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Hi 
I thought some people here might be interested in another new article about
LibreOffice. This one is in the Fedora Magazine;
https://fedoramagazine.org/discover-hidden-gems-libreoffice/
Inevitably there are some questions and such in the comments section below
the article.
Regards from
a Tom
​M​
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​den ​
Hi
I thought some people here might be interested in another new article about
LibreOffice. This one is in the Fedora Magazine;
https://fedoramagazine.org/discover-hidden-gems-libreoffice/Inevitably there are some questions and such in the comments section below
the article.
Regards from
a Tom> Hello everyone,
>
> I wrote an article about some new/lesser-known features in LibreOffice
> for Fedora Magazine, and included a short section on getting involved at
> the end:
>
> https://fedoramagazine.org/discover-hidden-gems-libreoffice/
>
> --
> Mike Saunders, Marketing & PR
> The Document Foundation
​Very useful ; thanks Mike and Tom !
Henri​
Hi
Thanks I didn't do anything except just re-post it from the marketing
list. I liked the article as it had a few things i hadn't known about.
Somewhere there is a wiki-page of useful snippets but idk where.
Regards from
a Tom
Perhaps rather foolishly I tried out the Notebookbar, but then discovered
that there appears to be no way back despite what is written in the
article. In the top right-hand corner there is a button, but it doesn't
appear to do anything.
I'm using 6.0.5.2 under Linux Mint 18.1.
Graham
Hi
Gahhh, i dunno! 
Any chance of recent updates to;
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
helps at all?
Apols and regards from
a Tom
Hi
So in the article it says;
*View > Toolbar Layout* and choose Notebookbar
But in order to get that option you have to tick the box for "*Enable
experimental features*" in
Tools - Options - Advanced
and then restart LibreOffice.
So hopefully either of those is able to get rid of the Notebookbar.
Hopefully the first way because then it should be easy to try it for a bit
another day.
Regards from
a Tom
Hi
Ok, last email on this for a while!
This wiki-page seems to be about the feature but i couldn't see any mention
of ohw to switch it off
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/NotebookBar
but prolly because i only skimmed it
Regards from
a Tom
​<snip>
> Hi
> So in the article it says;
> *View > Toolbar Layout* and choose Notebookbar
>
> But in order to get that option you have to tick the box for "*Enable
> experimental features*" in
> Tools - Options - Advanced
> and then restart LibreOffice.
>
> So hopefully either of those is able to get rid of the Notebookbar.
> Hopefully the first way because then it should be easy to try it for a
bit
> another day.
> Regards from
> a Tom
>
>
>
>
>> Hi
>> Gahhh, i dunno!
>> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
>> helps at all?
>>
>> Apols and regards from
>> a Tom
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Perhaps rather foolishly I tried out the Notebookbar, but then
discovered
>>> that there appears to be no way back despite what is written in the
>>> article. In the top right-hand corner there is a button, but it
doesn't
>>> appear to do anything.
>>>
>>> I'm using 6.0.5.2 under Linux Mint 18.1.
>>>
>>> Graham
​Tom, Graham :
Note the following passage in the article Mike posted to the *Fedora
Magazine*​ :
«... And to revert back to the regular interface, just go to *View >
Toolbar Layout > Default*.»
Worked for me on LO 6.0.5.2 running on Linux Mint 19....
Henri
I just tried it, too, and had the same problem of switching off the
notebookbar.
I found that there is more than one option for notebookbar. Some of them
allow you to retain the normal menu bar, but other do not. In my
experimentation, I clicked on one of the options that does *not* retain
the menu bar. Without the menu bar I was left only with the notebookbar
options and none of them included a way to get rid of it or get back to
normal.
I was in Impress at the time. I tried opening up Writer, which came up
with the standard menu/toolbar. I then clicked on "Tools", "Options",
"Advanced", and un-checked the box to allow experimental features. I
then saved my choice, closed LO and reopened it. However, when I
reopened Impress, I was still faced with the Notebookbar even though I
had unchecked the experimental features. I was afraid I was going to
have to rename my configuration folder, which I really didn't want to do.
So, then I clicked on "Tools", "Options", "Advanced" and then clicked on
"Open Expert Configuration." I am no expert and had never clicked on
this before, but stay with me on this.
When the expert configuration popped up, I did a search for
"notebookbar". From within the results of the search, I scrolled down to
see, "org.openoffice.Office.UI.Notebookbar:Application["Impress"]" Below
that line were various preferences that could be changed. I looked in
the "Property" column and found several that read "HasMenubar". Some
said "true" for the value, but most said "false". I took the "true"
value to mean that the menu bar would be available with those particular
notebookbars. So I clicked on every preference line that read
"HasMenubar" so that its value switched to "true".
After doing that, I pressed OK and restarted LO. This time, when I
opened Impress, I was again faced with the NoteBookbar, but the normal
menu bar was also available. I was then able to go into "View", "Toolbar
Layout" and turn off the notebookbar.
So much for trying experimental functions.
I will say that, while I was playing with the notebookbar, I didn't see
any real advantage to it. Under the default menu/toolbar system, the
user can find all functions through the menu and then use toolbars for
single-click shortcuts. With the notebookbar (like MS's Ribbon) the
menus and toolbars are combined, meaning that, for many of the
functions, one must use multiple clicks through tabs and options within
tabs to find the desired function. It certainly isn't any faster than
the old-style system, although I imagine that, over time, I could grow
to appreciate the organization of it.
Virgil
Hi
Wow!! Good find! Also thanks for leading us through the "Expert"
configuration. It sounds a bit like "about:config" in firefox. A bit
scary but kinda possible.
Something i never think of until after it is tooo late is to make a copy of
my user-profile BEFORE playing around, or at some point where i'm
more-or-less happy with how things work. I guess it's partly because i'm
never completely happy. I just know there are tons of config options that
i can never quite remember but that i really should tweak because some
years ago i found a tweak or two that i liked but i never get around to
because the defaults are plenty good enough.
Regards from
a Tom
Thanks for this. I tried it and got back to the default menu bar.
Graham
Looking at this again, when all the settings are set to "true" both the
default toolbar and the notebook toolbars are there, which sort of negates
the point of having the notebook bar. Presumably the "falses" are there so
that the default and notebook toolbars are alternatives except that it
don't work that way. I am still puzzled by the comment in the article that
there is a button in the top right-hand corner when the notebook toolbar is
used which enables one to get back to the default toolbar. There is indeed
a button there, but it doesn't appear to do anything. I wonder if there
isn't a switch somewhere that needs to be set to turn this on.
Graham
I tried the Notebookbar after looking at the Fedora article. It worked
just as advertised and I managed to return to default using the '3 small
horizontal lines' icon on the rhs of the ribbon. I was using LO 6.0.0.2
(I think)
I wasn't impressed by the Notebookbar - it seems to be variations on a
theme started by MS some years ago and immediately followed by some
other software houses just like it was the fashion of the day. The
introduction of the ribbon by Avid Sibelius raised howls of protest from
the veteran users of Sibelius - but that's just because we're mostly
very conservative and don't like change.
Yesterday, I upgraded LO to 6.0.5.2 and took the opportunity to recheck
Notebookbar. Out of the 6 variants, the first 2 'Contextual Groups' and
'Contextual Simple' don't show the little icon. The next 2 variants,
'Tabbed' and 'Tabbed Compact' do show the icon.
The last two, 'Grouped bar full' and 'Group bar compact' don't show the
icon BUT they do have an item at the far right called 'Menu' which has a
drop down which allows you to toggle on the Menu Bar - and to select
the different variants of Notebookbar.
The number of combinations seem to be numerous. I may have missed a
combination but it seemed to me that although I could turn off the
regular MenuBar in the Grouped Bar full and compact variants, it still
appeared in the 2 tabbed variants.
This ribbon seems good to pass away a few spare minutes. For a new user,
it may provide something of interest but I think I'll stay with the old
menu bar.
Philip
My observations and sentiments exactly.
Virgil
​<snip>
Agree with Philip above about retaining the old toolbar layout - one could,
of course, learn the «ribbon»​, but why bother - especially when it is more
complicated to use and doesn't seem to provide any advantages. But I do
think it's worthwhile experimenting with and it's easy to get back to the
default toolbar layout, så long as the menubar is shown (which it is by
defautl ; if one doesn't see it in the ribbon view, click the settings icon
(the three horizontal lines) at the upper right and check the alternative))
just click there on View → Toolbar Layout and choose Default....
Henri
Hi
A lot of normal users see the normal menu and icon-bar as being old and
arrive at the conclusion that LibreOffice is old.
The 'new' ribbon-bar / Notebookbar will probably help reduce barriers to
migrating people away from MS Office. It prolly needs a lot more polish
because it's the first appearance of this feature. I've still not seen it
myself so i'm just guessing.
The ribbon-bar in MS Office also does nothing to make it easier to use and
several iterations of it have just made it harder to figure-out where
things might be. It also seems to reduce the amount of space for the
document itself. However it looks shiny and glossy and kinda new so a lot
of people prefer it and think the clunkiness is their own fault for not
having learnt how to use MS Office more profficiently.
Personally i prefer normal menus because if i click on the wrong one i can
just slide the mouse arrow along to open each menu in turn. Sometimes
something unexpected catches my eye and i maybe give it a try one day so it
helps me learn too. The ribbon-bar doesn't allow for such exploration.
So i am glad the Notepadbar exists and i hope to try it and show it off as
soon as i can put Facebook aside for a moment!
Regards from
a Tom
​I suspect​ you're right, Tom - even if I'm not sure what a «normal user»
would be - some people are indeed convinced that everything that is new is
necessarily better, even if, as you point out «[t]he ribbon-bar in MS
Office also does nothing to make it easier to use» - quite the contrary,
for many users with whom I've come in contact. But I think the developers
are wise to explore this path, in order to win over users who for some
reason feel that such an interface is more «modern»....
What I hope they will *not* do, however, is remove support for the standard
toolbar layout at some future date if it seems that a large number of new
users are adopting the ribbon ; I hope they will recognise that
maintaining the standard toolbar layout for us old dogs who don't always
choose to learn new tricks to be worthwhile.... 
Henri
This is all very well, but on my system (6.0.5.2 under Linux Mint 18.1) the
settings icon does not work which means that I can get back to the default
only by changing the Notebooktoolbar settings. Also the menubar is not
shown by default - again this requires changes to the Notebooktoolbar
settings.
Graham
Hi
Hopefully 'just' teething problems that will be ironed out fairly quickly,
inshalla.
Were you able to follow the route;
Tools - Options - Advanced - Expert
and then search for relevant options to get the main top menu back again?
Regards from
a Tom
​<snip>​
​Odd. On my setup - *nota bene*, with Expert enabled - with the standard
layout enabled, I don't see the settings icon, but when i have the Notebook
layout enabled, the icon is visible and clicking it gives me the option to
enable the menubar, from which I can then proceed to return to the standard
layout. We are both running LO 6.0.5.2 (in my case, the 64-bit version) on
Linux Mint, and I find it difficult to believe the fact that I'm using a
more recent version of LM (19.0) than you are or that my LO is the Swedish
edition can explain the differences we seem to experience. Perhaps a
developer could be enticed to weigh in ?...
Henri​