Hi,
please find my comments inline
marbux wrote:
The OOo 2.x Writer >> Tools >> Customize dialog goes no further than
WordPerfect and Microsoft Word have gone. There is room for improvement.
All
three apps make it fairly easy to assign product commands to menus,
toolbars, keystrokes, and events ("MTKI"). But all three stop there and
provide no easy and transparent means to assign command lines, e.g.,
launching a browser and opening a particular web page, launching a PDF user
guide, running another external app, opening a specified OpenDocument file,
etc. In each case, so nearly as I can tell, the user is left to write a
script that performs the desired action, then assigning it to a MTKI.
Moreover, context-sensitive Help for the Customize dialog offers no more
guidance than to note that a macro must be written to perform actions other
than invoking the displayed product commands.
I admit that there is no guide giving precise steps for these tasks in
the online help. However, almost no one ever asked for such steps in the
last 10 years, so writing such a guide has no high priority. Given the
current resources of online help writers, there is no real chance of
improving this.
The OOo community can help here, providing guides that give directions
on how to perform the necessary steps in the right order. (I'm quite
sure there already are such guides, may be on
http://documentation.openoffice.org or on the http://www.oooauthors.org/
Web site.)
When writing such a guide, keep in mind that OOo is being used at least
on Windows, Linux, and Solaris platforms, and that starting external
applications by a script is different on each platform. On Linux, it may
be different even for distributions and X Window managers. So it is not
an easy task to write steps that are valid for all users. You need some
research which needs much time.
You may submit an enhancement issue for the documentation / online help
in IssueZilla.
That is a show stopper for most users because of: [i] their lack of
scripting skills; and [ii] their flight reaction when they see intimidating
words suggesting they need to write a "macro" or "script."
So it would be better in the long run to submit an enhancement issue to
improve the UI.
The problem can be partially addressed by enhancing the Customize
context-sensitive Help screen either: [i] to provide step-by-step
directions
for creating a simple macro to launch command lines with or without
arguments; or [ii] to link to a new Help page that addresses that issue.
Second best would be to build such information into the User Guide. Either
or both are tasks that could be accomplished within the short term horizon.
So another enhancement issue for the User Guide, which is maintained by
the OOo community, would be appropriate. (If the information is not
already there, which I don't know right now)
Your feedback is welcome.
True
Regards
Uwe
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - Technical Writer
StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany
http://www.sun.com/staroffice
http://documentation.openoffice.org/
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