LibreOffice Adds A Command Popup / HUD, Inspired By Half-Decade Old Microsoft Office Feature

Written by Michael Larabel in LibreOffice on 12 May 2021 at 06:18 AM EDT. 39 Comments
LIBREOFFICE
Adding to the changes building up for LibreOffice 7.2 ahead of its debut in August is a "Command Popup" or a heads-up display (HUD) of sorts for easily running LibreOffice commands.

For a half-decade now Microsoft Office has offered a "Tell Me" feature whereby it's a text field that the user can enter words/phrases about what they want to do while editing/creating a document. That Tell Me feature can allow quickly accessing different commands that otherwise are tucked away within different menus, etc.

After the Tell Me feature was added to Microsoft Office, back in 2015 there was a feature request added for LibreOffice to add a similar feature or something like a native "HUD" for LibreOffice.

Over the years since that original bug report / feature request, there have been many duplicate requests for having a simple input box for easily running LibreOffice commands and/or making it easier searching for available commands.

Now in 2021 that has finally materialized with the LibreOffice Command Popup.

Merged yesterday was the Command Popup as a new window providing HUD-like functionality for searching and running commands within LibreOffice. This though is an early implementation and isn't yet working for all commands, but at least it's finally in the works.

Look for the Command Popup and more in LibreOffice 7.2 due to be out as stable in August.
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