Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
Michele Zarri wrote:
I have been thinking about the handling of graphic objects in Impress
which is currently covered in chapters 4 and 5 plus appendix B.
[...] The proposal is to create three short-ish chapters and remove
the Appendix.
The first chapter "Inserting pictures" would include the section on
inserting a picture and modifying it with the picture toolbar. It
would also include the use of the Gallery.
The second chapter "Modifying the attributes of graphic objects"
would first introduce the use of the stlyes as well as the organizer
tab, then explain in detail how to set up each of the components of a
style (this is by the way exactly what we did for Presentation styles
in chapter 3).
[...]
Finally, a different chapter "Creating and manipulating graphic
objects" would describe the use of the Drawing toolbar... [...]
In summary, the proposal is not to create new text, but only to
re-structure the one we have already.
I try to attach a document illustrating how I envisage the split up.
If the list does not accept attachments, I will make it available on
OOoAuthors.
Before going on and starting the copy & paste party, I would like to
know what you think.
Michele,
I'm sorry to take so long to reply to your note. I have been away for
two days. I have now looked at your proposed new structure, and I
think it's good: an improvement on what I did.
However, I wonder if the sequence might not be better if what you have
for Ch6 went before your Ch5... in other words, have the chapter on
creating objects before the chapter on formatting them.
Also, I think we may need to look at our terminology. The term
"graphics" covers both pictures (bitmap images) and vector graphics
produced by the drawing tools. Some manipulations, styles etc apply
only to one or the other of these distinct types of graphics; some
manipulations apply to both. And of course one can combine both types
in the same drawing! At the least, we need to be very clear about
which type of graphics each manipulation applies to. I have not
checked the existing material closely to see if it has any problems
with terminology, and indeed I've now read these chapters too many
times to notice any problems that might be there. I'm sure Gary will
be of great help here, being new to the material and more meticulous
than I am.
--Jean
Hello Jean,
No problem! actually I did not expect such a quick reply given that it
is quite a big change I have proposed.
I agree on the need to swap chapters 5 and 6, create first, format later
sounds very logical.
Re the use of the term "Graphics" I think so far we have been using it
consistently, but if we now create a stand alone chapter for pictures we
need to be a bit careful. Sections describing how to position, move and
re-scale graphics apply to both pictures and graphic objects therefore
in the new chapter structure we can choose to duplicate them or to
create cross references across chapters. Cross references of this type
are OK in a book, but not so easy to maintain when working on each
chapter in isolation. Besides some of the info are rather fundamental so
I will probably start by duplicating them.
Maybe we could add some kind of note to remind us that if we ever make a
book out of all the chapters, some sections will be redundant.
Anyway, I will start then to do the copy & paste + terminology revision.
Optimistically, I hope to have the three chapters up for revision in a
week or so (depends how busy I will be in the weekend :) ).
Cheers,
Michele
