Bug 160234 - The number of constraints visible in the Solver dialog should increase to 6 (instead of current 4) and shouldn't use "infinite scroll"
Summary: The number of constraints visible in the Solver dialog should increase to 6 (...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.8.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
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Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Solver
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Reported: 2024-03-16 21:30 UTC by Rafael Lima
Modified: 2024-03-25 05:09 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Rafael Lima 2024-03-16 21:30:30 UTC
Currently the solver dialog can only show 4 constraints at once (in the Limiting Conditions area). However, it's common for linear models to have more constraints than that.

It would be nice to increase this number to 6... this would fit most of the solver models without having to scroll up and down.

A related improvement would be to show the number of constraints of the model somewhere in the dialog. Something like "Showing constraints 1 to 6 of 8". This way the user would have a better notion of the model size as well as what's being shown.

Also, the dialog allows to scroll down infinitely, which does not make much sense. We could stop scrolling right before the last constraint goes out of view.
Comment 1 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2024-03-23 07:05:59 UTC
I trust you on common use-cases for the solver, and I agree that the current UI should be improved. E.g. try this:
- go to the "bottom" of the list of constraints with the scrollbar
- fill in that last row
- scroll again to the top
- try to find that bottom constraint

2 issues, in my opinion:
- the user shouldn't be able to leave empty constraints
- the Calc-style "infinite scroll" means that bottom row is had to find again because new empty rows are added after it

I would prefer the following:
- as suggested by Rafael: a sensible default number of empty rows, with dialog high enough to show them (as long as it fits the minimal recommended screen size);
- beyond those first 6 rows, a [+] button to add more rows (i.e. no ever-expanding scroll)

UX/Design team, opinion?

Version: 24.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 53c5d570cab036b23f4969b858a648c8f0c24f93
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 6.5; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 2 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2024-03-24 07:01:26 UTC
...also, that infinite scroll affects the range picker somehow, which makes it look quite buggy. Same in gtk3 and win VCL plugins. Setting back to "normal" instead of "enhancement" because of that.
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2024-03-25 05:09:53 UTC
The dialog has a good proportion right now and while adding more (empty) entries sounds good it has an impact on design. OTOH, indentation and spacing is not according the book anyway.

The scrollbar is a hack. Its thumb size changes with the position (24.2, kf5) but no actual scrolling happens. I guess it just simulates scroll behavior. If the total number of items wont remain in a reasonable amount I see no reason to not go with just a GtkScrolledWindow.

And no objections to numbers, could be a first column labeled "#" or "ID".