Must click the mouse when opening a writer doc, otherwise keyboard short cut Ctrl+f does not work

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#1

This question is about having different behavior to keyboard short cut Ctrl+f, compared to using the mouse to get an active search box, right when opening a writer document.
When opening a writer document, the cursor is no where. One must click the mouse to get a cursor. This is probably helpful in order to place the cursor in the right spot. But there is also no way to search the document with the key short cut Ctrl+f, unless there is an active cursor. Which is a bit irritating.
Am I the only one with this behavior? Am I the only one finding it a bit irritating? I want to file a bug. Do you find such a bug justified?
Rethinking, how can I start edit the document without using the mouse? How can I scroll the document, without using the mouse? Does the real subject of this post is `Must click the mouse when opening a document in order to be able to do something?’
To reproduce the Ctrl+f issue:

  1. Open a writer document, but do nothing else. In particular, do not click the mouse. The cursor is no where. Even when scrolling the document in order to find it. And yes. Despite writing to not click the mouse, I used it for scrolling. Without clicking it when it points to a point within the document. Clicking the scroll bar, just the scroll bar, does not count for the point I am trying to make.
  2. Use the keyboard short cut Ctrl+f in order to search the document. You will not get an active search box. You can not search for a phrase.
  3. Click the mouse when it is placed somewhere in the document.
  4. Now you will be able to get an active search box with ctrl+f.

This is probably related to questions about mouse position when opening a document, such as Opening writer does not position cursor at last position.

Version: 7.5.3.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 50(Build:2)
CPU threads: 2; OS: Linux 6.3; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
7.5.3-1
Calc: threaded

#2

Whenever I open a document, blank or existing, the blinking cursor is in the page text area. So you probably have an installation/configuration problem. I could not guess which Linux distro is yours. All I can tell is you’re bleeding edge (Linux 6.3 while mine is 6.2). Your desktop is Gnome or one of its derivatives.

Where did you get LO? From distro repo or from LO site?

#3

I am using stock Archlinux LO. With only a window manager. No desktop environment. Neither Gnome, nor KDE, nor anything else. Just a window manager.
As you pointed out, our environments also differ in the kernel and LO versions. However, despite using just few applications, LO is the only application where I must click the mouse in order to make it responsive.

#4

Is LO window active at all, until you click inside? Does clicking e.g. on the window title start the cursor?

#5

My LO version is 7.5.3.2-1.fc38.x86_64 which means it is the first (-1) deployment by distro maintainer, i.e. identical to TDF release, except for distro-specific paths.

Since you have only a window manager without desktop layer, is you WM “compatible” with GTK+ widgets? What happens if you switch to bare X11 environment by starting with

SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen soffice --writer
#6

LO is active in the sense that using Ctrl+O to open the document brings up the select file window. And I can select the file to open. And it does gets opened. After it gets opened, the borders of the window do suggest the window is active. For some reason, the opened document is unresponsive to keyboard strokes. I must click the mouse in the page area to make it responsive.
As far as I remember, it was not like that with LO 6.*. I can’t tell since when I am getting the current, bad, behavior.
Using mostly password protected documents should not play a role here. Perhaps it is not the case?

#7

Well, you can try to bibisect this, and file a bug report. Note that simply creating a bug report, without bisection, is unlikely to do any good, given how unusual your setup is, and thus, how unlikely it is for anyone to reproduce.

#8

Can you tell whether I indirectly provided the information requested by ajlittoz(Profile - ajlittoz - Ask LibreOffice) no window manager, just X11

SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen soffice --writer

from above?

#9

Have you launched this command in a terminal?

#10

first of all, if you understood there is no search box at all, than it is not accurate. There is a search box even before issuing a Ctrl+f. The point is that after a Ctrl+f, nothing gets written to the search box, even though I try to enter a search term. LO seems not responsive to any keyboard stroke unless I click the mouse.

I ran bare X, without a window manager, and without a desktop environment. The results were the same. LO is not responsive to any key stroke unless I click the mouse before any keyboard presses. More specifically, I started a bare X session, running only a terminal. As suggested, at the terminal, I issued

 SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen soffice --writer

The following 2 lines were printed to the terminal:

javaldx: Could not find a Java Runtime Environment!
Warning: failed to read path from javaldx

And Writer got started. It, too, does not respond to key strokes. And there seem to be only the X mouse cursor. Not a blinking cursor showing where text will be recorded in the document. I have to click the mouse to get a blinking cursor in the document, or to have Ctrl+f accept a search string.

#11

I have opened 155243 – EDITING: keyboard, or most combinations, are dead when document opens. And no blinking cursor in writer. But there are ways to get around.

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