Fwd: Re: Suggestion
Forwarded Message Subject:Re: Suggestion Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2020 06:47:40 +0200 From: Piet Fox To: Martin Groenescheij Thanks Martin, that is a great solution! Regards/Groete, *Piet Fox *(Dip.Electr.Eng.; Mem.SAIEE) Cell.: +264 81 169 6340 foxp...@gmail.com <mailto:foxp...@gmail.com> Fox Lighting CC P O Box 2483 225, Nangolo Mbumba Street Walvis Bay On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 2:49 PM Martin Groenescheij mailto:mar...@groenescheij.com>> wrote: On 18/06/2020 07:27, Piet Fox wrote: Firstly, I want to say that I love OpenOffice and it is the only program I use for all my Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. As I am Afrikaans speaking, I'm often using Special Characters such as "ê" and "ë". It is really an effort for me to go to the Special Characters tab every time and insert the Special Character that I need. In MS Word there is a shortcut to insert these Characters while typing. The shortcut is "ctrl" and "shift" and "Special Character" together and after releasing the keys you can type the "e" and it would insert the Special Character automatically. Much simpler to add these yourself in the Replace tab of the AutoCorrect table e.g. enter e^ forê or e: for ë Can you please add this shortcut to your wonderful program. Regards/Groete, *Piet Fox *(Dip.Electr.Eng.; Mem.SAIEE) Cell.: +264 81 169 6340 foxp...@gmail.com Fox Lighting CC P O Box 2483 225, Nangolo Mbumba Street Walvis Bay
Re: Suggestion
On 18/06/2020 07:27, Piet Fox wrote: Firstly, I want to say that I love OpenOffice and it is the only program I use for all my Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. As I am Afrikaans speaking, I'm often using Special Characters such as "ê" and "ë". It is really an effort for me to go to the Special Characters tab every time and insert the Special Character that I need. In MS Word there is a shortcut to insert these Characters while typing. The shortcut is "ctrl" and "shift" and "Special Character" together and after releasing the keys you can type the "e" and it would insert the Special Character automatically. Much simpler to add these yourself in the Replace tab of the AutoCorrect table e.g. enter e^ forê or e: for ë Can you please add this shortcut to your wonderful program. Regards/Groete, *Piet Fox *(Dip.Electr.Eng.; Mem.SAIEE) Cell.: +264 81 169 6340 foxp...@gmail.com Fox Lighting CC P O Box 2483 225, Nangolo Mbumba Street Walvis Bay
Re: Suggestion
On 2020/06/18 05:27, Piet Fox wrote: > In MS Word there is a shortcut to insert these Characters while typing. The > shortcut is "ctrl" and "shift" and "Special Character" together and after > releasing the keys you can type the "e" and it would insert the Special > Character automatically. > Can you please add this shortcut to your wonderful program. Autocorrect. I don't know if it is/was publicly distributed, but there was an Afrikaans autocorrect that had a number of Afrikaans words, written without the diacritic marks, that would automatically correct themselves. Possibly the most usefully was the " n " that was automatically replaced by " ʼn ". Along those lines, I also saw a proposal for South African place names to be added. Type in the old name, and it replaced it with the new name, and in parenthesis had "formerly place-name". I don't know if that proposal was ever implemented. Nando's #RightMyName has yet to make it to Apache OpenOffice. jonathon - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion of Ways to Combat Fake AOO Download Sites
NINITE gets excellent reviews and is the source I use and trust About Ninite Ninite was founded by Patrick Swieskowski and Sascha Kuzins. Investors include Y Combinator http://ycombinator.com and a small collection of helpful angels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_investor. We believe in simplicity. You can contact us via email cont...@ninite.com or at our office: Secure By Design Inc. 795 Folsom Street -- First Floor San Francisco, CA 94107 -- To succeed, stay focused, Do what you do best, * up-skill, prepare for new challenge,make time for earning* Advocate: Client Focused Health Care Providers: Physicians, Hospitals, Nursing Homes, and Other Care Services https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=gid=6555482trk=anet_ug_hm http://tinyurl.com/nmnvme3 Dave+Mainwaring+Knowledge+Networks -- On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Tom Panfil tap.h...@verizon.net wrote: So many people get burned by doing a search for Apache Open Office or just for Open Office then downloading from a malicious 3rd party site that the Apache OO Project should do what it can to try to warn people *in advance*. It is impossible to do that globally and repeatedly but perhaps some site could be developed to provide the official download links for Apache OO and other good Open Source software like that from Mozilla. All the projects could watch that site's links to catch any corruption introduced maliciously to the download links . Perhaps a press release could then be sent to prominent computer gurus with significant followings to invite them to alert their audiences to the problem of people being tricked into making downloads from malicious sites. It could point them to the consolidated site for links to the official download sites. There are probably many such gurus with wide followings. I'd suggest Kim Komando as a start. (Maybe she'd even consider hosting that consolidated site -- I bet that she would.) Perhaps help could be enlisted from socially responsible Search Engine operators too. I hope that such creatures exist. I'd invite them to demonstrate their good will toward the honest computer uses of the world by ranking the official community wide download link site first when people search for any of the Open Source SW which it advertises. v/r, Tom Panfil - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion of Ways to Combat Fake AOO Download Sites
On 29/11/2014 Tom Panfil wrote: perhaps some site could be developed to provide the official download links for Apache OO For Apache OpenOffice, that site is our official site: http://www.openoffice.org ; it almost always comes first in Internet searches (but yes, sponsored links are the problem; more below). Perhaps a press release could then be sent to prominent computer gurus with significant followings to invite them to alert their audiences That post already exists at http://s.apache.org/genuine-openoffice ; everyone is welcome to give visibility to it. It could point them to the consolidated site for links to the official download sites. I don't know if a consolidated site (linking in turn to the individual official sites) is a solution. In the end, the openoffice.org site is a resource that we fully control, it is official and it comes higher in Internet searches. Perhaps help could be enlisted from socially responsible Search Engine operators too. When you see suspicious sites come up in a web search for one of our trademarks, please inform us as explained at https://openoffice.apache.org/trademarks.html ; in some cases (although it needs a significant effort) we managed to enforce them and get the sponsored links removed. Regards, Andrea. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion of Ways to Combat Fake AOO Download Sites
On November 29, 2014 8:03:14 AM PST, Tom Panfil wrote: All the projects could watch that site's links to catch any corruption introduced maliciously to the download links . People redirected to the SourceForge from Openoffice.org have ended up downoading the program from a malicious third party. Whilst the cause of that issue has been dealt with, it is extremely difficult to deal with all the mutations of persuading people to part with a buck to download something. The only practical solution is to constantly educate people about good computer hygiene practices. (What is really sad, is that malware that used to only be found only in the cyberspace equivalent of a bar that prohibited unarmed patrons, is now peddled by major websites.) jonathon -- Your documents. Your language. Your way. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion for Writer
On 11/27/2014 08:54 AM, dbo...@mmm.com (J. David Boyd) wrote:
Rory O'Farrell ofarr...@iol.ie writes:
On Wed, 26 Nov 2014 11:09:07 -0500
dbo...@mmm.com (J. David Boyd) wrote:
f.carbon...@libero.it f.carbon...@libero.it writes:
New command in File 'Save page'. The possibility to save single page
from .odt document in another .odt file. For example: document.odt
with 35 pages. I want save page 14 of this document only. With 'Save
page', I can do. With avanzate service, insert the command for save
pages from page x to page y in another .odt document.
Fabio
I like the sound of that. I'm not sure I would need it all the time, as I
can
always select and copy and save a page, but it would make some things
easier.
Dave
One can easily mark the extent of a page using the EXT
selection (middle of Status Bar - EXT, ADD ,STD, BLK selection
modes). Don't forget a Page is a moveable feast, depending largely on
the text flow and the page size selected.
I never knew I could do this with the item on the Status bar. Thanks so much
for the info. I learn something new every day!
Dave
Nor did I. Help ('extension mode in text') provides additional info:
Selection Mode
Displays the current selection mode. You can switch between STD =
Standard, EXT = Extend, ADD = Add, BLK = Block selection.
Each click in the field cycles through the available options:
Display
Mode
Effect
STD
Standard mode
Click in text where you want to position the cursor; click in a cell to
make it the active cell. Any other selection is then deselected.
EXT
Extension mode (F8)
Clicking in the text extends or crops the current selection.
ADD
Additional selection mode (Shift+F8)
A new selection is added to an existing selection. The result is a
multiple selection.
BLK
Block selection mode (Ctrl+Shift+F8)
A block of text can be selected.
-
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Re: Suggestion for Writer
Rory O'Farrell ofarr...@iol.ie writes: On Wed, 26 Nov 2014 11:09:07 -0500 dbo...@mmm.com (J. David Boyd) wrote: f.carbon...@libero.it f.carbon...@libero.it writes: New command in File 'Save page'. The possibility to save single page from .odt document in another .odt file. For example: document.odt with 35 pages. I want save page 14 of this document only. With 'Save page', I can do. With avanzate service, insert the command for save pages from page x to page y in another .odt document. Fabio I like the sound of that. I'm not sure I would need it all the time, as I can always select and copy and save a page, but it would make some things easier. Dave One can easily mark the extent of a page using the EXT selection (middle of Status Bar - EXT, ADD ,STD, BLK selection modes). Don't forget a Page is a moveable feast, depending largely on the text flow and the page size selected. I never knew I could do this with the item on the Status bar. Thanks so much for the info. I learn something new every day! Dave - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion for Writer
f.carbon...@libero.it f.carbon...@libero.it writes: New command in File 'Save page'. The possibility to save single page from .odt document in another .odt file. For example: document.odt with 35 pages. I want save page 14 of this document only. With 'Save page', I can do. With avanzate service, insert the command for save pages from page x to page y in another .odt document. Fabio I like the sound of that. I'm not sure I would need it all the time, as I can always select and copy and save a page, but it would make some things easier. Dave - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion for Writer
On Wed, 26 Nov 2014 11:09:07 -0500 dbo...@mmm.com (J. David Boyd) wrote: f.carbon...@libero.it f.carbon...@libero.it writes: New command in File 'Save page'. The possibility to save single page from .odt document in another .odt file. For example: document.odt with 35 pages. I want save page 14 of this document only. With 'Save page', I can do. With avanzate service, insert the command for save pages from page x to page y in another .odt document. Fabio I like the sound of that. I'm not sure I would need it all the time, as I can always select and copy and save a page, but it would make some things easier. Dave One can easily mark the extent of a page using the EXT selection (middle of Status Bar - EXT, ADD ,STD, BLK selection modes). Don't forget a Page is a moveable feast, depending largely on the text flow and the page size selected. -- Rory O'Farrell ofarr...@iol.ie - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 10:09 PM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/23/2014 08:43 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote: On 2014-05-23, 3:43 PM japples wrote: /snip/ There is a huge difference between showing non-printing characters and showing formatting codes. Saying AOO shows non-printing characters is similar to WP reveal codes is ridiculous. Now tell me again how there are no similarities (include examples other than ones I have given above). The OO's limited source has been the topic for requesting to expand. The ability to edit is there just not in a separate window as WP. I don't know if OO has the ability to edit a text box but someone with more time and energy could respond. Using reveal non-printing charters in AOO does not show any formatting codes. The purpose of WP reveal codes is to change the documents formatting (font size and type, bold, italic, underline, superscript, etc). There is no similarity to AOO. I have found the Reveal Codes feature to be most useful in finding oddball things that may have come in with an imported file, and to debug minor mishaps that are not obvious from just looking at the text. One use of Reveal Codes will tell you whether a tab or a set of spaces is used in a text. Also, to spot double spaces, if you don't I'm in agreement w Larry. Finding extra/misplaced characters, non-printing or otherwise, is not at all equivalent to reveal codes. With reveal codes it is/was possible to literally see where formatting or styles were applied in a document. It would reveal such things as two different formats applied one after the other to a block of text which would help make apparent why removing one type of formatting didn't cause the text to be displayed as expected. e.g. format_code1a whole bunch of textf_c2f_c3some other text. Remove f_c3 and some other text would now display as f_c2 not f_c1 as would be expected when reveal codes was off. But turn on reveal codes and it became immediately apparent why the text was not displaying as expected.
Re: Suggestion.
Doug wrote: One use of Reveal Codes will tell you whether a tab or a set of spaces is used in a text. Also, to spot double spaces, if you don't just do a find/replace to get rid of them. I think this kind of use could be done in OO or LO just as well. Just to clarify, and as I think most users of OpenOffice realize, these particular things will be shown fine using View Non-printing characters (or Ctrl+F10). So there is no need for any additional reveal code features for these items. (I'm not saying there are no other needs for reveal codes.) --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/22/2014 04:15 PM, japples wrote: Urmas wrote: japples: A more efficient way would be to have the codes seen where they are in document and make corrections on the spot. I've never used WP, but basing on Wiki images, it shows mostly useless stuff like linebreaks and spaces. Do you want to see where each formatting run begins and ends? May I suggest you use the real deal rather than accepting an explanation by a third party - listening to a third party is similar to listening to gossip rather than finding out for yourself. Most of the time you will find gossip is a mix of truth and fantasy. Last comment, OO has similar codes revealed and, personally, I have used them for over 30 years and find them most helpful. In the past, I was able to help co-workers who used a product without ability to see codes. They spent hours trying to fix a document that took me less than 10 minutes. Once again I read about that someone has done something without saying what they did nor how. What codes are you talking about in OO better known (supposedly) as AOO? Are you talking about the content.xml file in the zipped ODT file? --Dan --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Dan, like you, I am very tired of people talking about things such as the content.xml file in the zipped ODT file which doesn't seem to be a function in the standard tool bar such as Edit, Copy, Paste etc. I do apologize for not being more clear about where I found the codes OO has that are similar to the WP codes. Open OO Writer, find the icon that looks similar to the manual (before computer) editing symbol for new paragraph. Click on it to expose the codes or simply ctrl+F10. Thank you for your kind request for clarification Jack Dan Lewis wrote: On 05/22/2014 04:15 PM, japples wrote: Urmas wrote: japples: A more efficient way would be to have the codes seen where they are in document and make corrections on the spot. I've never used WP, but basing on Wiki images, it shows mostly useless stuff like linebreaks and spaces. Do you want to see where each formatting run begins and ends? May I suggest you use the real deal rather than accepting an explanation by a third party - listening to a third party is similar to listening to gossip rather than finding out for yourself. Most of the time you will find gossip is a mix of truth and fantasy. Last comment, OO has similar codes revealed and, personally, I have used them for over 30 years and find them most helpful. In the past, I was able to help co-workers who used a product without ability to see codes. They spent hours trying to fix a document that took me less than 10 minutes. Once again I read about that someone has done something without saying what they did nor how. What codes are you talking about in OO better known (supposedly) as AOO? Are you talking about the content.xml file in the zipped ODT file? --Dan --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 2014-05-23, 9:07 AM japples wrote: I do apologize for not being more clear about where I found the codes OO has that are similar to the WP codes. Open OO Writer, find the icon that looks similar to the manual (before computer) editing symbol for new paragraph. Click on it to expose the codes or simply ctrl+F10. ctrl+F10 shows Non-Printing Charactors. That is not comparable to WP's reveal codes. -- _ Larry I. Gusaas Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada Website: http://larry-gusaas.com An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs. - Edgard Varese --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Larry, I understand your words. For now, this is the closest OO has to WP reveal codes. Look closely and you will see some of the codes shown with OO are also shown in WP reveal codes window. Point being, you don't have to have a separate window to view / edit codes. One other point, WP Reveal Codes are non-printable. WP usesfor space and OO uses .; WP uses HRT for hard return and OO uses the old symbol (pre computer) for a new paragraph. Now tell me again how there are no similarities (include examples other than ones I have given above). The OO's limited source has been the topic for requesting to expand. The ability to edit is there just not in a separate window as WP. I don't know if OO has the ability to edit a text box but someone with more time and energy could respond. Jack Larry Gusaas wrote: On 2014-05-23, 9:07 AM japples wrote: I do apologize for not being more clear about where I found the codes OO has that are similar to the WP codes. Open OO Writer, find the icon that looks similar to the manual (before computer) editing symbol for new paragraph. Click on it to expose the codes or simply ctrl+F10. ctrl+F10 shows Non-Printing Charactors. That is not comparable to WP's reveal codes.
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/23/2014 08:43 PM, Larry Gusaas wrote: On 2014-05-23, 3:43 PM japples wrote: /snip/ There is a huge difference between showing non-printing characters and showing formatting codes. Saying AOO shows non-printing characters is similar to WP reveal codes is ridiculous. Now tell me again how there are no similarities (include examples other than ones I have given above). The OO's limited source has been the topic for requesting to expand. The ability to edit is there just not in a separate window as WP. I don't know if OO has the ability to edit a text box but someone with more time and energy could respond. Using reveal non-printing charters in AOO does not show any formatting codes. The purpose of WP reveal codes is to change the documents formatting (font size and type, bold, italic, underline, superscript, etc). There is no similarity to AOO. I must respectfully disagree. All of the formatting in WP is modifiable from the menus at the top of the page, and simple format changes, like bold, italic, underline are available from the keyboard in the same fashion that is found in virtually all modern word processors or text writers. Font and font size are also modifiable from the heading structure. (What are those top lines, which occur in just about all GUI programs, including Firefox and Thunderbird, called, anyway?) Real format tricks, like small caps can be found in the pull-down menus. I have found the Reveal Codes feature to be most useful in finding oddball things that may have come in with an imported file, and to debug minor mishaps that are not obvious from just looking at the text. One use of Reveal Codes will tell you whether a tab or a set of spaces is used in a text. Also, to spot double spaces, if you don't just do a find/replace to get rid of them. I think this kind of use could be done in OO or LO just as well. --doug --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
yes, voting is how you officially indicate your interest On 05/23/2014 03:39 AM, Helen wrote: I'd love the reveal codes feature -- didn't know there was a vote until I ran across this. On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak and...@pitonyak.org wrote: On 05/19/2014 06:11 AM, japples wrote: So far, this conversation boils down to: use only styles which requires casual users to travel the steep learning curve to enable their use and possibility of creating conflicts with other style rules or show consideration to the casual user and provide a reveal code feature which is cleaner / more direct and does not have potential of creating conflicts. That is the preferred way of using the product, but it does not negate the need for the feature. It does, however, possibly make it more difficult to implement. I think that the real problem is that it requires a knowledgeable person (as in someone who would be able to code the solution) to care enough to choose to do it. This is, after all, community developed software. So, the trick is to convince a particular person to spend time / energy on that particular feature. In this case, it means that the feature must be first designed, since a design does not exist, and, the general usage pattern is sufficiently different, that it is not obvious to me that saying copy from WP is sufficient. Finding someone that cares enough to actually implement really is the hardest part. The product has many users, but, I only see 25 people on the CC list for the enhancement request and only 201 votes for implementation. https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3395 So, if one talented person cares enough to do it, it will happen. Otherwise, I suppose that sufficient people need to vote for the feature. WIth as many users as exist, only finding 201 people who want it enough to put one of their votes towards it in over 10 years feels a little spartan. Perhaps the problem is that the people that want it do not know that they can vote for it. I will admit, however, that I don't have a handle on how many votes it would require to push it up the list, and I lack the time right now to check to see where it stands relative to other requests. I do see that most people that voted put two of their votes towards it. https://issues.apache.org/ooo/page.cgi?id=voting/bug.htmlbug_id=3395 Compared to using wysiwyg web page creator without ability to view code. Styles does nothing to correct skewed page; however, viewing the codes is a very helpful tool. Jack -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
How red faced am I . . . I finally put aside a portion of my mindset and can now can see OO's reveal codes - amazing how easy it is not to see the forest for the trees. Could not see OO codes because they did not appear as I was accustomed to viewing (periods look like dust specks on my monitor). Jack Wheels on elephant skates only allow forward movement They lock thus preventing backward motion --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/22/2014 04:22 AM, japples wrote: How red faced am I . . . I finally put aside a portion of my mindset and can now can see OO's reveal codes - amazing how easy it is not to see the forest for the trees. Could not see OO codes because they did not appear as I was accustomed to viewing (periods look like dust specks on my monitor). How? --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
japples: A more efficient way would be to have the codes seen where they are in document and make corrections on the spot. I've never used WP, but basing on Wiki images, it shows mostly useless stuff like linebreaks and spaces. Do you want to see where each formatting run begins and ends? --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Doug wrote: See below your note On 05/22/2014 04:22 AM, japples wrote: How red faced am I . . . I finally put aside a portion of my mindset and can now can see OO's reveal codes - amazing how easy it is not to see the forest for the trees. Could not see OO codes because they did not appear as I was accustomed to viewing (periods look like dust specks on my monitor). How? Almost equal to the super deep red Black Baccara rose. I am able to admit to my mistakes knowing there is a list member who delights in attempting to make me feel inferior / signs his notes with his name followed by private . I'll never know if he tries to contact me again - anything connected with him is deleted before it reaches me. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Urmas wrote: japples: A more efficient way would be to have the codes seen where they are in document and make corrections on the spot. I've never used WP, but basing on Wiki images, it shows mostly useless stuff like linebreaks and spaces. Do you want to see where each formatting run begins and ends? May I suggest you use the real deal rather than accepting an explanation by a third party - listening to a third party is similar to listening to gossip rather than finding out for yourself. Most of the time you will find gossip is a mix of truth and fantasy. Last comment, OO has similar codes revealed and, personally, I have used them for over 30 years and find them most helpful. In the past, I was able to help co-workers who used a product without ability to see codes. They spent hours trying to fix a document that took me less than 10 minutes. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2241 / Virus Database: 3722/7038 - Release Date: 05/22/14 - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2241 / Virus Database: 3722/7038 - Release Date: 05/22/14 --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 20/5/14 at 3:02 PM, bbyfi...@axion.net (Bruce Byfield) wrote: Sorry -- you're waa behind the times. The vast majority of books published these days use a layout program -- sometimes, even, LibreOffice -- and the publishers set it using tools like styles. ... This is true, Bruce. But you can always set apart books that have been manually adjusted from books that rely on automatic layout. Guess which are the most professional-looking? :-) Bottom line is that there is no perfect automation. Which is exactly why many users request more efficient ways to interact with the software. Now I don't know whether we should make a distinction between requirement and request in this case... but it seems to me that whitewashing it altogether might not be the best approach. marina --- MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.8 @martadiello --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
At least two (probably more) of the books I have in my shelf are produced entirely by a system widely used in the sciences, LaTeX, in combination with other software like RStudio, R, and a package for R called knitr. As far as I understand, page layout, headers, footers, references, everything. No tweaking afterwards. LaTeX is a beautiful tool. Steep learning curve, but with anything more than a few pages long, definitely worth the investment in the long run. Tom On 21. May 2014, at 07:02 , Bruce Byfield bbyfi...@axion.net wrote: On Wednesday 21 May 2014 09:22:08 AM Urmas wrote: Bruce Byfield: Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary Take any book from your shelf. The number of lines on each page was adjusted manually. The hyphenation and letter spacing were adjusted manually. Paragraph spacing was adjusted manually. The height of each footnote was adjusted manually. Each illustration was placed manually. Sorry -- you're waa behind the times. The vast majority of books published these days use a layout program -- sometimes, even, LibreOffice -- and the publishers set it using tools like styles. I've worked with several different publishers, and I can tell you that the industry standards are fairly consistent. The only books in which everything is done manually are made by small presses, usually working with a pre-digital press. Such books tend to be expensive because they are so time-consuming to produce. Chances are, you yourself don't do manually all the things you mention when you use LibreOffice. You might tweak a hyphenation break here and there, or kern a couple of characters, but I would be very surprised to learn that you went character by character over all your documents. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org Tom Backer Johnsen Søndre Steinkjellersmauet 7 5003 Bergen Mobil: +47 9169 3346 Email: backer(at)psych.uib.no --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/20/2014 10:22 PM, Urmas wrote: Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary If anyone knows perverse, it would be Urmas. ;-) --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Wednesday 21 May 2014 05:14:33 PM mt wrote: On 20/5/14 at 3:02 PM, bbyfi...@axion.net (Bruce Byfield) wrote: Sorry -- you're waa behind the times. The vast majority of books published these days use a layout program -- sometimes, even, LibreOffice -- and the publishers set it using tools like styles. ... This is true, Bruce. But you can always set apart books that have been manually adjusted from books that rely on automatic layout. Guess which are the most professional-looking? :-) Sure, and they can be a joy to own. However, I would point out: - Manual layouts for books are usually done on pre-digital presses, not on a computer. - What singles out manually-set books isn't that they are set manually, but that time and effort is devoted to making everything perfect. It's the care, not the technique that matters. In theory, you could take the same care with a digital file, but neither manual formatters nor users of styles generally do so. More often, both settle for what is good enough. - The question of manual formatting vs. style comes down to a matter of which can save you the most time while presenting the higher standard of layout. You probably still have to tweak finishing details if you use styles, but you generally have less to do, and can finish the tweaks more quickly and with less effort than if you rely on manual formatting. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 19/5/14 at 12:05 PM, j...@jt-mj.net (Julian Thomas) wrote: Is there a better manual than the online help that I'm missing? cheers - jt The best style manual I have come across was the ancient Hakon Wium Lie's CSS book - and in fact, it's been easier for me to master styles in writer applications after grasping the CSS concept. Of course experience with HTML (from version 1...) also helped greatly, in terms of understanding how to design structured documents. It might be easier for you, too, to understand Styles if you look at your document's structure: headings, normal paragraphs, indented paragraphs, bullet or number lists can all be defined as individual paragraph styles, which then become available for other parts of the document. Or, if you save these styles to a style library, for all other documents. Similarly, you can define character styles for things like bold, italic, or coloured text that does not span the whole extent of a paragraph. I found it was easier for me to work with my own styles. If you take the New style based on selection approach, you'll be able to see how attributes are assigned. I know this is very rough... hope it helps a little bit! marina --- MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.8 @martadiello --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
And your not even involving columns and tables, etc., yet! A page can get very complex. On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 8:06 AM, Martin Groenescheij mar...@groenescheij.com wrote: For me personally I worked with Styles for about three decades and find this the best way to control my documents. Nevertheless we should not be blind for the needs of others, managing Styles has a long learning curve and someone can make many mistakes before he master Styles. Where someone can fall into the trap is the complexity of inherited properties from parent Styles. Even if you are an expert in Style formats you come into problems when you have to combine documents which are originated from different persons. Users tend to ask for something they are familiar with instead of expressing their problem, they ask for Reveal Codes but what they need is something like Reveal my Mistakes with Styles or better Help me to Avoid Making Mistakes. One of the simple things that could help users is information of each property within a Style that shows from which Style the property is inherited e.g. Heading 1 inherit properties from Style Heading and Style Heading inherit properties from Style Default. Displaying this information either in the Style and Formatting Toolbar or in the Sidebar will help to analyze the formatting issues. Heading 1 Font FontInherited from Heading TypefaceBold Size115% LanguageInherited from Default Font Effects Font Color Inherited from Default Effects Inherited from Default Relief Inherited from Default Outline Inherited from Default Shadow Inherited from Default BlinkingInherited from Default Hidden Inherited from Default Overlining Inherited from Default StriketroughInherited from Default Underlining Inherited from Default Alignment LeftInherited from Default Right Inherited from Default Center Inherited from Default Justified Inherited from Default Indent and Spacing Before Text 0.76 After Text Inherited from Default First Line -0.76 Automatic Inherited from Default Above paragraph Inherited from Heading Below paragraph Inherited from Heading Line SpacingInherited from Default Active Inherited from Default On 13-5-2014 11:06, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Martin, to put it more simply, you prefer to post the styles / definitions of a document as a cheat sheet rather than see the code in real time and where located in your document (reveal codes). Very inefficient to take eyes off of the document to search for style definitions then go back to document to fix the problem and possibly create a clash with imported document or another style definition. A more efficient way would be to have the codes seen where they are in document and make corrections on the spot. Also, using this type of reveal code window eliminates the possibility of creating a conflicting style definition. This whole thing reminds me of when I started writing web pages. In short order I began to see how limiting wysiwyg (ie, styles) was yet I was unable to move to a more efficient method until that mindset changed. If the mind is closed, nothing can be accomplished. Opening a Reveal Codes window to correct document is more efficient and less problematic than working with styles. Per your description, a list of styles can be opened to identify what part of the rule is creating the problem. Reveal Codes allows to see the code causing the problem plus eliminates guessing related to conflicting styles. Perhaps when all the mindsets are put into neutral, an option that is intuitive, efficient, has low risk of creating other document problems, will come to light. Another comparison of styles vs reveal codes is the automobile transmissions. The manual is similar to working with style definitions while the automatic is more like working with reveal codes. The above is not saying adding reveal codes to OO is the thing to do; however, those with open minds seem to be projecting a more efficient way to handle documents. Nor is it saying anyone understanding the value of reveal codes and capable of the work required to add it to OO, won't be driven to drink or start staring at spinning spiral disks in a room of alternating color spotlights highlighting the pink spotted elephant chorus line. Jack Doug Johnson wrote: And your not even involving columns and tables, etc., yet! A page can get very complex. On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 8:06 AM, Martin Groenescheij mar...@groenescheij.com wrote: For me personally I worked with Styles for about three decades and find this the best way to control my documents. Nevertheless we should not be blind for the needs of others, managing Styles has a long learning curve and someone can make many mistakes before he master Styles. Where someone can fall into the trap is the complexity of inherited properties from parent Styles. Even if you are an expert in Style formats you come into problems when you have to combine documents which are originated from different persons. Users tend to ask for something they are familiar with instead of expressing their problem, they ask for Reveal Codes but what they need is something like Reveal my Mistakes with Styles or better Help me to Avoid Making Mistakes. One of the simple things that could help users is information of each property within a Style that shows from which Style the property is inherited e.g. Heading 1 inherit properties from Style Heading and Style Heading inherit properties from Style Default. Displaying this information either in the Style and Formatting Toolbar or in the Sidebar will help to analyze the formatting issues. Heading 1 Font FontInherited from Heading TypefaceBold Size115% LanguageInherited from Default Font Effects Font Color Inherited from Default Effects Inherited from Default Relief Inherited from Default Outline Inherited from Default Shadow Inherited from Default BlinkingInherited from Default Hidden Inherited from Default Overlining Inherited from Default StriketroughInherited from Default Underlining Inherited from Default Alignment LeftInherited from Default Right Inherited from Default Center Inherited from Default Justified Inherited from Default Indent and Spacing Before Text 0.76 After Text Inherited from Default First Line -0.76 Automatic Inherited from Default Above paragraph Inherited from Heading Below paragraph Inherited from Heading Line SpacingInherited from Default Active Inherited from Default On 13-5-2014 11:06, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If
Re: Suggestion.
On 21-5-2014 10:28, japples wrote: Martin, to put it more simply, you prefer to post the styles / definitions of a document as a cheat sheet rather than see the code in real time and where located in your document (reveal codes). Very inefficient to take eyes off of the document to search for style definitions then go back to document to fix the problem and possibly create a clash with imported document or another style definition. To be honest, I don't prefer anything, because I believe I master Styles. All I tried to address is that we should not be blind for requirements of others and see if we can come up with a solution to assist users who have problems with Styles. A more efficient way would be to have the codes seen where they are in document and make corrections on the spot. Also, using this type of reveal code window eliminates the possibility of creating a conflicting style definition. This whole thing reminds me of when I started writing web pages. In short order I began to see how limiting wysiwyg (ie, styles) was yet I was unable to move to a more efficient method until that mindset changed. If the mind is closed, nothing can be accomplished. Opening a Reveal Codes window to correct document is more efficient and less problematic than working with styles. Per your description, a list of styles can be opened to identify what part of the rule is creating the problem. Reveal Codes allows to see the code causing the problem plus eliminates guessing related to conflicting styles. Perhaps when all the mindsets are put into neutral, an option that is intuitive, efficient, has low risk of creating other document problems, will come to light. Another comparison of styles vs reveal codes is the automobile transmissions. The manual is similar to working with style definitions while the automatic is more like working with reveal codes. The above is not saying adding reveal codes to OO is the thing to do; however, those with open minds seem to be projecting a more efficient way to handle documents. Nor is it saying anyone understanding the value of reveal codes and capable of the work required to add it to OO, won't be driven to drink or start staring at spinning spiral disks in a room of alternating color spotlights highlighting the pink spotted elephant chorus line. Jack Doug Johnson wrote: And your not even involving columns and tables, etc., yet! A page can get very complex. On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 8:06 AM, Martin Groenescheij mar...@groenescheij.com wrote: For me personally I worked with Styles for about three decades and find this the best way to control my documents. Nevertheless we should not be blind for the needs of others, managing Styles has a long learning curve and someone can make many mistakes before he master Styles. Where someone can fall into the trap is the complexity of inherited properties from parent Styles. Even if you are an expert in Style formats you come into problems when you have to combine documents which are originated from different persons. Users tend to ask for something they are familiar with instead of expressing their problem, they ask for Reveal Codes but what they need is something like Reveal my Mistakes with Styles or better Help me to Avoid Making Mistakes. One of the simple things that could help users is information of each property within a Style that shows from which Style the property is inherited e.g. Heading 1 inherit properties from Style Heading and Style Heading inherit properties from Style Default. Displaying this information either in the Style and Formatting Toolbar or in the Sidebar will help to analyze the formatting issues. Heading 1 Font FontInherited from Heading TypefaceBold Size115% LanguageInherited from Default Font Effects Font Color Inherited from Default Effects Inherited from Default Relief Inherited from Default Outline Inherited from Default Shadow Inherited from Default BlinkingInherited from Default Hidden Inherited from Default Overlining Inherited from Default StriketroughInherited from Default Underlining Inherited from Default Alignment LeftInherited from Default Right Inherited from Default Center Inherited from Default Justified Inherited from Default Indent and Spacing Before Text 0.76 After Text Inherited from Default First Line -0.76 Automatic Inherited from Default Above paragraph Inherited from Heading Below paragraph Inherited from Heading Line SpacingInherited from Default Active Inherited from Default On 13-5-2014 11:06, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there
Re: Suggestion.
Bruce Byfield: Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary Take any book from your shelf. The number of lines on each page was adjusted manually. The hyphenation and letter spacing were adjusted manually. Paragraph spacing was adjusted manually. The height of each footnote was adjusted manually. Each illustration was placed manually. Manual formatting is essential. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Wednesday 21 May 2014 09:22:08 AM Urmas wrote: Bruce Byfield: Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary Take any book from your shelf. The number of lines on each page was adjusted manually. The hyphenation and letter spacing were adjusted manually. Paragraph spacing was adjusted manually. The height of each footnote was adjusted manually. Each illustration was placed manually. Sorry -- you're waa behind the times. The vast majority of books published these days use a layout program -- sometimes, even, LibreOffice -- and the publishers set it using tools like styles. I've worked with several different publishers, and I can tell you that the industry standards are fairly consistent. The only books in which everything is done manually are made by small presses, usually working with a pre-digital press. Such books tend to be expensive because they are so time-consuming to produce. Chances are, you yourself don't do manually all the things you mention when you use LibreOffice. You might tweak a hyphenation break here and there, or kern a couple of characters, but I would be very surprised to learn that you went character by character over all your documents. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
Sorry if there is some confusion here, as I for one never meant to criticise styles - which I use extensively, and generally find useful. There are however situations where styles might not help. For example, when troubleshooting document formatting problems such as page or section options, or when special (manual) character formatting has been applied to styled paragraphs: this is where reveal codes can come in handy. Also, typically, Reveal codes was used by someone other than the original author... funny this has never been mentioned, given that it was the main reason why we had to use Reveal codes back when WordPerfect was the standard! Anyhow, a (very basic) example of how this could be obtained is in the Write/Edit Post interface in WordPress, with its two tabs (Visual | Text). I have no idea whether this is possible in OO - but it is my understanding that something like that is what people asking for Reveal codes might find useful. As WordPress demonstrates and Richard Detwiler already suggested, these two ways of looking at a written page are not necessarily mutually exclusive. So if they are in OO, maybe this is what needs to be explained to us users, who do not understand, nor want to know, about the inner workings of the program. Lastly, and by the by: I believe the only way a programmer can take the user's perspective is to listen to end users themselves. Ideally... without expecting them to be computer literate or (worse) accusing them to not put in the necessary time/effort to learn how to use the program. Thank you for suggesting ways how we might be able to help, as end ( dumb? :-) users. marina --- MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.8 @martadiello --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
So far, this conversation boils down to: use only styles which requires casual users to travel the steep learning curve to enable their use and possibility of creating conflicts with other style rules or show consideration to the casual user and provide a reveal code feature which is cleaner / more direct and does not have potential of creating conflicts. Compared to using wysiwyg web page creator without ability to view code. Styles does nothing to correct skewed page; however, viewing the codes is a very helpful tool. Jack mt wrote: Sorry if there is some confusion here, as I for one never meant to criticise styles - which I use extensively, and generally find useful. There are however situations where styles might not help. For example, when troubleshooting document formatting problems such as page or section options, or when special (manual) character formatting has been applied to styled paragraphs: this is where reveal codes can come in handy. Also, typically, Reveal codes was used by someone other than the original author... funny this has never been mentioned, given that it was the main reason why we had to use Reveal codes back when WordPerfect was the standard! Anyhow, a (very basic) example of how this could be obtained is in the Write/Edit Post interface in WordPress, with its two tabs (Visual | Text). I have no idea whether this is possible in OO - but it is my understanding that something like that is what people asking for Reveal codes might find useful. As WordPress demonstrates and Richard Detwiler already suggested, these two ways of looking at a written page are not necessarily mutually exclusive. So if they are in OO, maybe this is what needs to be explained to us users, who do not understand, nor want to know, about the inner workings of the program. Lastly, and by the by: I believe the only way a programmer can take the user's perspective is to listen to end users themselves. Ideally... without expecting them to be computer literate or (worse) accusing them to not put in the necessary time/effort to learn how to use the program. Thank you for suggesting ways how we might be able to help, as end ( dumb? :-) users. marina --- MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.8 @martadiello --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2241 / Virus Database: 3722/7012 - Release Date: 05/17/14
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
Allow me to add my 'two-pence worth’ to this important discussion. Seems to me that it has been well-explained earlier that a ‘reveal codes’-like solution (apparently as in WordPerfect) is not readily achievable within OO, as the formatting controls of OO don’t lend themselves to such a solution (either technically, or in a way that would enable users to achieve what they want). IMHO, it’s clear from this correspondence that getting formats right can be a difficult task for many users, both casual and not (I regard myself as mid-point, but it can be difficult and frustrating - I don’t knowingly use styles). I particularly find nested lists (very difficult to achieve consistently to what I want (although I’m a big fan of OO generally). I recommend the approach to the OO development team to start with a requirement to improve the formatting handling (particularly lists) - maybe that simple requirement can be generally shared by most contributors - without mandating any particular solution. That should give the developers the licence to examine any type of solution that will improve this apparently contentious and difficult area. Best to all, Steve On 19 May 2014, at 11:11, japples japp...@europa.com wrote: So far, this conversation boils down to: use only styles which requires casual users to travel the steep learning curve to enable their use and possibility of creating conflicts with other style rules or show consideration to the casual user and provide a reveal code feature which is cleaner / more direct and does not have potential of creating conflicts. Compared to using wysiwyg web page creator without ability to view code. Styles does nothing to correct skewed page; however, viewing the codes is a very helpful tool. Jack mt wrote: Sorry if there is some confusion here, as I for one never meant to criticise styles - which I use extensively, and generally find useful. There are however situations where styles might not help. For example, when troubleshooting document formatting problems such as page or section options, or when special (manual) character formatting has been applied to styled paragraphs: this is where reveal codes can come in handy. Also, typically, Reveal codes was used by someone other than the original author... funny this has never been mentioned, given that it was the main reason why we had to use Reveal codes back when WordPerfect was the standard! Anyhow, a (very basic) example of how this could be obtained is in the Write/Edit Post interface in WordPress, with its two tabs (Visual | Text). I have no idea whether this is possible in OO - but it is my understanding that something like that is what people asking for Reveal codes might find useful. As WordPress demonstrates and Richard Detwiler already suggested, these two ways of looking at a written page are not necessarily mutually exclusive. So if they are in OO, maybe this is what needs to be explained to us users, who do not understand, nor want to know, about the inner workings of the program. Lastly, and by the by: I believe the only way a programmer can take the user's perspective is to listen to end users themselves. Ideally... without expecting them to be computer literate or (worse) accusing them to not put in the necessary time/effort to learn how to use the program. Thank you for suggesting ways how we might be able to help, as end ( dumb? :-) users. marina --- MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.8 @martadiello --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org - No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.2241 / Virus Database: 3722/7012 - Release Date: 05/17/14 Best Regards, Steve Caine --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
On 05/19/2014 06:11 AM, japples wrote: So far, this conversation boils down to: use only styles which requires casual users to travel the steep learning curve to enable their use and possibility of creating conflicts with other style rules or show consideration to the casual user and provide a reveal code feature which is cleaner / more direct and does not have potential of creating conflicts. That is the preferred way of using the product, but it does not negate the need for the feature. It does, however, possibly make it more difficult to implement. I think that the real problem is that it requires a knowledgeable person (as in someone who would be able to code the solution) to care enough to choose to do it. This is, after all, community developed software. So, the trick is to convince a particular person to spend time / energy on that particular feature. In this case, it means that the feature must be first designed, since a design does not exist, and, the general usage pattern is sufficiently different, that it is not obvious to me that saying copy from WP is sufficient. Finding someone that cares enough to actually implement really is the hardest part. The product has many users, but, I only see 25 people on the CC list for the enhancement request and only 201 votes for implementation. https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3395 So, if one talented person cares enough to do it, it will happen. Otherwise, I suppose that sufficient people need to vote for the feature. WIth as many users as exist, only finding 201 people who want it enough to put one of their votes towards it in over 10 years feels a little spartan. Perhaps the problem is that the people that want it do not know that they can vote for it. I will admit, however, that I don't have a handle on how many votes it would require to push it up the list, and I lack the time right now to check to see where it stands relative to other requests. I do see that most people that voted put two of their votes towards it. https://issues.apache.org/ooo/page.cgi?id=voting/bug.htmlbug_id=3395 Compared to using wysiwyg web page creator without ability to view code. Styles does nothing to correct skewed page; however, viewing the codes is a very helpful tool. Jack -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
If we use OpenOffice to edit the file and use WordPerfect to reveal code, what is the problem? 2014-05-19 20:17 GMT+08:00 Andrew Douglas Pitonyak and...@pitonyak.org: On 05/19/2014 06:11 AM, japples wrote: So far, this conversation boils down to: use only styles which requires casual users to travel the steep learning curve to enable their use and possibility of creating conflicts with other style rules or show consideration to the casual user and provide a reveal code feature which is cleaner / more direct and does not have potential of creating conflicts. That is the preferred way of using the product, but it does not negate the need for the feature. It does, however, possibly make it more difficult to implement. I think that the real problem is that it requires a knowledgeable person (as in someone who would be able to code the solution) to care enough to choose to do it. This is, after all, community developed software. So, the trick is to convince a particular person to spend time / energy on that particular feature. In this case, it means that the feature must be first designed, since a design does not exist, and, the general usage pattern is sufficiently different, that it is not obvious to me that saying copy from WP is sufficient. Finding someone that cares enough to actually implement really is the hardest part. The product has many users, but, I only see 25 people on the CC list for the enhancement request and only 201 votes for implementation. https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3395 So, if one talented person cares enough to do it, it will happen. Otherwise, I suppose that sufficient people need to vote for the feature. WIth as many users as exist, only finding 201 people who want it enough to put one of their votes towards it in over 10 years feels a little spartan. Perhaps the problem is that the people that want it do not know that they can vote for it. I will admit, however, that I don't have a handle on how many votes it would require to push it up the list, and I lack the time right now to check to see where it stands relative to other requests. I do see that most people that voted put two of their votes towards it. https://issues.apache.org/ooo/page.cgi?id=voting/bug.htmlbug_id=3395 Compared to using wysiwyg web page creator without ability to view code. Styles does nothing to correct skewed page; however, viewing the codes is a very helpful tool. Jack -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
On 05/19/2014 09:38 AM, 許哲崇 wrote: If we use OpenOffice to edit the file and use WordPerfect to reveal code, what is the problem? The problem is that most versions of WordPerfect don't run on Linux. (WordPerfect 12 word processor only will run, but can't read the latest Microsoft formats. Also, it may be difficult to find the program.) --doug --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Hello, Sorry for the intrusion, my network some how received your e-mail. Have a Wonderful Day! Randy Fisher http://randy.simpleadvantage.net 613-483-8345 Sent from Samsung Mobile div Original message /divdivFrom: Martin Groenescheij mar...@groenescheij.com /divdivDate:05/18/2014 8:06 AM (GMT-05:00) /divdivTo: users@openoffice.apache.org /divdivCc: mar...@groenescheij.com /divdivSubject: Re: Suggestion. /divdiv /divFor me personally I worked with Styles for about three decades and find this the best way to control my documents. Nevertheless we should not be blind for the needs of others, managing Styles has a long learning curve and someone can make many mistakes before he master Styles. Where someone can fall into the trap is the complexity of inherited properties from parent Styles. Even if you are an expert in Style formats you come into problems when you have to combine documents which are originated from different persons. Users tend to ask for something they are familiar with instead of expressing their problem, they ask for Reveal Codes but what they need is something like Reveal my Mistakes with Styles or better Help me to Avoid Making Mistakes. One of the simple things that could help users is information of each property within a Style that shows from which Style the property is inherited e.g. Heading 1 inherit properties from Style Heading and Style Heading inherit properties from Style Default. Displaying this information either in the Style and Formatting Toolbar or in the Sidebar will help to analyze the formatting issues. Heading 1 Font Font Inherited from Heading Typeface Bold Size 115% Language Inherited from Default Font Effects Font Color Inherited from Default Effects Inherited from Default Relief Inherited from Default Outline Inherited from Default Shadow Inherited from Default Blinking Inherited from Default Hidden Inherited from Default Overlining Inherited from Default Striketrough Inherited from Default Underlining Inherited from Default Alignment Left Inherited from Default Right Inherited from Default Center Inherited from Default Justified Inherited from Default Indent and Spacing Before Text 0.76 After Text Inherited from Default First Line -0.76 Automatic Inherited from Default Above paragraph Inherited from Heading Below paragraph Inherited from Heading Line Spacing Inherited from Default Active Inherited from Default On 13-5-2014 11:06, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Hello Mr. Detwiler, Sorry for the intrusion, my network some how received your e-mail. Have a Wonderful Day! Randy Fisher http://randy.simpleadvantage.net 613-483-8345 Sent from Samsung Mobile div Original message /divdivFrom: Richard Detwiler rlsha...@aol.com /divdivDate:05/18/2014 8:07 AM (GMT-05:00) /divdivTo: users@openoffice.apache.org /divdivSubject: Re: Suggestion. /divdiv /divNot to argue, but just to mention my experiences -- I do on the spot formatting on many occasions and I've never felt hampered by not having the reveal codes capability. Also, I've used styles on many other occasions, and likewise have never felt hampered by not having reveal codes. I DO find it helpful on many occasions to use the View Non-printing characters (also accessed by clicking on the paragraph symbol button, or selecting Ctrl+F10) feature, to see where hard returns are, where spaces are, etc. Especially when editing text that someone else created, in particular one person who submits to the newsletter that I edit where, rather than using tabs to create a table-like format, he uses spaces. Based on a post of someone else, it seems like some of the features that this person was complaining about not having in Open Office are in fact achievable by the View Non-printing characters feature. Doug Johnson wrote: I agree with the On the spot need. Quite simply, Reveal Codes allows me to see what's going with a glance. With so many features, the interaction between them can make formatting unexpectedly difficult. Like salt and pepper, use when needed! On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 7:20 AM, Richard Detwiler rlsha...@aol.com wrote: What I don't understand, and I'm sure I must be missing something so please explain, is how come this discussion seems to suggest that it's either/or -- meaning, use styles for all formatting or we HAVE to have reveal codes to not use styles. I've used styles a lot with Open Office and I greatly appreciate how valuable they can be; for example, I edit a newsletter and styles have made my life way easier and made the resulting newsletter way more consistent. On the other hand, there are many places, in smaller documents, where I want to format something on the spot without setting up styles -- changing the spacing between paragraphs, making some text bold, indenting a paragraph, etc., and I often do that without using styles. And it works just fine. So if someone wants to use styles, they can use them. If someone doesn't want to use styles and do formatting on the spot without going through styles, that can be done too. So why the implied necessity for reveal codes for people who choose not to use styles? Jim McLaughlin wrote: This has been a very interesting thread. It has also been the single most posted to thread I've seen in the six or so months I've been a subscrber to this group. What fascinates me is that other than the three defender's of OO orthodoxy regarding styles ve. alternative methods, like a WP reveal codes approach, the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option to the very steep learning curve of the styles approach. Food for thought. If the programmers behind OO want to provide a word processor which will attract users, and avoid the very high costs of the MJKS or Corel products, those programmers might want to seriously consider the efficacy of providing what the users who have expressed an opinion appear to want, rather tahn take the ...my way or the highway... approach expresseed here so far. Not trying to start a pissing contest. Just pointing out what the admittedly unscientifif opinion sample in this thread has so far shown. Is there a technical reason why a Corel/WP Reveal Codes function can not be implemented in 5.x.x? On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/14/2014 02:12 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down
Re: Suggestion.
Hello Julian Thomas, Sorry for the intrusion, my network some how received your e-mail. Have a Wonderful Day! Randy Fisher http://randy.simpleadvantage.net 613-483-8345 Sent from Samsung Mobile div Original message /divdivFrom: Julian Thomas j...@jt-mj.net /divdivDate:05/16/2014 10:42 PM (GMT-05:00) /divdivTo: users@openoffice.apache.org /divdivSubject: Re: Suggestion. /divdiv /div On 15 May 2014, at 07:15, Andrea Pescetti pesce...@apache.org wrote: We are preparing new documentation under the Apache License here: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/UserGuide/Writer/Styles Feel free to review and improve it. If you need a wiki account, just ask here (this applies to everybody on this list, of course). went there, found this: About the List Styles and How to Use Them We already talked about numbered lists and bullets as manual formatting. This method, while quick to implement for a single list becomes a problem when we need several lists, all of them maintaining consistency in formatting: here is where the use of list styles is important. List styles are particular in Writer, because they are never applied directly: even when manually applying a list style, all we get is the paragraph calling the list style. Indeed, the list styles are always called from a paragraph, either through direct formatting or with the use of styles. In fact, when editing a paragraph style (or the format for a particular paragraph) on the Outline Numbering tab we have a Numbering Style drop down menu: selecting an existing list style the paragraph style (or the particular paragraph) we are modifying will be numbered with the list style. Sigh. This is hardly what I would call a tutorial. I am not [yet] competent to improve this since I am struggling mightily to get the basics of list style formatting. Thanks. When this is brought up to snuff, it should help with these issues that desperately need to be un-arcaned [if I may coin a word]. What I want to be able to do is a list like this: 1. blah 2. blech * blech2 3. Ugh and then be able to go back to 1 and insert a bullet underneath it, or enter a bulleted item under 3 * Ugga and then be able to go back and enter 4. Yuck OO does not deal well with this; I find that if I don't do 4. Yuck before I do 3. * ugga, the numbering and alignment is all messed up. Try it - you won't like it! jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Hello Dan Lewis, Sorry for the intrusion, my network some how received your e-mail. Have a Wonderful Day! Randy Fisher http://randy.simpleadvantage.net 613-483-8345 Sent from Samsung Mobile div Original message /divdivFrom: Dan Lewis elderdanle...@gmail.com /divdivDate:05/16/2014 7:02 AM (GMT-05:00) /divdivTo: users@openoffice.apache.org /divdivSubject: Re: Suggestion. /divdiv /divOn 05/14/2014 10:17 PM, Julian Thomas wrote: On 14 May 2014, at 09:38, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: While I have learned how to (use and) appreciate the Styles features, I agree that not everything in every given text document is prone to being styled. As a longtime Star office and now OO user, I am new to styles. I'd still like to see some helpful information on how to get started with styles (better than 'my pets' and 'my cats'; [I tried those tutorials and they didn't work very well for me]) and a reference. jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org Chapter 6 and 7 of the Writer Guide available at this link: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications#LibreOffice_Writer_Guide --Dan --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
All the more reason why the open source community operating under the Apache umbrella should add a Reveal Codes analog to OO. On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 8:01 AM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/19/2014 09:38 AM, 許哲崇 wrote: If we use OpenOffice to edit the file and use WordPerfect to reveal code, what is the problem? The problem is that most versions of WordPerfect don't run on Linux. (WordPerfect 12 word processor only will run, but can't read the latest Microsoft formats. Also, it may be difficult to find the program.) --doug --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
On 05/19/2014 09:38 AM, 許哲崇 wrote: If we use OpenOffice to edit the file and use WordPerfect to reveal code, what is the problem? No problem at all... :-) The potential issue is that loading in a different editor will cause slightly different things to be displayed (at least that is my experience based on different formats, especially if there is something tricky or complicated about the text). -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 16 May 2014, at 03:12, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: Sorry I can't help Julian, I have found no tutorials at all. I'm used to learning by reading the manual and then lots of trial and error, and after investing many hours doing just that, I have found that using styles can save some time with complex documents. (I write and translate books, so using styles was forced on me by my editors, a dozen years ago or so. As of today, I am still sort of unsure what amount of time I have *effectively* saved by learning how to use styles - but I was given no option, and now that I've grown accustomed to styles, it's possible I am starting to save time. Twelve years, and many books down the track! :] ) To those who chimed in to justify styles: it is quite obvious to me that you are missing the point. For starters, it sounds like you don't really know WordPerfect, and imagine Reveal codes to be something other than it was. Thanks for the support. I used WordPerfect from the days when it came from Satellite Systems [or something like that before wordperfect corp - if you were there then you may remember Pete Peterson's 'bedtime stories' on the compuserve forum] and used it through WP 6 on DOS until they abandoned OS2 and I went in other directions. Have been on OO since the early days of Star Office for OS2; now I've moved to Mac OSX. I've had the same frustration with other word processors [most prominently DeScribe] where again the issue of 'reveal codes' was hotly debated in the discussion groups. I don't care about the d**n codes themselves; I just need to know what formatting is applied how and where [and how to adjust it]! In WP you could actually edit the codes [delete a code was the most useful] and fix the document. If anyone cares, I *think* I can fire up an old wordperfect 6 dos session and get a screen shot of what reveal codes looks like. I'm not opposed to the use of styles, but need a shorter learning curve than I'm used to learning by reading the manual and then lots of trial and error, and after investing many hours doing just that Is there a better manual than the online help that I'm missing? cheers - jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
On 19 May 2014, at 03:34, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: Anyhow, a (very basic) example of how this could be obtained is in the Write/Edit Post interface in WordPress, with its two tabs (Visual | Text). I have no idea whether this is possible in OO - but it is my understanding that something like that is what people asking for Reveal codes might find useful. As WordPress demonstrates and Richard Detwiler already suggested, these two ways of looking at a written page are not necessarily mutually exclusive. So if they are in OO, maybe this is what needs to be explained to us users, who do not understand, nor want to know, about the inner workings of the program. Ah, but WordPress creates HTML pages - open one in a text editor and all is revealed [a knowledge of html is a prerequisite]. I am not amongst those who are demanding the 'reveal codes' feature - at least now, but I do think that an essential part of the development process IS providing useful tutorials or guides in addition to reference manuals. Arcane reference manuals went out in the late 1960's! jt - digital curmudgeon since the mid 1950's. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Reveal Codes Query - or Re: Suggestion.
On 19 May 2014, at 09:38, 許哲崇 fide...@gmail.com wrote: If we use OpenOffice to edit the file and use WordPerfect to reveal code, what is the problem? lack of a current wordperfect and why should we pay for it if we are committed to OO? jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Not to argue, but just to mention my experiences -- I do on the spot formatting on many occasions and I've never felt hampered by not having the reveal codes capability. Also, I've used styles on many other occasions, and likewise have never felt hampered by not having reveal codes. I DO find it helpful on many occasions to use the View Non-printing characters (also accessed by clicking on the paragraph symbol button, or selecting Ctrl+F10) feature, to see where hard returns are, where spaces are, etc. Especially when editing text that someone else created, in particular one person who submits to the newsletter that I edit where, rather than using tabs to create a table-like format, he uses spaces. Based on a post of someone else, it seems like some of the features that this person was complaining about not having in Open Office are in fact achievable by the View Non-printing characters feature. Doug Johnson wrote: I agree with the On the spot need. Quite simply, Reveal Codes allows me to see what's going with a glance. With so many features, the interaction between them can make formatting unexpectedly difficult. Like salt and pepper, use when needed! On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 7:20 AM, Richard Detwiler rlsha...@aol.com wrote: What I don't understand, and I'm sure I must be missing something so please explain, is how come this discussion seems to suggest that it's either/or -- meaning, use styles for all formatting or we HAVE to have reveal codes to not use styles. I've used styles a lot with Open Office and I greatly appreciate how valuable they can be; for example, I edit a newsletter and styles have made my life way easier and made the resulting newsletter way more consistent. On the other hand, there are many places, in smaller documents, where I want to format something on the spot without setting up styles -- changing the spacing between paragraphs, making some text bold, indenting a paragraph, etc., and I often do that without using styles. And it works just fine. So if someone wants to use styles, they can use them. If someone doesn't want to use styles and do formatting on the spot without going through styles, that can be done too. So why the implied necessity for reveal codes for people who choose not to use styles? Jim McLaughlin wrote: This has been a very interesting thread. It has also been the single most posted to thread I've seen in the six or so months I've been a subscrber to this group. What fascinates me is that other than the three defender's of OO orthodoxy regarding styles ve. alternative methods, like a WP reveal codes approach, the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option to the very steep learning curve of the styles approach. Food for thought. If the programmers behind OO want to provide a word processor which will attract users, and avoid the very high costs of the MJKS or Corel products, those programmers might want to seriously consider the efficacy of providing what the users who have expressed an opinion appear to want, rather tahn take the ...my way or the highway... approach expresseed here so far. Not trying to start a pissing contest. Just pointing out what the admittedly unscientifif opinion sample in this thread has so far shown. Is there a technical reason why a Corel/WP Reveal Codes function can not be implemented in 5.x.x? On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/14/2014 02:12 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down hill in them and coast across level ground, but never learned about the ignition. We get things done, but with more effort and less efficiency that we should. Some tasks, like going uphill, we don't imagine are even possible because of our limited view. I, being an enemy of styles, in general, explain myself thusly: I probably never write anything more than three pages long. I am not writing a book. I don't have chapters. I don't use bulletted lists, altho I
Re: Suggestion.
For me personally I worked with Styles for about three decades and find this the best way to control my documents. Nevertheless we should not be blind for the needs of others, managing Styles has a long learning curve and someone can make many mistakes before he master Styles. Where someone can fall into the trap is the complexity of inherited properties from parent Styles. Even if you are an expert in Style formats you come into problems when you have to combine documents which are originated from different persons. Users tend to ask for something they are familiar with instead of expressing their problem, they ask for Reveal Codes but what they need is something like Reveal my Mistakes with Styles or better Help me to Avoid Making Mistakes. One of the simple things that could help users is information of each property within a Style that shows from which Style the property is inherited e.g. Heading 1 inherit properties from Style Heading and Style Heading inherit properties from Style Default. Displaying this information either in the Style and Formatting Toolbar or in the Sidebar will help to analyze the formatting issues. Heading 1 Font FontInherited from Heading TypefaceBold Size115% LanguageInherited from Default Font Effects Font Color Inherited from Default Effects Inherited from Default Relief Inherited from Default Outline Inherited from Default Shadow Inherited from Default BlinkingInherited from Default Hidden Inherited from Default Overlining Inherited from Default StriketroughInherited from Default Underlining Inherited from Default Alignment LeftInherited from Default Right Inherited from Default Center Inherited from Default Justified Inherited from Default Indent and Spacing Before Text 0.76 After Text Inherited from Default First Line -0.76 Automatic Inherited from Default Above paragraph Inherited from Heading Below paragraph Inherited from Heading Line SpacingInherited from Default Active Inherited from Default On 13-5-2014 11:06, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/16/2014 03:12 AM, mt wrote: On 14/5/14 at 12:17 PM, j...@jt-mj.net (Julian Thomas) wrote: As a longtime Star office and now OO user, I am new to styles. I'd still like to see some helpful information on how to get started with styles (better than 'my pets' and 'my cats'; [I tried those tutorials and they didn't work very well for me]) and a reference. Sorry I can't help Julian, I have found no tutorials at all. I'm used to learning by reading the manual and then lots of trial and error, and after investing many hours doing just that, I have found that using styles can save some time with complex documents. (I write and translate books, so using styles was forced on me by my editors, a dozen years ago or so. As of today, I am still sort of unsure what amount of time I have *effectively* saved by learning how to use styles - but I was given no option, and now that I've grown accustomed to styles, it's possible I am starting to save time. Twelve years, and many books down the track! :] ) To those who chimed in to justify styles: it is quite obvious to me that you are missing the point. For starters, it sounds like you don't really know WordPerfect, and imagine Reveal codes to be something other than it was. But more basically, OpenOffice is for people like Julian and me. If people like me and Julian put forward a suggestion, it should be the programmer's job to consider it from the user's perspective... or shouldn't it?? Again, I would like to say thank you to those who give their time for free to build and improve OpenOffice. This includes those who put forward useful suggestions from the user's perspective :-) marina I had really intended not to comment on this again, having thought I had said it all, but I guess I was wrong. My beef is not particularly about reveal codes, altho that's certainly useful, when you want to find something weird happening at the end of a line, say. My beef is that when you find something weird happening, it's likely to be because of some style that you weren't aware of, and _you can't fix it, because__ __it's built into the style. _ I think I said something like this in my first post on the subject, but maybe i did not make myself clear. So, yes, I want a somewhat intelligent typewriter, and no, I don't see anything at all wrong with that! --doug PS: I don't intend to memorize a whole bunch of styles--I did my last memorization with WordStar in CPM and then in DOS.
Re: Suggestion.
On Friday 16 May 2014 11:35:46 PM James Knott wrote: On 05/16/2014 09:29 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: If people don't want to learn how to use Writer the way it was designed, they might be better off with some simpler tool. Notepad? ;-) :-) But I didn't say that to put anyone down. It's just that if someone is going to stay with manual formatting, there's a lot of things in Writer that will be irrelevant to them. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
please dont send me emails any more. I am a particular person. Le 17 mai 2014 à 05:24, Bruce Byfield a écrit : On Friday 16 May 2014 10:28:44 PM Julian Thomas wrote: But more basically, OpenOffice is for people like Julian and me. If people like me and Julian put forward a suggestion, it should be the programmer's job to consider it from the user's perspective... or shouldn't it?? On 16 May 2014, at 03:12, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: Sorry I can't help Julian, I have found no tutorials at all. I'm used to learning by reading the manual and then lots of trial and error, and after investing many hours doing just that, I have found that using styles can save some time with complex documents. As I said earlier, I'm struggling with styles [since it seems to be the way to go, I need to get up to speed] but need something more than 'my pets' and 'my cats' - particularly with regard to list formatting [mixing numbered lists and bulleted subitems under the numbered items; this has always been a major hassle without styles]. Have you looked at the ODF Author's site? You should find some decent documentation there. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/16/2014 03:12 AM, mt wrote: To those who chimed in to justify styles: it is quite obvious to me that you are missing the point. For starters, it sounds like you don't really know WordPerfect, and imagine Reveal codes to be something other than it was. In my case, what is quite obvious is wrong. I used WordPerfect for a number of years, including writing my thesis in it. I hated Reveal Codes, finding it clunky and time-consuming. But more basically, OpenOffice is for people like Julian and me. I've been a user of OpenOffice since the 1.0 release -- for over 12 years. Surely you aren't suggesting that it isn't for people like me just as much? If people like me and Julian put forward a suggestion, it should be the programmer's job to consider it from the user's perspective... or shouldn't it?? Yes and no. On the one hand, everyone wants the program to be useful. That's why bug-filing include suggestions for enhancement. I've got one or two I'd like to see realized myself. On the other hand, working on OpenOffice is not a job for all the developers, and, besides, there's a long tradition in free software of working on what interests you, even if you're getting paid. Furthermore, as in most free software projects, there is always far more to do than people to do it. Those involved have to decide what priority requests have, how complicated they are to implement, and how they complement the existing code. For instance, would any existing feature have to be re-written to be compatible with the proposed new one? In the case of a Reveal Codes feature, there has historically been a lack of interest in implementing it and some complications involved that, so far, no one has wanted to tackle. It's not a feature that someone is likely undertake because it can implemented in a couple of hours. So it's not just enough for one or two people to express a wish for a feature and then sit back and wait for the developers to fulfill their wishes. If you really want to see a Reveal Codes feature, you need to start a campaign, not just requesting it, but also developing use cases that explain why it is important, and learning enough to suggest possible approaches that can overcome the challenges of implementing it. You need to convince people that the feature should have priority.. That's how free software works, and, from what I have seen while reading mailing lists, OpenOffice is no exception. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Saturday 17 May 2014 12:32:43 AM Doug wrote: My beef is that when you find something weird happening, it's likely to be because of some style that you weren't aware of, and _you can't fix it, because__ __it's built into the style. _ Are your experiences with styles with someone else's template, or else one that has been developed by a lot of different people with no attempt at consistency? I'm asking because these are the only scenarios in which I can imagine the difficulties you describe. Apart from the default style and a few advanced cases like the Content styles that are automatically applied when you create a table of contents, styles are not just randomly applied. They're in the document because you put them there, and you can see them in the Applied Styles view of the Styles and Formatting window. So how could you not be aware of them? As for features that are part of a style, I can't think of any offhand that can't be adjusted, turned off, or at least set to zero. To the contrary, you can set most settings with extreme accuracy. The closest thing that I can imagine to things you can't change because they're built into the style are defaults that suddenly come in play because you've made some change. For example, in Draw, if you add text to an object, suddenly settings like font and font size are activated that previously did nothing. But it should be obvious when you've added something like that. PS: I don't intend to memorize a whole bunch of styles--I did my last memorization with WordStar in CPM and then in DOS. Why would you have to memorize anything? You can preview styles in the toolbar, and use the views in the Styles and Formatting window to find what you want. Usually, too, the names of the pre-defined styles should tell you what each style does. For example, Text Body is obviously the main paragraph style in the document, and Title the name of the document. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Sat, 17 May 2014 00:18:32 -0700 Bruce Byfield bbyfi...@axion.net wrote: On Saturday 17 May 2014 12:32:43 AM Doug wrote: My beef is that when you find something weird happening, it's likely to be because of some style that you weren't aware of, and _you can't fix it, because__ __it's built into the style. _ Are your experiences with styles with someone else's template, or else one that has been developed by a lot of different people with no attempt at consistency? I'm asking because these are the only scenarios in which I can imagine the difficulties you describe. Apart from the default style and a few advanced cases like the Content styles that are automatically applied when you create a table of contents, styles are not just randomly applied. They're in the document because you put them there, and you can see them in the Applied Styles view of the Styles and Formatting window. So how could you not be aware of them? As for features that are part of a style, I can't think of any offhand that can't be adjusted, turned off, or at least set to zero. To the contrary, you can set most settings with extreme accuracy. The closest thing that I can imagine to things you can't change because they're built into the style are defaults that suddenly come in play because you've made some change. For example, in Draw, if you add text to an object, suddenly settings like font and font size are activated that previously did nothing. But it should be obvious when you've added something like that. PS: I don't intend to memorize a whole bunch of styles--I did my last memorization with WordStar in CPM and then in DOS. Why would you have to memorize anything? You can preview styles in the toolbar, and use the views in the Styles and Formatting window to find what you want. Usually, too, the names of the pre-defined styles should tell you what each style does. For example, Text Body is obviously the main paragraph style in the document, and Title the name of the document. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ On the English language forum there is a useful list and details of the inbuilt Styles https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=71t=48530 -- Rory O'Farrell ofarr...@iol.ie --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
What I don't understand, and I'm sure I must be missing something so please explain, is how come this discussion seems to suggest that it's either/or -- meaning, use styles for all formatting or we HAVE to have reveal codes to not use styles. I've used styles a lot with Open Office and I greatly appreciate how valuable they can be; for example, I edit a newsletter and styles have made my life way easier and made the resulting newsletter way more consistent. On the other hand, there are many places, in smaller documents, where I want to format something on the spot without setting up styles -- changing the spacing between paragraphs, making some text bold, indenting a paragraph, etc., and I often do that without using styles. And it works just fine. So if someone wants to use styles, they can use them. If someone doesn't want to use styles and do formatting on the spot without going through styles, that can be done too. So why the implied necessity for reveal codes for people who choose not to use styles? Jim McLaughlin wrote: This has been a very interesting thread. It has also been the single most posted to thread I've seen in the six or so months I've been a subscrber to this group. What fascinates me is that other than the three defender's of OO orthodoxy regarding styles ve. alternative methods, like a WP reveal codes approach, the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option to the very steep learning curve of the styles approach. Food for thought. If the programmers behind OO want to provide a word processor which will attract users, and avoid the very high costs of the MJKS or Corel products, those programmers might want to seriously consider the efficacy of providing what the users who have expressed an opinion appear to want, rather tahn take the ...my way or the highway... approach expresseed here so far. Not trying to start a pissing contest. Just pointing out what the admittedly unscientifif opinion sample in this thread has so far shown. Is there a technical reason why a Corel/WP Reveal Codes function can not be implemented in 5.x.x? On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/14/2014 02:12 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down hill in them and coast across level ground, but never learned about the ignition. We get things done, but with more effort and less efficiency that we should. Some tasks, like going uphill, we don't imagine are even possible because of our limited view. I, being an enemy of styles, in general, explain myself thusly: I probably never write anything more than three pages long. I am not writing a book. I don't have chapters. I don't use bulletted lists, altho I might if bullets were easier to use _without_ styles! I don't have Front Pages or whatever chapter heads are called in fancy books. I don't have chapters at all, so I don't need pages that end in the middle before going on with my text. I don't even indent paragraphs, but if I wanted to, it would be no big deal to push the tab key. (Actually, most word-processors have a format command that would do that for me, if I wanted it.) And since I don't write books, or edit them or publish them, i don't need a desktop publisher, which is what _I_ think OO/LO are aiming to be. On the other hand, if I needed a desktop publisher, and didn't want to or could not afford to purchase a professional one, I would certainly look at the possibility of learning and using OO/LO. From what I read in these lists, that would be a real possibility. Someone who is willing to spend the time to actually write a book can probably afford the time to learn desktop publishing. One more thing: I am not in any way trying to dissuade anyone from learning OO/LO, if that's what they want. I am, however, pointing out that it is hardly worth the effort for the average memo writer, letter writer, or even article writer. It would be like a numismatist learning metallurgy! I rest my
Re: Suggestion.
I agree with the On the spot need. Quite simply, Reveal Codes allows me to see what's going with a glance. With so many features, the interaction between them can make formatting unexpectedly difficult. Like salt and pepper, use when needed! On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 7:20 AM, Richard Detwiler rlsha...@aol.com wrote: What I don't understand, and I'm sure I must be missing something so please explain, is how come this discussion seems to suggest that it's either/or -- meaning, use styles for all formatting or we HAVE to have reveal codes to not use styles. I've used styles a lot with Open Office and I greatly appreciate how valuable they can be; for example, I edit a newsletter and styles have made my life way easier and made the resulting newsletter way more consistent. On the other hand, there are many places, in smaller documents, where I want to format something on the spot without setting up styles -- changing the spacing between paragraphs, making some text bold, indenting a paragraph, etc., and I often do that without using styles. And it works just fine. So if someone wants to use styles, they can use them. If someone doesn't want to use styles and do formatting on the spot without going through styles, that can be done too. So why the implied necessity for reveal codes for people who choose not to use styles? Jim McLaughlin wrote: This has been a very interesting thread. It has also been the single most posted to thread I've seen in the six or so months I've been a subscrber to this group. What fascinates me is that other than the three defender's of OO orthodoxy regarding styles ve. alternative methods, like a WP reveal codes approach, the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option to the very steep learning curve of the styles approach. Food for thought. If the programmers behind OO want to provide a word processor which will attract users, and avoid the very high costs of the MJKS or Corel products, those programmers might want to seriously consider the efficacy of providing what the users who have expressed an opinion appear to want, rather tahn take the ...my way or the highway... approach expresseed here so far. Not trying to start a pissing contest. Just pointing out what the admittedly unscientifif opinion sample in this thread has so far shown. Is there a technical reason why a Corel/WP Reveal Codes function can not be implemented in 5.x.x? On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/14/2014 02:12 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down hill in them and coast across level ground, but never learned about the ignition. We get things done, but with more effort and less efficiency that we should. Some tasks, like going uphill, we don't imagine are even possible because of our limited view. I, being an enemy of styles, in general, explain myself thusly: I probably never write anything more than three pages long. I am not writing a book. I don't have chapters. I don't use bulletted lists, altho I might if bullets were easier to use _without_ styles! I don't have Front Pages or whatever chapter heads are called in fancy books. I don't have chapters at all, so I don't need pages that end in the middle before going on with my text. I don't even indent paragraphs, but if I wanted to, it would be no big deal to push the tab key. (Actually, most word-processors have a format command that would do that for me, if I wanted it.) And since I don't write books, or edit them or publish them, i don't need a desktop publisher, which is what _I_ think OO/LO are aiming to be. On the other hand, if I needed a desktop publisher, and didn't want to or could not afford to purchase a professional one, I would certainly look at the possibility of learning and using OO/LO. From what I read in these lists, that would be a real possibility. Someone who is willing to spend the
Re: Suggestion.
On 14/5/14 at 12:17 PM, j...@jt-mj.net (Julian Thomas) wrote: As a longtime Star office and now OO user, I am new to styles. I'd still like to see some helpful information on how to get started with styles (better than 'my pets' and 'my cats'; [I tried those tutorials and they didn't work very well for me]) and a reference. Sorry I can't help Julian, I have found no tutorials at all. I'm used to learning by reading the manual and then lots of trial and error, and after investing many hours doing just that, I have found that using styles can save some time with complex documents. (I write and translate books, so using styles was forced on me by my editors, a dozen years ago or so. As of today, I am still sort of unsure what amount of time I have *effectively* saved by learning how to use styles - but I was given no option, and now that I've grown accustomed to styles, it's possible I am starting to save time. Twelve years, and many books down the track! :] ) To those who chimed in to justify styles: it is quite obvious to me that you are missing the point. For starters, it sounds like you don't really know WordPerfect, and imagine Reveal codes to be something other than it was. But more basically, OpenOffice is for people like Julian and me. If people like me and Julian put forward a suggestion, it should be the programmer's job to consider it from the user's perspective... or shouldn't it?? Again, I would like to say thank you to those who give their time for free to build and improve OpenOffice. This includes those who put forward useful suggestions from the user's perspective :-) marina --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Julian Thomas wrote: As a longtime Star office and now OO user, I am new to styles. I'd still like to see some helpful information on how to get started with styles (better than 'my pets' and 'my cats'; [I tried those tutorials and they didn't work very well for me]) and a reference. We are preparing new documentation under the Apache License here: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/UserGuide/Writer/Styles Feel free to review and improve it. If you need a wiki account, just ask here (this applies to everybody on this list, of course). Regards, Andrea. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 14/5/14 at 4:12 AM, bbyfi...@axion.net (Bruce Byfield) wrote: On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Mh, this really depends. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down hill in them and coast across level ground, but never learned about the ignition. We get things done, but with more effort and less efficiency that we should. Some tasks, like going uphill, we don't imagine are even possible because of our limited view. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm simply asking that user perspective is taken into consideration at least as much as the programmer's own. The starting point ought always to be that computers are there to aid humans. And not all humans take to computing as well as programmers do. It's just obvious to me - why should it sound so strange to programmers? :-) Also, your comments do not address the main point in my message, which was about revealing codes for document options that go beyond plain styling. marina --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Thursday 15 May 2014 06:03:34 PM mt wrote: I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm simply asking that user perspective is taken into consideration at least as much as the programmer's own. So far as I'm concerned, anything that saves me time and effort is taking my perspective as a user into consideration. Also, your comments do not address the main point in my message, which was about revealing codes for document options that go beyond plain styling. I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you give an example of options that go beyond plain styling? -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 12:03 AM, Jim McLaughlin jjim.mclaugh...@gmail.com wrote: What fascinates me is that other than the three defender's of OO orthodoxy regarding styles ve. alternative methods, like a WP reveal codes approach, the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option to the very steep learning curve of the styles approach. It is all a matter of where you want to spend your time. Those who prefer to spend it up front go with styles. Those who don't prefer embedded codes. Those who prefer embedded codes rarely realize just how much time they are wasting at the back end on every document, or how much time they could be saving overall by learning how to use, and then using styles. Of course, it is not exactly as simple as this. Personally, I learned of and how to use the style model back in 1987 when I learned LaTeX as that was the only way to drive the spiffy new DEC LN03 laser printer at my university. It was around that time when I replaced my Apple 2 with a 286 PC and quickly found WordPerfect absolutely horrid by comparison. To this day, I still prefer the semantic mark-up of LaTeX for text-based document. Sadly, as brutal as developing styles in TeX can be, developing styles in a GUI/WYSIWYG is really not all that much better -- at least from what I have seen from my casual investigation over the years. But another sad reality is that while anyone can put in the time and learn how to use styles, not everyone can learn how to produce an aesthetically pleasing design. That said, it then becomes clear that the proper workflow model is to have *one* person in an organization develop style sheets and then require everyone else to actually use them -- regardless of what software you are using. Sadly, this model seems to be rarely implemented. -p. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/14/2014 10:17 PM, Julian Thomas wrote: On 14 May 2014, at 09:38, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: While I have learned how to (use and) appreciate the Styles features, I agree that not everything in every given text document is prone to being styled. As a longtime Star office and now OO user, I am new to styles. I'd still like to see some helpful information on how to get started with styles (better than 'my pets' and 'my cats'; [I tried those tutorials and they didn't work very well for me]) and a reference. jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org Chapter 6 and 7 of the Writer Guide available at this link: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications#LibreOffice_Writer_Guide --Dan --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion
At 18:03 15/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: I'm simply asking that user perspective is taken into consideration at least as much as the programmer's own. The starting point ought always to be that computers are there to aid humans. And not all humans take to computing as well as programmers do. It's just obvious to me - why should it sound so strange to programmers? :-) Come, come: this is entirely a straw man! No-one writing user software fails to take users and their humanity into account - and you do the very kind developers of OpenOffice (with whom, for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection) a serious disservice by suggesting that they do. The styles you deplore are surely designed with users and their needs in mind, not with any convenience of programming. Your desire for the software to be user-friendly is of course spot on, but your conclusion that this end is provided by reveal codes is totally wrong. It's interesting that you failed to reply to my earlier comments (not that you have any responsibility to do so, of course) and that you excised my comments from the message to which you did reply (though unhelpfully leaving my name in). What should we deduce from this: that my suggestions were so much to the point that you cannot fault them?! Since you are still asking for a low-level approach to word processing on the pretext of wanting a high-level approach, it may be worth exercising the argument further. There are three possible reasons, I suggest, for wanting reveal codes. 1. The first is that you actually want to be able to see *how* the program works - in other words, you are a geek and want to think like a programmer, not like a true user. There is nothing wrong with that: it's like the person who buys a new gadget and wants - before s/he uses it - to take it apart and see not how to use it but how it actually works. This person, when they look at a car with the prospect of buying it, does not sit in the driving seat and get the feel of the controls, but instead opens the bonnet and starts fiddling with the engine components. You claim not to be this person, but you nevertheless ask to see the innards of the program. 2. The second possibility is that you are dissatisfied with the way that OpenOffice (in particular, Writer) displays the structure (as distinct from the appearance) of any document. You perhaps inherit a document from elsewhere and need to know how to modify it as you need. For that, you need to be able to see its structure. I have to say that I cannot disagree with such a suggestion! In case anyone doesn't know what I mean, let me give a simple example. Suppose you have two similar-looking tables with one immediately following the other - with no intervening element, that is. There is no easy way to see immediately that you have two tables and not just one, longer table. But the two cases behave differently, and you need to know which you have in order to be able to handle the document efficiently. (Yes, there are ways to see which you have, but they are indirect and not very obvious.) The solution to this, though, is to improve the display of document structure, not to ask to look inside the program. If you need to know when your car is low on fuel, you ask for a fuel gauge on the dashboard, not an external dipstick on the fuel tank. 3. When you revealed codes in Word Perfect, you could, I think, tinker with them: you could edit the codes directly, deleting one here and entering a new one there. Indeed, I think that was their purpose: Word Perfect would sometime get itself in a twist and end up with inconsistent tags in a document - and the solution offered by its developers was to show the user the internal workings of the program and insist that they tinkered with them to achieve what was necessary. In this way, they were insisting that users (temporarily?) became programmers, not (as you seem to think) the other way about. But as soon as you allow users to *modify* any such tags, you immediately lose the integrity of the tags: it's just as easy to delete one tag of a pair and leave the other or to add an unbalanced tag or to insert a misspelled one as to do something meaningful. Word Perfect offered a facility for you to sort out its mistakes, but what you are asking for is a recipe for users' creating confused and incorrect documents. It's perhaps also worth saying that the idea of reveal codes implies the existence of such codes in the first place. In other words, you are assuming that the internal model of the program labels the structure through tags - as a mark-up language does. But this is only one way for programs and documents to behave - and many don't. Do you know the best way? My ideal word processor would not be at all wysiwyg; instead it would concentrate on displaying plain text with all the structure of the document. You would not see the appearance of the
Re: Suggestion.
Thinking on, all of the attributes of a style are listed in one of the organizer tab in the 'paragraph style' dialog, which would seem to go quite some way towards meeting the needs of those who liked the reveal codes feature. (It is accessible on a mac by control clicking in the style concerned, then selecting 'edit paragraph style... ' from the menu. Presumably a left (?) click on other operating systems.) Maybe if this were more readily accessible via the drop down menus and an icon (neither seem to exist at present) and the facility flagged up prominently in help, including an entry titled 'reveal codes', this would help to keep folk happy? More generally, am not sure the 'blame the user' approach which seems to be developing in this thread is constructive or conducive with community. Better we recognise that there is going to be a very wide diversity of abilities, opinions and ways of working amongst 100 million plus users, respect those, allow for flexibility where that can be reasonably achieved, and aim for a simple and intuitive user interface without the need for steep learning curves where they can possibly be avoided. - Original Message - From: Brian Barker Sent: 05/14/14 05:29 PM To: users@openoffice.apache.org Subject: Re: Suggestion. At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. It's perhaps worth pointing out that the truth is diametrically opposite to this claim! Users who ask to reveal codes are asking to look at the inner workings of the program and to see how (they perceive that) it and the computer actually work. Developers who offer facilities such as styles are allowing users to use programs and computers in the way *the users* think, not how the machinery does. If you want, say, a paragraph to be indented, you want the paragraph indented, pure and simple. And that's what styles allow you to say. If you prefer the codes, you need to say Start indenting the text from this point onwards and separately Stop the indenting of text that you have been practising up to now. That's the way programs and computers may need to think, but it i s not the way real users do naturally. Have you ever been asked to double-space a document? Probably. Has anyone ever asked you instead to set double spacing at the beginning of the document and then turn it off at the end? Of course not: that's not how people think and speak! This is not necessarily the best way to ensure user satisfaction. 1. Remember that local formatting is still available: no-one is forced to use styles. 2. Many users are most satisfied using a word processor as if it were a typewriter. Their satisfaction should not be allowed to limit the advancement of software and facilities that can be appreciated by others. Brian Barker --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Wed, 14 May 2014, Brian Barker wrote:
[...]
Have you ever been asked to double-space a document? Probably. Has anyone
ever asked you instead to set double spacing at the beginning of the document
and then turn it off at the end? Of course not: that's not how people think
and speak!
[sorry for snipping so much context!]
I probably don't grasp your idea here but there's nothing unhuman
about being asked to set double-spacing from one spot in a document to
another (or more plausibly, to indent from here to there).
of course this is a very good use for styles. I use both styles and
direct formatting ('like a typewriter') according to my needs and
purposes though since 'default formatting' is itself a 'style', I
guess one always uses styles.
not directed at you specifically but I see no need to be dogmatic; I'm
happy enough with using these tools to fit my needs but I definitely
would love it if 'reveal codes' were possible as I've run across
situations where there's a bit of code 'stuck' somewhere doing devilry
and it's hard to find. cutting and pasting in again without formatting
is clumsy.
F.
--
Felmon Davis
It's hard to keep your shirt on when you're getting something off your chest.
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Re: Suggestion.
This has been a very interesting thread. It has also been the single most posted to thread I've seen in the six or so months I've been a subscrber to this group. What fascinates me is that other than the three defender's of OO orthodoxy regarding styles ve. alternative methods, like a WP reveal codes approach, the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option to the very steep learning curve of the styles approach. Food for thought. If the programmers behind OO want to provide a word processor which will attract users, and avoid the very high costs of the MJKS or Corel products, those programmers might want to seriously consider the efficacy of providing what the users who have expressed an opinion appear to want, rather tahn take the ...my way or the highway... approach expresseed here so far. Not trying to start a pissing contest. Just pointing out what the admittedly unscientifif opinion sample in this thread has so far shown. Is there a technical reason why a Corel/WP Reveal Codes function can not be implemented in 5.x.x? On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Doug dmcgarr...@optonline.net wrote: On 05/14/2014 02:12 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down hill in them and coast across level ground, but never learned about the ignition. We get things done, but with more effort and less efficiency that we should. Some tasks, like going uphill, we don't imagine are even possible because of our limited view. I, being an enemy of styles, in general, explain myself thusly: I probably never write anything more than three pages long. I am not writing a book. I don't have chapters. I don't use bulletted lists, altho I might if bullets were easier to use _without_ styles! I don't have Front Pages or whatever chapter heads are called in fancy books. I don't have chapters at all, so I don't need pages that end in the middle before going on with my text. I don't even indent paragraphs, but if I wanted to, it would be no big deal to push the tab key. (Actually, most word-processors have a format command that would do that for me, if I wanted it.) And since I don't write books, or edit them or publish them, i don't need a desktop publisher, which is what _I_ think OO/LO are aiming to be. On the other hand, if I needed a desktop publisher, and didn't want to or could not afford to purchase a professional one, I would certainly look at the possibility of learning and using OO/LO. From what I read in these lists, that would be a real possibility. Someone who is willing to spend the time to actually write a book can probably afford the time to learn desktop publishing. One more thing: I am not in any way trying to dissuade anyone from learning OO/LO, if that's what they want. I am, however, pointing out that it is hardly worth the effort for the average memo writer, letter writer, or even article writer. It would be like a numismatist learning metallurgy! I rest my case. --doug --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Thursday 15 May 2014 09:03:13 PM Jim McLaughlin wrote: the overwhelming majority of posters appear to desire the WP/Corel Reveal Codes option Really? I don't mean to be contentious, but I didn't see an overwhelming majority on either side. If the programmers behind OO want to provide a word processor which will attract users, and avoid the very high costs of the MJKS or Corel products, those programmers might want to seriously consider the efficacy of providing what the users who have expressed an opinion appear to want, rather tahn take the ...my way or the highway... approach expresseed here so far. All major office suites, including WordPefect, are most efficient when styles are used. OpenOffice Writer is an extreme example of using styles, but that's also what makes it so powerful. And for some people, like the writers of technical manuals, styles are absolutely essential for their work. Writer does allow you to format manually, if you really insist. In fact, some innovations, such as the sidebar, chiefly aid manually formatting. However, I would hate, for example, to create a table of contents without heading styles; I would have to go through the entire document and create each entry one at a time, instead of having them ready to use when I want the TOC. But you can only accommodate people's unwillingness to learn or to help themselves so far. You wouldn't expect to sit down and play a game without learning how it was structured, so why would you expect to do so with an office suite? Beyond a certain point, people have to help themselves. If people don't want to learn how to use Writer the way it was designed, they might be better off with some simpler tool. AbiWord might be a good choice for such people; it's one of the few word processors I know that might be said to be oriented towards manual formatting. Is there a technical reason why a Corel/WP Reveal Codes function can not be implemented in 5.x.x? See my previous post about past discussions of the subject. One potential problem is that unlike WordPerfect, OpenOffice doesn't store information in a single file. An OpenOffice file is really a collection of several compressed files. Under these circumstances, a Reveal Code feature is not impossible, but it is more complicated than in WordPerfect. It means another way for files to corrupt as information passes back and forth between the actual files and the Reveal Code Screen, and would be high maintenance, since every new feature would require revisions to it. I don't speak for anyone except myself. However, given that there is a lot to do already with maintaining and cleaning the aging code, I doubt that developers would make Reveal Codes a high priority unless there was a lot more enthusiasm that has been shown so far. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 3:12 AM, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: To those who chimed in to justify styles: it is quite obvious to me that you are missing the point. For starters, it sounds like you don't really know WordPerfect, and imagine Reveal codes to be something other than it was. I can't speak for the others, but as someone who worked helpdesk support in the days of WordPerfect 4.2 I am well aware of what reveal codes does. Fixing peoples fubared documents in reveal codes what 90% of that job. If your word processor requires reveal codes to fix formatting issues it is fundamentally flawed in other ways. The proper fix is *not* to add reveal codes, but rather to address the fundamental problems directly so that reveal codes is not necessary in the first place. -p. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
But more basically, OpenOffice is for people like Julian and me. If people like me and Julian put forward a suggestion, it should be the programmer's job to consider it from the user's perspective... or shouldn't it?? On 16 May 2014, at 03:12, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: Sorry I can't help Julian, I have found no tutorials at all. I'm used to learning by reading the manual and then lots of trial and error, and after investing many hours doing just that, I have found that using styles can save some time with complex documents. As I said earlier, I'm struggling with styles [since it seems to be the way to go, I need to get up to speed] but need something more than 'my pets' and 'my cats' - particularly with regard to list formatting [mixing numbered lists and bulleted subitems under the numbered items; this has always been a major hassle without styles]. curmedgeon on Features without good documentation are barely usable. /curmedgeon off jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/16/2014 09:29 PM, Bruce Byfield wrote: If people don't want to learn how to use Writer the way it was designed, they might be better off with some simpler tool. Notepad? ;-) --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 14 May 2014, at 09:38, mt m...@lockedbags.org wrote: While I have learned how to (use and) appreciate the Styles features, I agree that not everything in every given text document is prone to being styled. As a longtime Star office and now OO user, I am new to styles. I'd still like to see some helpful information on how to get started with styles (better than 'my pets' and 'my cats'; [I tried those tutorials and they didn't work very well for me]) and a reference. jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Some of what you want is easily available as follows: Use Tools | Options to open the options dialog. On the left, expend the section for Writer | Formatting Aids (you may need to have a writer document open at the time) You can then tell it to display things such as Paragraph end, spaces, non-breaking spaces, tabs, breaks, and similar. There is a macro that does something similar here: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/hillview/OOo/ These were written 10 years back. I vaguely remember running RevealCodes2 or RevealCodes3, and, I think that I needed to fix something so that it would work... I don't really remember. One problem with a reveal codes macro in OOo is that formatting is often not changed based on directly applied formatting, but by styles. This may be a paragraph style, a character style, or, as directly applied formatting. On 05/12/2014 09:06 PM, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. It's perhaps worth pointing out that the truth is diametrically opposite to this claim! Users who ask to reveal codes are asking to look at the inner workings of the program and to see how (they perceive that) it and the computer actually work. Developers who offer facilities such as styles are allowing users to use programs and computers in the way *the users* think, not how the machinery does. If you want, say, a paragraph to be indented, you want the paragraph indented, pure and simple. And that's what styles allow you to say. If you prefer the codes, you need to say Start indenting the text from this point onwards and separately Stop the indenting of text that you have been practising up to now. That's the way programs and computers may need to think, but it is not the way real users do naturally. Have you ever been asked to double-space a document? Probably. Has anyone ever asked you instead to set double spacing at the beginning of the document and then turn it off at the end? Of course not: that's not how people think and speak! This is not necessarily the best way to ensure user satisfaction. 1. Remember that local formatting is still available: no-one is forced to use styles. 2. Many users are most satisfied using a word processor as if it were a typewriter. Their satisfaction should not be allowed to limit the advancement of software and facilities that can be appreciated by others. Brian Barker --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Try to use keyboard recording software. 2014-05-13 9:20 GMT+08:00 Jim McLaughlin jjim.mclaugh...@gmail.com: I would certainly second Gordon Lee's suggestion for ver. 5.x.x that having a parallel to the Corel/WP reveal Codes function would be invaluable. On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Sarala Lee sarala...@gmail.com wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
While I have learned how to (use and) appreciate the Styles features, I agree that not everything in every given text document is prone to being styled. Sometimes it's just not worth spending the time required to define a new Style (or find a suitable one among those already defined), so it's simpler to change format on the fly. This is, I believe, where a Reveal codes option would be ideal. Also, from my remote memories of WordPerfect, Reveal codes was necessary (in complex documents) for changes in page format, orientation, table dimensions, and other document options that went beyond simple word and paragraph formatting. In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. This is not necessarily the best way to ensure user satisfaction. So while I understand that Styles have a place in modern applications, I would appreciate it if program designers could make better efforts to grasp the average user's point of view. This, without limiting my gratitude to OO developers!! marina --- Italy or Australia? MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.8 @martadiello --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Wednesday 14 May 2014 05:29:45 PM Brian Barker wrote: At 23:38 14/05/2014 +1000, Marina Tadiello wrote: In general, and from a user's perspective, Styles are one example of how common users are encouraged (or forced? :-) to think (program) and behave like computers. Yes, manual formatting is available. But using it is kind of perverse, because it means doing more work than necessary, and cutting yourself off from important features. Here's how I describe manual formatting in the introduction to the book I'm in the middle of completing: Office suites are as old as the personal computer. Yet, after more than thirty years, few of us have bothered to learn how to use them. Oh, we have learned how to get things done in them. Most of us can format a document and print it out, after a fashion. But what we haven't learned is to do these things efficiently, taking advantage of all the tools that are available. It is as if we have learned enough about cars to go down hill in them and coast across level ground, but never learned about the ignition. We get things done, but with more effort and less efficiency that we should. Some tasks, like going uphill, we don't imagine are even possible because of our limited view. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Sarala Lee wrote: However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes This has been discussed at length for years. OpenOffice historically has always used styles instead. If some developers want to work on such a feature, their contribution is surely welcome (and they can get help on our dev list), but at the moment there are no official efforts towards this. See the long discussion at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3395 for the current status. Gordon: you received many answers. If you didn't see them, you are not subscribed, see the archives: http://openoffice.apache.org/mailing-lists.html#users-mailing-list-public Regards, Andrea. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
Reveal codes was a marvellously useful feature of Word Perfect. If it be that we can't have that, could we at least have a 'reveal styles' command instead? There is no ready and full-proof way to do this at the moment. Presumably that would be a more acceptable compromise. On 13 May 2014, at 08:19, Andrea Pescetti wrote: Sarala Lee wrote: However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes This has been discussed at length for years. OpenOffice historically has always used styles instead. If some developers want to work on such a feature, their contribution is surely welcome (and they can get help on our dev list), but at the moment there are no official efforts towards this. See the long discussion at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3395 for the current status. Gordon: you received many answers. If you didn't see them, you are not subscribed, see the archives: http://openoffice.apache.org/mailing-lists.html#users-mailing-list-public Regards, Andrea. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list- conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion
At 00:13 13/05/2014 -0400, Doug McGarrett wrote: ... the stuffy answers came back and said you have to use styles, ... Styles are an important and attractive feature of OpenOffice. Any recommendation of them is surely helpful; it's difficult to see how that can be described as stuffy. ... which is a giant ball of wax. Er, perhaps not to those who appreciate them. In other words, even if you could see what was happening, you could not change it on the fly, ... On the contrary, if you have created and applied styles appropriately, any change can be done easily and efficiently. That's their beauty. Of course, if you have resisted the use of the product's facilities, you will necessarily find them puzzling and difficult. ... you had to go and figure out what kind of style would make the text look like what you wanted and create that style. Once you are familiar with styles, selecting an existing style or creating or modifying one suitably is child's play. And then your whole document would have that style. Ho, ho! You don't make your case any stronger by making farcical claims. In text documents, there are character, paragraph, frame, list and page styles. They would be nonsensical if they couldn't and didn't apply to individual or ranges of characters, paragraphs, pages, and so on. They do, of course. (If you've applied no styles, every element of each type will have the same default style, so any modification you make to that style will *of course* apply to all such elements.) What a humongous mess! It's odd that you should choose to use a product that you apparently dislike so much. But chacun à son goût. It's probably worth saying that any skill needs some time and effort to achieve, of course. Those who have learned about styles will tell you how flexible they are. Brian Barker --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
If you use styles, and press F11 to open the Styles and Formatting window, the window automatically highlights the style you are using. change the type of style being listed, and the highlighting may also change. Right-click on the style and select Modify, and you can read a summary of the style, then go to the tabs to change it. In other words, if you use OpenOffice the way it was designed to use, it already has a Reveal Code-like feature. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion
At 11:46 13/05/2014 -0400, Doug McGarrett wrote: /snip/ It's interesting that you had to excise my comment before you commented further - presumably so that you could avoid facing it! You could only change it if you messed with styles, which is what I said. No, that's not what you said: what you actually said (I'll check) is (about the use of styles) 'even if you could see what was happening, you could not change it on the fly, ...'. And that's not true: you can make local changes if you prefer or, if you are using styles (one of the purposes of which is to maintain consistency between similar but possibly disparate areas of a document), you can just as easily change the style - to change all the areas to which it is applied. And that is *what you would want*, of course. (If you think you wouldn't want that, then you have yet to appreciate the point of styles.) You couldn't just arbitrarily change one thing, like you can in WordPerfect, or many other word processors or editors. Oh, you can, you can! And you can also change many things at once, using styles. Take your pick. I have never seen anything as _in_flexible as OO/LO! If you are claiming limited experience, I can't comment, of course. I find styles to be a strait-jacket I don't wish to wear! You seem to be under the impression that I'm attempting to persuade you to like OpenOffice, but I'm not. I'm perfectly happy for you to be like the majority of the world's population - non-users of OpenOffice. What I think is unfortunate is that you should misrepresent its powers to an audience (of perhaps thousands?) who may be prepared to like it. Brian Barker --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
As you're not subscribed to this user list you have only seen 2 out of 15 replies. Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. OpenOffice doesn't have Reveal Codes, but it can show your changes, if you have selected record changes. HRT ¶ can been seen when you have selected Show Nonprinting Characters Once you have learned to use Styles there is less of a need to reveal changes. On 13-5-2014 11:06, Sarala Lee wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
I would certainly second Gordon Lee's suggestion for ver. 5.x.x that having a parallel to the Corel/WP reveal Codes function would be invaluable. On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Sarala Lee sarala...@gmail.com wrote: Sir / Madam, For many years I used WordPerfect as my Word Processor and Desktop Publisher to produce a 12 page newsletter. I have never found a better program. As I now have iMac I use Openoffice and have found that satisfies most of my requirements. However there is one very important property (if that's the right word) that WP had that is missing from all the Word Processors that I have used. That is what WP called Reveal Codes, where every change that was made in the document was shown by a particular code. e.g.: Hard return was HRT. If this was not what was wanted then you could make the change you required. Or as sometimes happens in OpenOffice, something happens which I don't understand, I have no way of finding out why. Would it be possible to incorporate this feature in OpenOffice? It would enhance this program's appeal to me and, I'm sure to many others who still hanker for the user friendliness of WP. Gordon Lee. --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 12 May 2014, at 21:20, Jim McLaughlin jjim.mclaugh...@gmail.com wrote: I would certainly second Gordon Lee's suggestion for ver. 5.x.x that having a parallel to the Corel/WP reveal Codes function would be invaluable. Amen. One of the VERY BEST features of WP - even before it went Corel - was the reveal codes option, which gave the user full control over the quirky formatting of almost any WordProc app - including OO [if you question this, try to do nested lists, with the top level numbered and the next level bulleted]. jt --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On 05/12/2014 10:08 PM, Julian Thomas wrote: On 12 May 2014, at 21:20, Jim McLaughlin jjim.mclaugh...@gmail.com wrote: I would certainly second Gordon Lee's suggestion for ver. 5.x.x that having a parallel to the Corel/WP reveal Codes function would be invaluable. Amen. One of the VERY BEST features of WP - even before it went Corel - was the reveal codes option, which gave the user full control over the quirky formatting of almost any WordProc app - including OO [if you question this, try to do nested lists, with the top level numbered and the next level bulleted]. jt This subject came up a couple of months ago, maybe with LO instead of OO, and the stuffy answers came back and said you have to use styles, which is a giant ball of wax. In other words, even if you could see what was happening, you could not change it on the fly, you had to go and figure out what kind of style would make the text look like what you wanted and and create that style. And then your whole document would have that style. What a humongous mess! WordPerfect Office 12 word processor (only*) will run in 32-bit Linux, but I don't know whether the reveal styles function works--not everything does. Also it apparently will not run in 64-bit systems, but maybe that can be finagled. *Do not try to install other features of the office suite, like the spread sheet, or Corel Draw, etc. --doug --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Suggestion.
On Monday 12 May 2014 10:08:57 PM Julian Thomas wrote: Amen. One of the VERY BEST features of WP - even before it went Corel - was the reveal codes option, which gave the user full control over the quirky formatting of almost any WordProc app - including OO [if you question this, try to do nested lists, with the top level numbered and the next level bulleted]. Nested lists are no problem whatsoever if you use list styles. Some people squirm at the idea of using lists, but there's no escaping the fact that OpenOffice and LibreOffice are designed to work with styles, and are inefficient without them. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421-7189 (on Pacific time) blog: https://brucebyfield.wordpress.com website: http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/ --- List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
