Robin Laing wrote:
Jallan wrote:
Robin Laing wrote:
I quite believe that. But all that is left in OOo Writer is the
results of that misinterpretation, not the codes, which you therefore
need not worry about in fixing the problem. If there are no codes to
be jumbled, no-one can jumble them.
But one can override with direct formatting.
No.
There are no codes to override with direct formatting. There are no
codes beyond what you see with View -> Nonprinting Characters.
There is really only direct formatting, which can be changed, either
directly by the user, or indirectly by the user laying down a style.
Accordingly, the user has a choice: change formatting through a style
(which is a bundle of direct formatting attributes) or change formatting
by direct formatting without using a style.
But at the lowest level, there is only formatting attributes applied to
objects.
A lot of the problems that reveal codes aids with are problems that
can't occur in the first place if the system doesn't use formatting
codes internally.
Really? In my experience, I don't agree.
What problems do you find with reveal codes? Tokens that aren't where
you want them and causing formatting that you don't want, missing
tokens, nested tokens of which one or both suddenly become effective and
surprise you when you remove one or more of the outer matching tokens
and so forth.
The conscientious maintainer is constantly cleaning up buried tokens and
twiddling with the order of tokens.
All that mess is gone when the system doesn't use code tokens.
But again, I am not an expert
on creating and using styles on hodgepodge documents.
You wrongly bring in styles in opposition to formatting tokens. Styles
are in opposition to the user doing low-level direct formatting, whether
in Word Perfect or OOo Writer, or HTML or any number of text processing
systems and protocols.
If you want a particular level of headings to be in a particular font,
to have a particular font size, to be in a particular color, and to
have a particular indentation, is it more complicated do it once and
apply this *single* style again and again and again, or apply *each*
of the attributes *separately* again, and again, and again?
Which will have the greatest possibility of user error? Which will be
more difficult to fix if an error has occurred?
Using a style abstracts the complexity by putting it all in one place,
in the style definition.
And if the style is used but then a bunch of direct formatting is
applied, then what a pain as in one document I just looked at.
Exactly. It's a mess.
Simple. Using an example that I have used before. I have a document
that uses "Header 1" It set the justification, font, size and
attributes. But on the next line which is empty, the justification is
changed. And the next line which is still "Header 1" has different
justification, font and font attributes. Does this make it any
clearer? I did not create the document.
No. But you now understand what is wrong, that it is not a
misapplication of code tokens, but overwriting of a style by direct
formatting by a user who does not understand styles, or doesn't care.
Whether this was done in Word Perfect or HTML or whatever doesn't matter.
Just go in and fix this mess, which you should be able to do more easily
now that you understand what is happening.
I just learned that I can set the styles window to display only the
styles being used. This is a step in the right direction as it showed
me the problems in the example above.
Good. If you want to use OOo Writer effectively, then go through the
Help files and manual and see what else you find. I suggest looking at
"updating styles from selections" in the Help index as something that
comes in handy.
But RC's would show me when there is a change to the formatting or
margins. That isn't easily done in OOo.
Fortunately, in OOo Writer, you cannot apply page attributes (such as
margin settings) through direct formatting, only by changing page
styles. Anything page attribute changed through Format -> Page also
changes the applied page style, forcing structured usage in respect to
Page formatting.
I agree that it would be nice to be able to see immediately for each
page style what page numbers it currently applied to. That would be a
good enhancement.
But for practical use, this is very seldom a problem. Normally few page
styles are used in a document, and they are used logically, and you can
flip through the pages and watch the page style window on the status bar
to see where a rarely used page style appears.
You can currently use Find & Replace to search for formatting attributes
and paragraph styles, but not for page styles and their related
attributes or for character styles. This is a hole that should be plugged.
This is the point. When it changes, how to I easily see these changes?
What happens if a style is used in a document and the internal text is
deleted, all but one space. That style may still be there.
Yes, it is still there, in that one space. Similarly the style may be
applied to a single non-space character, and you don't notice that a
particular letter "a" is in Times New Roman rather than Garamond. That
kind of thing happens no matter what text processing system you use,
using codes or not.
You can move your cursor through the entire document in OOo Writer and
watch the high-lighting character styles in the Stylist. In WordPerfect
you can move your cursor through the entire document and watch the codes
in reveal codes modes. Both are equally helpful (and equally cumbersome).
A trick to make particular styles stand out in OpenOffice.org is to
change the color and size drastically for debugging purposes. Then
change it back. This also allows you to distinguish direct formatting
from style formatting. You also temporarily give a character style an
unusual attribute like shadowed and then search on that attribute in
Find & Replace to find all sections with that character style.
A trick in proofing a style-written document is to change the colors of
the heading styles and other styles so all are different, just for
proofing purposes, as an aid to finding errors. Then change the colors
back afterwards.
This is where some of WP formatting tools are handy. This is also the
headache of many writers that create many one off documents. They don't
use the same style over and over. I do agree that if you use the same
effect and formatting over and over, templates and styles are perfect.
I suppose some people who write very little, do start fresh each time,
particularly for a very short document. But a more normal approach is
surely to take something already done, whether by oneself or someone
else modify it, rather than someone, for example typing in their home
address again and again on each letter they write.
But the amateur in any field often doesn't know how things should be
done efficiently, nor do many professionals, when new techniques come in.
But what style do I search for?
Any paragraph style you want.
Perhaps you look in a document you're working on, and wonder where
*that* paragraph style is being used. Or having changed the definition
of a particular paragraph style, you want to see if the new set of
attributes everywhere fits the places where that style is used, or
whether some of the places where the paragraph style is employed should
be changed to something else, or whether style B should indeed be
replaced by Style A in all places.
It beats searching manually through the entire document.
You may find in a document from mixed sources that Header 5 style is
sometimes applied to both the most minor level of hierarchical headers
and to chart headings as well because the creator of one of the source
documents used Header 1 to 4 used the general header hierarchy and
Header 5 to 8 for headers above and within tables while another used
Header 1 to 5 for the general header hierarchy and either did not use
tables or used some sort of custom style for a table header. You will
accordingly wish to replace all Header 8 with Header 9, then all Header
7 with Header 8, replace all Header 6 with Header 7. and change Header 5
to Header 6 when it is a table header only. This is a real example us
using Find & Replace to quick bring disparate elements of a document
into sync with one another.
How many place do I have to look to find out all the info. With RC, I
look in the dialog box and I have my text and formatting in the same
location. I know that there is a formatting change very quickly. A
scan of the dialog box can reveal any changes that occur. Where it is a
"Style" or direct formatting. I don't have to even have my cursor at
that spot of text to see that a change has occurred.
But at least 90% of those changes will be just as obvious when not in
reveal codes mode, many far more obvious, not buried in a series of 7 or
8 different formatting codes.
You don't need a special viewing mode to tell you when bolding, italics,
underlining, superscript, subscript, small capitals, or a large
difference in font size occurs. And if half way through your document
your line spacing changes from a fixed size to normal single space, you
are as likely to miss this in reveal codes mode as in looking at the
regular text. (Using a standard text paragraph style would of course
prevent this, both in Word Perfect and in OOo Writer, provided someone
in either application doesn't start modifying paragraphs with direct
formatting in contradiction to the underlying paragraph style.)
This is the issue of having a RC type of dialog. A tool to find these,
even the ones that are changed over an empty line would be nice.
An empty line is a paragraph in itself.
Just remove all direct formatting in OOo and don't worry about what
changes over it. Because then nothing changes over it.
Why would you have an empty paragraph anyway?
If it was intended as a special shim for a special layout situation,
then create a paragraph style named something like Shim-1 with the
desired line spacing and apply it to the paragraph. If you need shims,
it's better to mark them in some such way rather than to apply direct
formatting to change the spacing above or below individual paragraphs.
Then you avoid messing up your standard paragraph styles with direct
formatting modifications and the purpose of the blank paragraph kludge
is self-documenting and the existence of non-standard spacing at this
point is obvious and self-documenting.
I believe that when you kludge something, you should make it as obvious
as you can.
I come across this daily. If allot of direct formatting is used then
styles are useless. Direct formatting is one reason that many WP users
hate MS Office, it is what they are familiar with.
Yes, they know no better.
Styles are still not useless, but it is more trouble to fix up the
document, especially if it *looks* fine as it is. Especially if it
probably will not be modified much if at all, perhaps best leave it for
time reasons.
There are klunky and ancient applications in many data shops unrevised
for the same reason. They work and there's no compelling reason to
replace them, even though almost no-one would code a similar application
in such a fashion today.
And if for some reason they are to be replaced, it's often better and
even faster to rewrite from the beginning.
This discussion has shown that those who love Reveal Codes will always
want the features of Reveal Codes. Those that learned Styles will swear
up and down that there is no need for Reveal Codes.
They may not, on a system that uses code tokens. No-one claims that the
codes used in XML and HTML and LaTeX themselves are innimical to the use
of styles.
What people do say, rightly, is that using styles more prevents many of
the bugs that happen with raw application of codes. Also, if a system
doesn't use codes at all internally, reveal codes isn't of great value,
especially as it would misrepresent the underlying structure of how the
data is being stored.
I have found a need for both. Even with the things I have learned with
this thread, I still see a need for a Reveal Codes type of display but
not with the ability to edit with the dialog. Something that will allow
any formatting change to be seen quickly without looking at the right of
the screen for styles. Font tool bar for font and justification
selection. As I said in one post, a character that displays on the
screen when non-printable characters is selected would be better than
what is available now.
But what you are now asking for is not "reveal codes" but better aids
that work with the way OOo Writer handles formatting, and that's
something almost everyone wants, not necessarily through a single
utility, but at least through general enhancement here and there.
Neither tool is perfect in all situations. That is why I suggested that
both tools be available in OOo, at least RC in a display only mode to
point to the style or formatting change so it can be deleted or corrected.
There is no reason why show invisibles should not apply to text ranges
also, with rectangles drawn around each text range or alternation of
background color from range to range. Or something else, which is easier
to program, if there is something else easier to program.
MS Word currently does have a few more aids to provide details about the
formatting than does OOo Writer.
Jallan
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