What it says on the title. The delete key is there for a specific reason, professional (like me) word processor users have gotten used to it, having this developer or the other forcing disruptive use cases on us will not benefit the project. I’m using Windows 11, LibO 24.2.4.2 (64-bit).
I have not noticed a problem with the delete key. Please describe in more details, in which context the delete key does not work.
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It was Windows Update yesterday; have you restarted Windows yet? Windows can exhibit bizarre behaviour while it is waiting for a restart.
It’s the same problem that was reported way back in 2011; the “delete contents” action was not assigned to the delete key. Incidentally, I installed this new release to get rid of the “Alt+Numpad keys assigned to LibO sidebar menus instead of OS-related character entry” regression that had affected the previous one (some developers obviously thought that word processor users had automatically stopped using this method just because Microsoft no longer uses it as its main). What I found out about this current release is that even everyday functions like “select all”, “cut”, “copy”, “paste” were not assigned to anything. I had to create a config file from scratch for this. And all this, while having a three-hour deadline to submit a 16-page report.
would you by chance remember where ?
could just find from 2018 tdf#122001
Sorry, it was 2020. I stand corrected. Unfortunately, someone thought it’d be good to suggest the user reporting this problem buy a new keyboard instead of seeking whether something wasn’t assigned. Why doesn't the delete key delete characters?
At any rate, when I installed LibO last night (because using LibO’s special character floater or Windows’ Character Map was untenable), I found out that these keys and shortcuts were not assigned to anything:
Delete
Ctrl+A (typically used for “Select All”)
Ctrl+C (typically used for “Copy”)
Ctrl+F (typically used for “Find”)
Ctrl+H (typically used for “Find and Replace”)
Ctrl+N (typically used for “New” - i.e. create new document, spreadsheet, whatever)
Ctrl+S (typically used for “Save”)
Ctrl+V (typically used for “Paste”)
Ctrl+X (typically used for “Cut”)
Needless to say, I had to make a new configuration of my own, but I really shouldn’t have to do that. A productivity application must just work right after you install it. It must get out of the way. This is what professionals and semi-pros expect. They don’t have the time or the drive to tinker with settings to get basic functionality that is familiar to them and crucial to their workflow. They’re under too much pressure anyway, with deadlines popping up all the time. But even if they did have the willingness to tinker, they often don’t have the privileges to do so on computers issued to them by their organizations. Getting tech support to help you often causes you to lose time. At least, the Alt+Numpad character import method was restored. Thankfully, admin privileges are not an issue for me, as I’m working on my own computer.
You could possibly suspect, that being an often-used key, a breakage of thinks like Del would likely attract no less attention than the change in Alt+Numpad (which created tens of questions here, and tens of bug reports in the bug tracker, despite being used much less often). At least I have some reason to think, that a sane person could figure, that a single question, that got a response showing that others don’t see that, and had no significant follow-up of thousands of “me too” replies, means that it’s not something happening normally, expectedly, and so is not something that was broken deliberately.
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Are you aware there are two levels of shortcuts?
Your complaint likely addresses the list of shortcuts you get when radio button Writer is enabled in the customize dialog. You also have the LibreOffice layer.
When you press a key, the corresponding action is looked up in the “component” layer first (here Writer) and if no assignment is found, the general LibreOffice layer is looked up. Again, if no assignment is found, the key is forwarded to the document.
Out-of-the-box configuration assigns your advertised shortcuts in the LibreOffice layer and they are available to all components (Writer, Calc, …). This complies with the DRY (don’t repeat yourself) concept and avoids inconsistencies between components if the assignment would have to be duplicated.
This “basic functionality that is familiar to them and crucial” is indeed available and no developer would ever dare to disable them considering their ubiquity.
The “willingness to tinker” requires some basic understanding about application structure. And this is where you’ll waste time if you don’t accept to learn a bit how any application work.
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I noticed the two layers of shortcuts while working on them - it was fairly obvious from the very first second that the “LibreOffice” layer is the global one and the “Writer” layer is the more specialised. However, the lack of keyboard shortcut assignments was shared in both of them. Of course, I got to work right away and assigned these keyboard shortcuts to the global layer, as they are global behavior.
Note that, although I personally don’t shy away from diving into config files, the Windows Registry, or whatever, it must be understood that this is not the norm: people want to start the application (whichever it is), write whatever they want (or are obliged) to write, be satisfied that it looks at least half-decent on screen and on paper, and then send it off to their colleagues, superiors, etc.
Then, your user profile was probably modified at some point and this new custom (yes-yes) configuration was carried over. What happens if you restart in safe mode? Are the “common” shortcuts still missing?
It may be late to test this hypothesis. Backup your user profile into a safe location. Remove the shortcuts. Quit LO (to make sure user profile is saved) and reopen it. Check shortcuts are missing. Restart in safe mode. Are they missing?
Hi, I haven’t tried safe mode, but I’ll perform tomorrow. Last night, when I quit LO after I finished my work, I restarted it and saw that the configuration I had made was still the one chosen by it.