Eric, and all, (This list does not preserve document attachments. Feel free to add yours to the others already at the enhancement request on Bugzilla: <https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=3395>.)
The reality is that unless someone with the skills to take on creation of some sort of Reveal Styling or whatever it would be steps up and learns enough about the OpenOffice code to do it, debating the desirability of it is not going anywhere. It takes willing volunteer(s) with sufficient mastery of the software. Perhaps if someone (or a group) offered a significant bounty, that might work although I think that's usually a bad idea. - Dennis WHY STYLES CONTINUE TO BE BROUGHT UP IN THIS CONTEXT the reason for bringing up styles is that there are only styles and nothing but styles (and structures) in OpenOffice and in the ODF format. OpenOffice doesn't control formatting by setting codes in the text stream. The codes that are thought of, in the case of WordPerfect, are simply not there in ODF and the way OpenOffice operates. There are no in-line formatting codes comparable to ones used in WordPerfect and some other formats. The only thing in-line is the name of a style as an attribute of a structural element (whether a span, a paragraph, or one of the many things that includes/includes-in a paragraph). Although there are in-line actions in the UI, such as Format Character, bold, underline, etc., these all are implemented by creation of structural elements and styles referenced from them. From then on, it is essentially all styles. (There is no shift-in/shift-out of formatting in the runs of text.) There are some special codes (e.g., to force multiple spaces, to tab, force a hard line break, and some other markers) that are unrelated to formatting over one-or-more characters in the text. Because style mentions can be nested along with the structure, and there are also search hierarchies among the styles for where a particular formatting feature is obtained, the ODF/OpenOffice document model makes it difficult to portray what was simple for WordPerfect. I agree that an equivalent means of inspecting what formatting features apply at a point in the text, and where they come from, would be extremely valuable in trouble-shooting these style-based documents. Being able to see the span of the application of a format feature (or of an applied style) would also be very useful. This is particularly important, it seems to me, because the created structures and the styles they introduce are not invertible. It is difficult to see where they are and to reverse their effects by making more formatting operations and it is conceivable that there are bugs in all of that as well. To that extent, I tend to disagree with Brian Barker. It should be possible to manipulate the styles in rational ways, similar to what is available with the "Styles and Formatting" pop-out. This would not be by getting under the hood and pulling wires, but having a tool that accomplishes an available manipulation in a valid way. The reality is that unless someone with the skills to take on creation of some sort of Reveal Styling or whatever it would be steps up and learns enough about the OpenOffice code to do it, debating the desirability of it is not going anywhere. It takes willing volunteer(s) with sufficient mastery of the software. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Eric Fenster [mailto:eric...@yahoo.com] Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 10:52 To: users@openoffice.apache.org Subject: Re: reveal codes I wish people who have made some of the comments actually had experience with the Reveal Codes function in WP. First, for those not familiar with it, the Reveal Codes can be turned on and off and the amount of space (number of lines of text) it consumes on the screen is under complete control. You have unencumbered text in one window, and text with the codes in another -- IF you want it. This is very different from turning on codes like paragraph markers, which are all or nothing and litter the entire text. Second, all this talk about styles is totally irrelevant. Styles exist quite happily alongside the reveal codes option. > But users must not be allowed to make changes at that level [delete]; > instead, they must be required, having discovered what the problem is, to > solve it where it was caused. Anything else breaks the structure. I really don't understand this rather authoritarian recommendation. If I write something in bold and want to convert one or some words to normal type when I review my text, that's my business. Why should I not be "allowed" to change a word? And if I can do that by simply putting my cursor on a Bold code and deleting it, what great law am I violating? There's no structure being broken, just editing between bold and normal. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
