https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151710
--- Comment #17 from Stéphane Guillou (stragu) <[email protected]> --- (fixing up my comment above) (In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #15) > It is a bad idea for LibreOffice to have this feature. That is, it's not > just not-useful, it is detrimental for the application for it to exist. I > will explain why that is the case, and then request that this bug be closed > as NOTABUG. If people agree with your point, it should be "won't fix" rather than "not a bug". > First, let us note that that no Office suite (AFAICT) has such a button, or > command. Also, no text editor (that I know of) has such a command. I am also > not aware of IDEs which have such a command. Why do you think that is, even > in applications that are focused entirely on text rather than on styling, > formatting, tables, frames, pages etc.? RStudio has the default setting of enclosing selected text with the pressed enclosing character key, at least for parentheses, square brackets, curly braces and quotes. I am sure others have that too. > One reason is that this is text-entry functionality. And in text editors, we > use the keyboard to enter text. If you look at the Writer toolbars, you'll > not find a single button whose function is to enter text (with the exception > of 'Special Character', which is for what you can't type in). We do not want > to encourage users to click buttons instead of typing text. We do have various commands that replace characters or enter extra characters into a text document: case-changing commands, autocorrect, autotext, spellcheck... > Now, it's true that it involvements entering text at two points, but it's > still just entering two characters. The effort of selecting the text, then > pressing this button or shortcut, is roughly the same as reaching its > beginning, adding the '(', navigating to the end and adding the ')'. Even if > you have the text pre-selected somehow, the workflow is: cut the selection, > enter '(', paste, enter ')'. Faster than picking up the mouse, finding a > toolbar button, pressing the button and letting go of the mouse. My opinion would be to not have a button by default for this feature, but instead have a setting that can be turned off or on to "automatically enclose selected text with (brackets|braces|parentheses|quotes)". This is the refocus recommended by Heiko after it was on the UX agenda, in comment 3, and I think the summary should be changed accordingly. > Also note, that once we have a parentheses-enclosing command, we would be > hard-pressed to reject a curly-brackets-enclosing command. And other kinds > of brackets. And a command for applying double quotation marks. And single > quotation marks. And the list will go on. Let us not start down this path. This is a slippery slope argument, I don't think it's fair. > A second reason - and perhaps an even more important one - is that > encourages grammatical overuse and misuse of parentheses. [...] > we do not want to encourage the use of parentheses! > Also, parentheses enclosing a larger piece of text - a multi-line sentence > or so - are a problem regardless of frequently. It's like someone talking to > you who suddenly start a different conversation, without any warning they've > gone off on a tangent. [...] I believe this is subjective and reductive of the variety of writing styles that exist. I have read books in which authors make use of ellipsis of that kind very frequently. It might not be your preferred style, but I don't think it's our role to influence that. So to recap my opinion: this project should refocus on the _optional_ option to have enclosing characters like parentheses, brackets, braces and quotes be added automatically at beginning and end of a selection when one of those character keys is pressed + there is a text selection. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
