Apply style from drop down disables keyboard input

[raphha]

Dear all,

in a text document when I apply a style from the drop-down menu my keyboard input is ignored afterward, nothing happens, the blinking cursor isn’t visible either: writing test or selecting text or pressing delete, all by using the keyboard has no effect.
This effect only occurs if after clicking the drop-down it opens and then instantly disappears again. I click again, the drop-down stays open and I click a style (which is correctly applied).
If the menu stays open at first try, this strange behaviour does not occur.
I didn’t find out under which conditions the drop-down stays open or disappears instantly, this seems to happen randomly.

Steps to reproduce:

• I have the cursor in the paragraph the style of which I’d like to change.
• I click the drop-down style menu from the Formatting toolbar
• I try to continue writing, nothing happens, see above.
• I klick the mouse left button at the place where I’d like to continue typing - nothing happens.
• To “activate” keyboard input again I can alternatively switch windows (to another program and then back to LO), right click the mouse (open context menu), then left click somewhere in the doc to make the context menu disappear. Result: the cursor reappears, the keyboard works normally again. The cursor is still in the “old” place where it was when I applied the style, even after left-clicking somewhere else in the doc.

Does anyone else experience this behaviour or did anyone maybe even know a solution for this?

Thank you

Version: 7.2.5.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 20(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.13; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Ubuntu package version: 1:7.2.5-0ubuntu0.21.10.3
Calc: threaded

[Villeroy]

Start LibreOffice like this:
SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen /opt/libreoffice7.2/program/soffice

and see if the problem persists.

[raphha]

Yes it does indeed, thank you. I applied about 20-25 changes in style as a test, the drop-down always stayed open, the cursor/keyboard remained reactive. Even after I double clicked the drop-down (which made it disappear on the second click of the double click, as expected), and then click-opening the drop down again, the style is applied without any of the side effects.

I didn’t however understand completely (even after looking up the acronyms) what your solution disabled in my case and how (since this is still a problem in this (my) specific configuration) to bring this to the right ppl’s attention - any ideas?

Thanks.

[Villeroy]

GTK/KDE does not play well with LO form controls. Too much bling with faulted functionality.

Open the soffice start script for editing

sudo edit /opt/libreoffice7.2/program/soffice

and add the following line somewhere on top:

export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen

This overrides the default value gtk with the generic LO toolset.

The soffice start script is overwritten with each update.

[raphha]

Just because this question was recently referenced, I’d like to add that the problem does not exist anymore for me with the current setup as follows (and without setting SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN)

Version: 7.5.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 50(Build:2)
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 6.2; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+wayland)
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Ubuntu package version: 4:7.5.5-0ubuntu0.23.04.1
Calc: threaded

[ajlittoz]

It reminds me of a an improper use of the style side pane (F11) where you must double-click on style name to apply it. If you only single-click inadvertently and the type, nothing happens in the document window but typing move style selection in the style pane. To fix you need to double-click again on the style name, which moves the focus from the pane to the document.

Your case is different because you use the drop-down menu, which only requires single click.

By chance, do you double-click on the menu?

I could reproduce the behaviour with a double-click exactly on the down-arrow at end of the style drop-down menu. The focus seems to be lost in limbo and Tab does not even move it to some visible UI component. This could be a bug in the Qt widget library (I am under KDE Plasma desktop which requires also kf5.

Avoid double-clicks on the style drop-down menu (or any other drop-down menu). The fact that the side style pane requires double-click and the menus single click is a source of confusion.

[raphha]

Hello ajlittoz,
thanks for your answer. I am aware of the single/double click difference between drop down and side pane. I already suspected this to be the source of the problem, but even if I “long click” (ie i hold down the mouse button for a second or two) the menu disappears instantly with all the bad side effects.

edit: after successfully following Villeroy’s proposal, I suppose your hint about Qt/kf5 probably points in the right direction. I am also using KDE Plasma.