John Kane wrote:
While browsing around the OOo forums I encountered a question about the
Placeholder field, a type of field I had never really noticed. It
seems fairly straight forward but it was not easy to find any
information about it unless one went:
Insert>Fields>Others>Functions>Placeholder> and then clicks on the Help
button.
I have noticed this a couple of other times; that is, one often cannot
(easily?) find information in the general help listings by using
keywords but one can get more and more useful information from the
specific help button.
I wonder if a) the Working with Fields chapter should perhaps have a
bit about Placeholders, and b) should there be some general note in the
Guide about the specificity of the help function? This assumes that
there is not such a note and I just missed it.
You didn't miss it, because it isn't there. I think a note about
this in the Fields chapter would be very good, because that's one
of the worst areas for finding info in the help. Do put one in
during your review, or at least a note-to-the-author (me) as a
reminder to do so.
If we wanted to add something to the Guide chapter about the
Placeholders field I would suggest a straight cut and paste from the
help text which reads:
Placeholder
Inserts a placeholder field in the document, for example, for
graphics.
When you click a placeholder field in the document, you are prompted
to insert the item that is missing.
Yes, put that in while you're doing your review.
It would be nice to know what the box labelled Feference does on that
screen. My guess is that it is just an aide mémoire but I am
not sure. It may have some functionality that is not apparent.
I'll see what I can find out. Let me know if you discover any
more info about it. But it does sound like what you said.
Thanks for pursuing this!
Jean
