letter highlights each menu item in turn without opening/activating it, and pressing Enter opens/activates the highlighted item.

Mark.