It is exessive data i don’t use. It occupies space which is precious when comments are dense.
I don’t know anything about programming but I imagine the solution as changing some parameter or deleting few lines of code. Some plugin could be useful but i haven’t found what i need in extensions website.
Concerning the remark about programming:
User programming based on the current API wouldn’t lead anywhere. You could delete the information (Author and DateTime), but not save the space used for it. The respective lines would show “(No Author)” and “(No Date)”.
Core programming: The “few lines of code” concerned may be an illusion. There are lots of dependencies concerning the UserInterface, and there are questions concerning compatibility (downward, with Word, …).
A more reasonable (but also surely more complicated) enhancement should be to unify the object classes for annotations and their usage regarding Writer and Calc. Beyond the common name (annotation / comment) they are implemented in completely different ways. The Calc way with specialized shapes could, however, be a next-level option for the textfields used in Writer.
I want to second the above poster. This feature has been requested repeatedly for almost a decade yet the function to remove the date/time stamp from comments has still not been implemented.
As somebody pointed out in another thread on this topic, for those of us who use LO when dealing with sensitive documents such as lawyers, academics, editors, it is imperative that identifying information is not made available.
Can somebody from LO please take charge of this?
Oh so of course those lawyers, academics, and editors have funded that so-much-needed development?
What a remarkably asinine and unhelpful comment.
Oh really?
Whenever I see comments that in a free software, some feature is wanted, I can understand that users might want that, and hope that some kind developer would sometime find it interesting and implement it. But when I read that some missing feature is critical for some business scenario, and that some professionals that use the free software (and obviously get profits using it fir free - which is perfectly normal and great) wait that someone in a community around the free software to “take charge” of the implementation of the so-much-wanted feature, for free, in their free time, to please those who make money from that - that feels unfair. Really. If you have not to pay for a software does not mean that producing it is free for those who do that. So - hiring a developer to make needed changes; or crowdfunding to make that done; or other steps to not only “express wishes”, but to actually fund the work - is really something expected from businesses.
It is rather noble of you to act as a self-appointed LO paladin but you are making a number of assumptions here, not least that myself and presumably other users requesting this feature have not made a financial commitment to LO. I should add that I don’t expect anything in return for my donation, other than a utilizable alternative to MS Office, the very reason I first embraced OO. This particular feature is one that has been requested repeatedly, has been considered as a bug, and has still not been resolved. I can only write for myself but knowing that this feature is available in MS Word I would like to see it finally added to LO so that I can continue to support the Document Foundation and LO.
IMO, I think it’s great that documents have some basic information in them about where they came from. I think if anything, more, not less, information should be added to LO documents, about who wrote them and when. Anonymity is being used in the world to allow people to not be responsible for their actions. To not shine to bright a light on it, anonymity is being used by white radical extremists in the US, New Zealand, and Europe to organize under dark hats to attack and murder innocent people. An attorney does not need to be anonymous, nor an academic, nor an editor. But someone who writes garbage on bathroom walls is an example of ordinary, despicable anonymity.
I probably shouldn’t waste my time responding to what seems like obvious trolling but if for one moment you are actually serious then you have absolutely no idea whatsoever about any of the occupations you’ve just equated with murderous fascists. What you wrote is despicable, adds nothing to the feature request thread, and I’d like to ask you to refrain from commenting further on my request for assistance.
@melevolence: There are a number of issues in your answer here, some of them triggering the harsh responses. So I try to summarize them here:
Your answer is actually about a different issue, only distantly related to the original question. OP has asked for a feature to save space in comment’s area - and the question didn’t actually require to remove sensitive data from the document, only to collapse the unnecessarily used space where it could be used with more value to OP. It’s even not obvious that OP actually has any sensitive info there - it might happen well that OP doesn’t have personal data filled, and so only has that generic “Unknown author” text with date, which is also not needed in OP’s case. But you are talking about anonymizing document.
You use Answer for what is not an answer on an Ask site - i.e., it doesn’t allow OP to solve the problem. This is not a forum - and it’s meant to have a question and answers each aiming to solve it.
Then, you mention “This particular feature is one that has been requested repeatedly, has been considered as a bug” - then please don’t forget to reference those things - e.g., when I read your comment, I wanted to look at those. It’s good to never forget to reference anything you mention in your questions/comments.
Any feature request is only suitable on bug tracker. This is peer-to-peer community help site - so your question is targeted on other users, not to developers here.
And actually saying about donations, you yourself make multiple assumptions - e.g. about your donation helps development, while in reality, donations only help to keep LO free (a really great value! - thank you for the donations you made) - but almost never go to developers (only in form of tenders on very specific tasks from time to time). So donations has ~nothing to do with funding some specific work done (and I personally don’t question the usefulness of your issue).
Is there a feature request on bugzilla ? The search features there are limited and keywords like “hide comment date” yield too many results.
It’s hidden. You report a bug and in the Importance field, select enhancement. Maybe the visibility could be improved. When you decide to file an enhancement request, you should read How to Report Bugs in LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Wiki to help you get along. The bug tracker is seriously difficult to use, be prepared when you start.
Thanks but I was asking if there’s already one. I know how to make an enhancement request on Bugzilla but if this feature has been asked for “almost a decade” as @melevolence says, hopefully someone made one already and I shouldn’t make a duplicate. It’s just that I’m having trouble with Bugzilla’s search features. For example the “summary:” filter seems to return only exact matches, so I can’t just type “summary:comment”.
Aha! Found it
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86887
So let’s +1 this request
And yep, getting close to a decade indeed.
Sorry, I misread your comment.
I also want to second this request. There are at least two scenarios that I encounter. One scenario is that I don’t want my clients to have insight into my workflow, and the other is that we sometimes need to give comments without identifying the person who does the commenting (because we as editors want to speak with one voice). I frequently have to delete all the comments towards the end and then re-insert them to avoid giving away this sort of information, which can mean as much as an hour extra work.
Please, please remove this stupid time stamp and other identifying information. As OP points out, it is also unnecessary clutter.
I am against this information being removed. This information supports the responsibility of the writer.
This is a moral reason. It is bound to be ineffective, since there is no way to distinguish between the cases in which the author has a responsibility to make his editing habits available and those in which it does not. In any case, the right to privacy trumps any such concerns.
Not morally, but legally. I am glad that you have only one voice and you do not decide what is valid or invalid. Your idea of it only pervades in your head.