It would be useful to know directly from formatting marks (aids) what is the anchoring type of each content. Originally, this idea came from the observation that changing the anchoring type to “As Character” draws a thin greyish frame around images and charts. Additionally, we cannot disable that frame (so I was worried that content pasted from MS Word are mistreated in this way). So, I think it's good to combine the displaying of this frame with “Toggle Formatting Marks” (Ctrl+F10) function. But now, as it is, it still would be worrisome for us when we want to disable the frame in options by changing borders style to “- none -”. Furthermore, it does not provide any changes because we are unaware that this is connected with formatting aids. This line disappears only in the print preview. 1) The minimal solution is just to disable these kinds of borders. 2) The second is to add to this border some shape for distinction and aggregate it with the colour of formatting markers “¶” (e.g. squares, arrows, or angle bars on edges). 3) The developmental solution would be to design these kinds of markers for each type of anchoring.
Created attachment 187208 [details] tdf#155249 issue description video
Created attachment 187209 [details] tdf#155249 (2) attempt to disable
Created attachment 187210 [details] tdf#155249.odt Anchor as character turns on frame around chart - example document.
I agree, that it could be useful to have a quick look, what anchor is used, but I'm not sure, if formatting marks a a good solution for this. Let's ask design-team
The virtual border around objects anchored As Character makes a lot of sense as you don't know what is spacing and what the object. Cannot say if it's intentionally set or unset for the To Character anchor but having it only on two sides is obviously a bug. But I would treat that differently from the request to change the anchoring icon. To know what type of anchor is set would be good - and has been requested in bug 138351. So kind of a duplicate- assuming As Character does not need an anchor icon. Feel free to reopen or create a new ticket on other aspects such as the spurious border (does not happen for charts but I've seen it on images too, IIRC). *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 138351 ***