https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534
--- Comment #20 from Eyal Rozenberg <[email protected]> --- (In reply to ajlittoz from comment #19) > I just discovered this bug report which looks rather like a thread about > page style philosophy. Page style philosophy does have something to do with it, for sure... It should also be mentioned that they're not exactly page style, but really a combination of single-page style the page-sequence style of: S1 = S, S2 = NextStyle(S1), S3 = NextStyle(S2) etc. That in itself is rather confusing, and see also below. > Eyal, you pretend to be a power user, but have you really seen the page > style use context or used them. Well, I'm a power user in the sense that I've used LO for nearly 10 years and steadily for 8; I do a lot of QA work; I support other users both with LO and MSO (especially Writer); and I use LO to author both short and long, simple and complex documents, using styles and little direct formatting. But, indeed, I have so far not found use for page styles. Maybe it's just a fluke; maybe it's page styles are a bit limited (no inheritence - bug 41316, no composition - bug 149271); maybe the list of page styles available by default contains many confusing and/or redundant entries; and maybe a combination of all of the above. I'll comment only on your numbered point with which I don't agree. So, agree with (1.), > 2. ... Endnote is the page style used when Writer lays out the end notes; But: I. It's on the list of page styles for non-endnote pages. The user is somewhat baffled by being offered to make their page into an "Endnote page". Even if it's on the list - why is there no marking or designation of styles which get auto-applied? II. Why do endnotes get a special page style, while, say, bibliographies don't? Or Tables of Contents? This is not just arbitrary (a problem in itself), but makes the actual use of this page style even less obvious, since the user needs to create the mental image of the seemingly-arbitrary partial choice of what gets a special page style. III. Why is it "Endnote" rather than "Endnotes"? > 7. Index is clearly intended for indexes Points (I) and (II) about Endnote apply here. > 5. ... Footnote has the same role when you chose to position all your > footnotes > at end of document. You can't. The notes you position at the end of your document are _endnotes_. Specifically, LibreOffice doesn't pretend footnotes are endnotes or vice-versa. > These page styles > are provided so that end-of-document notes have some default page style. That's not true, or not consistently true because: I. They would have a default page style anyway - Default Page Style. II. Point (II) about Endnote applies here: Other entities which also need their own page style don't have it. > 4. First Page may have an ambiguous name because you meet "first" pages > nearly everywhere in a document: the very first page, chapter first pages, … > Perhaps a better name would have been Front Cover or Title Page. It is > automatically followed by Default Page Style (Next Style configuration) I. "Ambiguous" and "nonsensical" are pretty close... II. Page (sequence) styles already have dispensation for different behavior on the first page of the sequence. Not for all features, but for headers and footers. That makes First Page at least partially redundant. Also, the fact that one can use a page break and have a completely unrelated page (sequence) style on the first page, renders this slightly more redundant. So, the page sequence style here is actually "Default Page Style + Different settings on the first page which go beyond what you can achieve by modifying the Default page style". ... except that these different settings are arbitrary, i.e. they will be whatever happened to change in the Default Page Style of the current template, but not be changed in the First Page style. That's rather nonsensical to me. I didn't mention (4.) on my initial comment. It is actually an illustration of a way to define a page sequence style, rather than a meaningful style on its own. Until 41316 is implemented - I really think it should be off the list. After that - maybe it's tolerable, but I still think another way should be found to educate the user about defining NextStyle-based "cascades" of individual page styles. > but is not automatically applied > because there is no obligation to isolate TOC, I. There is no obligation to isolate Endnotes either - they could start on the last page of text, with no page break. II. While there is no _obligation_, there is an _option_ to isolate ToCs. > Alphabetical Index or other > Table of … in a separate group of pages (think of chapter partial TOCs > following a chapter heading). What about partial indices or bibliographies following chapters? > 9. and 10. Left Page and Right Page are a consolidated pair because they are > linked by their Next Style property. They are nonsensical though. Giving an example of alternating styles may be cute, but the names are effectively inscrutable (and don't make sense even after you know what these styles contain); these styles have arbitrary properties due to not inheriting from the Default Page Style; and their supposed use-case is broken or non-existent. > Unless modified they can't be used > separately. But, once again, using them is an author's decision, usually > motivated by the need to have different header/footer, notably positioning > the page number on the outer side. Nope. As you yourself say: > Note there are however alternate ways to > achieve this which can avoid the insertion of blank pages (if you untick the > Same content on … box in the page style configuration). So alternating header/footer styles are not a use case. Neither is alternating margins due to a gutter - that's also supported in a single page style. So what _is_ the actual use case then? > 3. Envelop: works with Insert>Envelope but needs probably to be customised > to cope with your actual stationery; normally you don't invoke it "manually" > as it is part of an "automatic" feature. If it's not to be invoked manually, why is it on this list? Or, let me put it this way: If, dropping redundancies, the list consists of styles which _shouldn't_ be applied manually - why even have it? And at the same level of accessibility of Paragraph Styles and Character Styles? > 6. As already explained by Regina, this is the default style for HTML > document I replied to Regina's message. Must I repeat that reply here as well like I've repeated some other ones you've ignored? :-( > note that page styles in > HTML documents are nonsense because there is no notion of "page"; Really? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@page > to > emphasise this, the page style list is disabled in the style side pane when > you're in HTML mode. But you can still customise it (with visible effects) > with a double-click on its name in the status bar. Why am I supposed to customize it when editing a non-HTML document? It would make sense for me to be able to customize it from outside any document. A user would absolutely not guess that editing the HTML page style in document 1 effects the default page style in (HTML) document 2. Like I said - nonsensical. > All in all, I find the default page style list quite correctly balanced > between functional utility and usage suggestion. It should encourage to > discover what can be done with page styles. I. That's because you're ignoring most arguments to the contrary. II. Even if you legitimately found it that way - I argue that the vast majority of users - don't, and it is only after carefully reading explanatory text that they will be able to understand what's what with that least. And in practice - they won't; they are very likely to just steer clear of the whole thing as some kind of bizarre voodoo. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
