On 08/31/2010 04:16 AM, Séamas Ó Brógáin wrote:
Jonathon wrote:
Whilst it can be provided, it won't do you the slightest bit of good.
This is simply due to the different philosophy in how a word processor
should be written.
I don’t understand. If it can be provided, how do you know it won’t do
me any good?
This is one of the most frequently requested absent features of
Openoffice (to judge by the site I referred to earlier) and one that
would be hugely useful to those who work professionally with text, such
as writers and editors. Making visible the points at which styles and
formatting attributes begin and end would be a very significant control
for those editing a text or preparing it for publication. Many texts,
especially those received from others and particularly those that are a
composite of other texts, have “phantom” styles and attributes, such as
an opening tag followed by a closing tag with no significant text in
between, duplicated tags, and tags for styles that are no longer
required. These can make texts unnecessarily complex and cause headaches
for editor and typesetter.
I have one complex text that only one person ever worked on but that is
full of redundant styles and attributes as a result of the compiler
working on the text, and changing his mind, over the years.
I am aware that the internal format of Openoffice is not the same as
that of Wordperfect (which I have never used). I mentioned Wordperfect
(as others in the same predicament do) only as a shorthand way of
describing the feature. Despite the difference in internal format, a
simulation of this feature is possible by means of a macro, as proved by
the fact that it has been done. Ian’s macro caused the opening and
closing points of styles and formatting to be made visible, and (if I
understand correctly) allowed them to be deleted. Even if they were only
displayed they could be hunted down manually. What has changed in the
meantime is not (I think) the format of the XML in the internal text
file (contents.xml) but the format of the macro language.
If someone were to update the macro to make it work with Openoffice 3,
or otherwise provide this feature, they would remove “the old request”
from the list of grouses and earn the undying gratitude of editors and
others, beginning with the undersigned.
Séamas Ó Brógáin
----------------
I used a version once. I don't remember what it showed.
Which of the following are shown:
Page styles
Numbering styles
character styles
paragraph styles
font change
italics
bold
Does this differentiate between a change based on a style and a hard
coded change?
What does it mean to delete a style from the display?
Does this mean that things are set to use the default style, or to
inherit the previous item's style?
WordPerfect worked (if I remember correctly) by turning attributes on
and off, which makes it easier to simply delete a tag (because you do
not need to set it to something else).
To properly duplicate the functionality as done in WP, would require
significant effort (split display, etc), which is why it has likely not
been done.
--
Andrew Pitonyak
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