How to add extension buttons to the toolbar?

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#1

HI

The View > User Interface… menu offers seven different options for the interface. The main toolbar also changes drastically in each case.

While this is excellent, it also creates a problem: The extension buttons disappear from the main toolbar!
I have added some extensions like Alternative Searching and Toolpic. But their buttons are not visible in all UI modes. How do I add these buttons to the toolbar while it shows one of the seven UI modes?

Ideally, the Tools section of the ribbon should show all extensions. Further, the user should be able to hide any buttons selectively.

But here, none of the extensions are accessible through the toolbar. Worse, there is no GUI to customize this!

How to add a button for an extension or macro to a toolbar?
#2

The help says image description

link text

#3

@PKG - this is a clear implicit answer to “How do I add these buttons to the toolbar while it shows one of the seven UI modes?” (from my pov).

#4

Well, I have been using LO for ages (Since its OpenOffice days), but never came across this term.

An old-time user would not associate the words “notebook bar” to the main toolbar without some sort of re-orientation.

But there is no clue anywhere.

For example, the dialog to change the UI style could have two groups of options:

  1. Classic toolbars layout
  2. Notebook bar.
    The second category should have six optional styles.

Also, the explanatory text should warn the user that the Notebook bars are not editable.
This is an unknown feature for an old user.

I just discovered that if you leave the standard toolbars mode, all your customization is lost. So if you return after trying out the other options, you will have to customize the toolbars all over again. This is certainly a painful experience. The customizations should remain intact.

#5

If I remember correctly…
Years ago MS developed the so-called ribbon-interface and made a big deal of it. Lots of software jumped on, and, of course (and fortunately in a sense), LibreOffice couldn’t because MS offered a free license for the “new technolgy” but not for free competitors.
Since unevitably users asked for the “great feature” again and again, the document foundation developed their own version, and named it “muffin UI” first. I think this is what now is named “notbook bar”.
If you had already to use software under the “ribbon”, you will easily find that you don’t need it (IMO).

See also: will ribbon come to libreoffice ever? (e.g.)

#6

Yes, I remember discussions on that.

But losing our toolbar customizations just because I tried out a different layout is terrible.
Also, not allowing macros+extensions in the Notebook bar is unreasonable, IMHO.

I have no issues about the branding. It’s the implementation that’s the problem.

#7

Always create a new user interface if you want to experiment with options and/or user code and/or templates… (Backup the previous one, of course.)
Concerning ribbon and muffin see also

I lack the experience, because I only tried trhe muffin for a short time.
Maybe the flexibility and configurability didn’t fully persist on the way from ‘Muffin’ over ‘Notebook Toolbar’ to ‘Tabbed Toolbar’ - or something is completely new.
I will stick to the tree, and reduce preset toolbars to a minimum, except those actually containing tools I need like Drawing or Form Controls

#8

I just discovered that if you leave the standard toolbars mode, all your customization is lost.
So if you return after trying out the other options, you will have to customize the toolbars all over again.

Just tried again, and cannot confirm this.
By what steps did you “return after trying”?

#9

Thanks for letting me know.

I will first re-install the extensions (I am assuming that even PicTool also installs its own toolbar button, and LO has no control over it).

Once I install the buttons in the toolbar, I will repeat the switching (which was nothing more than selecting the 1st radio button in the dialog once again.)

#10

I removed both PicTool and AltSearch; and re-installed both of them. They added their buttons to the left of Standard and Formatting toolbars, respectively. Then I switched to some of the Notebook Bar styles. As expected, the extension icons did not appear there. When I re-selected the Standard toolbars layout again, both the extension buttons had switched to the end of their respective toolbars.

I repeated the experiment, and the position of the icons remained at the end of the toolbars.

To conclude, the customization does not get lost when I select the Standard toolbars option again.

#11

I restarted Writer, and found that the buttons for both extensions have come back to the extreme left!
Totally confusing behavior…

[Edit] Both extension buttons appear in Groupedbar compact layout also, but not in any other five layouts.

#12

Well, if LibO doesn’t write the “provisional position” to the user profile, it will read next time on start the previous position from there.

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