Yow! Well, the formatting of that message kinda sucked, didn't it? I'll try again.
-----Original Message----- Hey all. This seems like a Friday-afternoon kind of topic... it might be a very short discussion, if somebody points me to an existing feature. Here's something that I think OOo really needs - well actually, MS Word really needs it too, but OOo could make far better use: Imagine an option, probably in the Tools menu, whereby you could force the use of Styles. That simple. If that option was turned on, the "Format" menu would contain "Styles and Formatting" and not much else. The spot-formatting toolbars would be unavailable. If you wanted to make a formatting change, you would have to apply an existing style, or create a new style and apply it. (Am I evil, or what?) [Ctrl]-b, [Ctrl]-i, etc., would not work. If you groped for the Format menu (or right-clicked to invoke the spot-formatting dialog, it would have an entry (perhaps called "slipshod practices") that would let you invoke the formatting dialogs, but only for that one incident. If you wanted to bold or center or font-change another piece of text, you'd have to click Format > Slipshod... again... maybe even click an acknowledgement that you really, really did intend to screw up the purity of the document. Every time. Furthermore, this feature could be attached to documents, so that whenever they were opened by anybody, in OOo, those same restrictions would apply. Obviously, anyone could turn the feature off, but they'd be made to jump through some hoops so that it wasn't too easy to do. When you were about to share a source OOo document with other people, you would have the opportunity to set up the dialog that they would encounter if they chose to switch off the "Style-discipline" function. Mine would say something like: "Yes, I acknowledge that I wish to take this elegant and efficient document and make a dogs-breakfast of it. I truly do wish to defeat the sensible and organized use of styles, thumb my nose at the author - and at every person who will hereafter be stuck with maintaining this document - and yes I admit that I also fart in crowded elevators." [Yes, I'm being antisocial] [No, I've come to my senses] I think that the general concept would be very useful and helpful in the war against shoddy practices (which we are kinda losing, aren't we?), yet would be entirely optional/voluntary in nature. What say you all? Are you with me? Who wants to make it an official feature request? Show of hands. :-) Kevin in Ottawa, Canada The information contained in this electronic mail transmission may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected from disclosure. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer without copying or disclosing it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
