Jacqueline Rahemipour wrote: > - Do we really want to have this feature in single paragraphs? I think, > this is really confusing for users and it would be acceptable to create > a new paragraph style, if needed. For this question I read Matthias blog > and I agree, that features must be easy to use and not every user is > experienced in using styles. This is true if we are talking about page > styles and easy workflows (e.g. "first page different"), but if someone > works in a large document and needs a special structure of headings, it > is highly recommended and should be acceptable to learn how to use a > paragraph style. For compatibility reasons (only import) this could be > handled by automatically creating a new paragraph style (same as page > styles at the moment).
We think that the outline level shouldn't be treated differently than other paragraph attributes. So as long as we have "hard" formatting we should have all attributes that can be set by a style also as a single attribute. OTOH I agree that the idea of automatically creating styles is very tempting, not only for outline levels, but for all "hard" attributions. We already implemented some preliminary steps for this by automatically creating AutoStyles for text and paragraph attributes on setting or importing them (see the blog of Frank Meies in GullFOSS). Maybe in future OOo versions we can think about utilizing these AutoStyles for a mode where all or at least most formatting in OOo uses styles. But that shouldn't be seen exclusively in the context of outline levels. > - Impact on outline numbering: > ATM it is a big problem in OOo, that only one paragraph style can be > applied to an outline level, but not because there is no other way to > get this paragraphs easily in the TOC (that is already possible and easy > enough), mostly to have a special outline numbering. The only workaround > I found for this is using a not used outline level and changing the > numbering for that - but that is for several reasons not really > satisfying). I often need the possibility to use a numbered heading and > a hierachical dependend paragraph style with the same numbering - but > the numbering is not passed from the linked style. Beside the missing > feature in OOo this is the actual behaviour in MSO and causes many > import problems. So will the new attribute be a solution for that (maybe > add an option "include in outline numbering")? - This would be really > important. I for myself think that outline numbering is very hard to understand and lacks usability. This is not changed, neither positively nor negatively, by the addition of an outline level paragraph attribute. This is worth a separate discussion that I would be glad to see happening, either on this list or somewhere else. > Sorry for the long email - but this feature is really important for me... On the contrary - many thanks for your feedback. Don't hesitate to follow up in case some points still aren't clear or if you see serious problems. It's better to talk now than later. At the end that's the reason why we like to have a draft spec before starting to implement something. The spec will not be final before the implementation is finished. Of course many things are a matter of taste. I hope you can accept that while we all agree that working with styles is the recommended way for all non-trivial documents we also must try to make our application attractive to all users that either don't believe in this or only create small documents where styles can't unfold their full power. Ciao, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer (mba) - Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS Please don't reply to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". I use it for the OOo lists and only rarely read other mails sent to it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
