[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 Heiko Tietze changed: What|Removed |Added CC|libreoffice-ux-advise@lists |heiko.tietze@documentfounda |.freedesktop.org|tion.org Keywords|needsUXEval | --- Comment #9 from Heiko Tietze --- The ticket started with "get rid of some and perhaps most of the page styles". We discussed this in the design meeting and come to the conclusion that every single page style has a use case. See also Jonathon's comment 7. => NAB Whether Left/Right is correct or should be Even/Odd is another question. It probably boils down whether RTL starts the first page on even numbers. (In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #8) > No, the mechanism of having separate features when a page is odd or even in > the order of pages, or being to the right or left of the spine, is something > which must be covered within a _single_ page style. You invent new wheels; and even if your approach works we still want to support round-trips with other applications/document types. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 Eyal Rozenberg changed: What|Removed |Added Depends on||41316 --- Comment #8 from Eyal Rozenberg --- (In reply to jonathon from comment #7) > A right hand page is, by definition, an odd numbered page. 1. If what you said were true, a "Right Hand Page" would not be, and could not be, a page style - since continuing with a second (numbered) page of the same style would have it contradict the definition. 2. Who said the pages are numbered at all? Not LO Writer, in which a "Right Page" and a "Left Page" are not numbered by default. 3. Welcome to Earth, my friend. On our planet, many cultures / written language communities write from right to left and flip pages from left to right. The odd/even, left/right etc. conventions for such languages are typically flipped. > A left hand page is, by definition, an even numbered page. See above. > [Landscape] ... this is a quick and dirty way to switch from portrait to > landscape, reminding the writer that the page is in landscape. That would be true if the Landscape style inherited the Default Page Style. So once any change has been made to the default style (e.g. margins, text direction etc.) - selecting this style makes a bunch of changes which are not what the user expects. > In an ideal world, page styles would be inheritable. I hardly think fixing 41316 means achieving an ideal world... I just think the order of business is fixing 41316 first, adding this style later. Anyway, marking this bug dependent on 41316. > Index pages have ... Does Writer have "Index Pages"? When I insert an Index, it's inserted inline. Does LO ever create "Index Pages"? ... I don't think it does. > Index pages have a very specific page layout and markup criteria. On the contrary. Indices don't have to be placed on separate pages, and thus naturally have no "specific page layout and markup criteria". If that were the case, that should have been a feature of Indices, not some general page style you can apply anywhere. > The > blatantly obvious example being that lower case Roman numerals are used for > page numbers. See my "welcome to earth" comment above... in non-Latin alphabet languages, this is certainly not common, let alone necessary. That kind of convention belongs in a document template, I would say. > Less obvious is that they have either two or three columns. Not in LibreOffice they don't; at least, not by default. When you insert an index, it has one column. And, in fact, LO's "Index" page style only has one column. (Personally, I use 2 or 3 columns in my alphabetical indices.) > Endnote pages ... have also have very specific page layout and > markup criteria. Here I'm not sure; I was not aware there was a universal convention. But - ok, suppose that's true. In that case: 1. This style should be named "Endnotes" (or "Endnotes Page"), not "Endnote". 2. It should probably not be applicable to non-endnote pages. > The first printed page that follow End note pages... is a Right Hand Side page That can't be true, because if there is any such restriction, it must be reversed for RTL document layout. Moreover, some documents don't _have_ right-hand-side and left-hand-side pages. Example: A document to be printed on one side of each sheet of paper, and not bound on one side of the sheets. > Point size of text is smaller than on regular pages, being an equally > unobvious differentiator. This is actually a rather interesting point... does the Default Paragraph Style inherit anything from the Page Style? Perhaps it should. > I have seen a single footnote ramble on for almost 100 pages. Those would be 100 regular pages of text. If a footnote doesn't fit on the same page as where the footnote reference is located, then it continues to take up some part of later pages of text. But they would still be regular pages of text. Even if the footnote extends past the last page of text - it is a degenerate case of a regular page of text, with no lines of no-footnote text. And that's how it works in LibreOffice. > A trend that began in the early/mid-sixties in British & US publishing, was > to throw anything longer than a single line, from footnotes into end notes. > Hence, today (2023) the majority of time one comes across footnote pages, is > in reprints of material that was originally published more than fifty years > ago. Historical point taken - but that's not how footnotes work in LibreOffice. LO has no footnote pages and I don't know of a plan for this to change... > The page layout for Table of Contents, and for Indices is different. The > blatantly obvious difference being that Table of Contents is a single > column, whilst Index Pages are two or three columns. It may or may not be blatantly obvious - but it is not true in LO right now. Indices
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 --- Comment #7 from jonathon --- (In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #0) > (8.) : What do you mean, landscape? Landscape what? This suggests that it's > a landscape version of the default page style. But - it isn't! This is a quick and dirty way to switch from portrait to landscape, reminding the writer that the page is in landscape. For some types of writing, this is a useful thing. >It doesn't inherit the default style. If it had inherited the default style, In an ideal world, page styles would be inheritable. > (2.) and (7.) : It's not clear what "Index" or "Endnote" here mean. Is this > supposed to be a special page style for pages dedicated to Index pages have a very specific page layout and markup criteria.The blatantly obvious example being that lower case Roman numerals are used for page numbers. Less obvious is that they have either two or three columns. Endnote pages and Footnote have also have very specific page layout and markup criteria. No page numbers being the most obvious example. The first printed page that follow End note pages and Footnote pages is a Right Hand Side page, being a less obvious layout criteria. Point size of text is smaller than on regular pages, being an equally unobvious differentiator. > (5.) : Footnotes are never on their own page, so I don't see how this can > make sense in any way! I'll grant that Footnote pages are a specialist thing. They do exist, albeit not nearly as common in contemporary (2023 publications) as in days of yore --- C18 publications. I have seen a single footnote ramble on for almost 100 pages. A trend that began in the early/mid-sixties in British & US publishing, was to throw anything longer than a single line, from footnotes into end notes. Hence, today (2023) the majority of time one comes across footnote pages, is in reprints of material that was originally published more than fifty years ago. > Indices/Footnotes? Why Index and not Table-of-Contents? Or even "Table" for > pages dedicated to tables? Plus, why/how should the page style change for an > Index? Vague name and unclear raison-d'etre. The page layout for Table of Contents, and for Indices is different. The blatantly obvious difference being that Table of Contents is a single column, whilst Index Pages are two or three columns. Less obvious is that Table of Contents pages lack page numbers, whilst Index pages include them. > (9.) and (10.) : The source of most confusion on this list. This can mean > any number of things! A page with an RTL default for paragraph styles? A right hand page is, by definition, an odd numbered page. A left hand page is, by definition, an even numbered page. > Are these two - Left Page and Right Page - supposed to alternate? Going by the definition, yes. > * Get rid of some and perhaps most of these. (1.), (3.), (8.) I guess you > can keep, the rest should probably just go away. There is a tension between providing the fifty odd page styles that the in-house Style Manuals for the Seven Sisters requires, and catering for somebody who has no idea that page styles exist, much less how to correctly use them. In theory, an extension that contains the styles that the in-house specialist uses, could be created and distributed. In practice, that probably won't happen, but not due to a lack of need. > * If you keep any of the vaguely-named styles, make their rasion d'etre > clearer (and please don't tell me to go read the help...) That page styles are perceived as being vaguely-named does not mean that they are either vaguely-named or lack a rasion d'etre. ### Should the documentation explain how and why each style (Bullet, Page, List, Character, Table, Line) exists, and how to use the specific style? My working assumption is that people who want to know that, either studied, or will study the Style Manuals from the Seven Sisters and Chicago, or the British or European equivalents. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 --- Comment #6 from Eyal Rozenberg --- I protest the non-serious discussion of this bug in the recent design committee session. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 Cor Nouws changed: What|Removed |Added CC||c...@nouenoff.nl Version|unspecified |Inherited From OOo -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 --- Comment #5 from Eyal Rozenberg --- (In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #2) > Special styles are kind of clear to me, and I guess for you too. Not sure which ones you're referring to here. > Left/Right is also not a brainer Oh really? :-) > just check what happens at the properties. First, before I do that - you realize that, given that it doesn't inherit the default page style, there is absolutely no way in which the properties here could make sense. This must define page dimensions, margins, orientation and all other properties. And whatever the values are - they're wrong. Only inheritance can be valid for most properties. But you insisted, so let's check. "Right page" contains: "29.7 cm + From top 2.0 cm, From bottom 2.0 cm + Text direction left-to-right (horizontal) + Page description: Arabic, Portrait, Left + Right Page + Not page line spacing" Still think this is a no-brainer? I'll let you guess what "Left Page" contains. > Whether any of these styles is really usable is another question. But > similarly relevant: Does it hurt to have these styles? Yes. When the page style dialog has a lot of confusing items, it makes the user have second thoughts about whether they should even consider making a selection from the list, since who knows what these things do anyway. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 --- Comment #4 from Eyal Rozenberg --- (In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #3) > HTML is the default page style for File > New > HTML document. Hmm... I didn't even remember we had such an entry in the new document menu. Those menu entries are weird. Be that as it may... there are several kinds of documents one can create using the File > New submenu: Text, HTML, Labels, Business Cards (and ignoring Master Document). Right now, the Default Page Style is the actual default page style in Text, Labels and Business Cards documents, but not in an HTML document. I don't understand why they don't all use the Default Page Style as the Default Page Style. They don't even each have their own page style. Also, even given the current situation - when creating an HTML document, we can't access the Page Styles via the sidebar, and can thus not see "HTML" on the list of Page Styles. We can edit it through the Format menu, but can't replace it. Why, then, should we be able to see this special style as another item on the list, when editing text documents? And -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 Regina Henschel changed: What|Removed |Added CC||rb.hensc...@t-online.de --- Comment #3 from Regina Henschel --- (In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #2) > No idea about HTML, HTML is the default page style for File > New > HTML document. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 --- Comment #2 from Heiko Tietze --- No idea about HTML, probably legacy stuff used for minimum margins. Special styles are kind of clear to me, and I guess for you too. Left/Right is also not a brainer, just check what happens at the properties. Whether any of these styles is really usable is another question. But similarly relevant: Does it hurt to have these styles? -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 153534] Most bundled page styles are nonsensical and/or redundant
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153534 Eyal Rozenberg changed: What|Removed |Added CC||libreoffice-ux-advise@lists ||.freedesktop.org See Also||https://bugs.documentfounda ||tion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41 ||316 Keywords||needsUXEval --- Comment #1 from Eyal Rozenberg --- My complaint about (8.) relates to bug 41316 - there are currently no hierarchical relations among Page Styles. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are on the CC list for the bug.
