Notes2 Design WorkingWithNotes

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Summary

This page contains information on how to work with Notes. This includes the how OpenOffice.org Writer behaves when a Note is inserted, or the text containing a Note Anchor is altered afterwards.

Rationale

Don't you think working with Notes is necessary to save the planet? To be serious again, this section does not really need a rationale.

Assumptions

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Proposed Designs

Proposal "Inserting a Note" ( Italic text = Not implemented in 3.0 - Behavior of Example 5 in any case)

The Notes Functionality does provide a Notes Anchor to mark up the text portion which is related to the Notes Data. The kind of Notes Anchor depends on the status of Writer Document text selection when calling the command for inserting the Note.

  • If the document has the focus and no document text is selected, then inserting causes the Notes Anchor to be dependent of the text next to the text cursor...
    • If there is some kind of word or string, then the Notes Anchor Area will contain the whole word. (refer to Examples 1 ... 4)
    • If no reasonable text can be detected next to the cursor, then a simple Note Anchor Point is inserted. (refer to Example 5)
  • If the document has the focus and document text is selected, then inserting a note causes the Notes Anchor Area to span the current selection of the document text. (refer to Example 6)

In the following examples, symbols are used for the representation of other elements:

  • Cursor is represented by |
  • Anchor Area start is represented by >
  • Anchor Area end is represented by <
  • Anchor Point is represented by ^
  • Text selection start is represented by [
  • Text selection end is represented by ]

Example 1: The Notes Anchor Area for the text “This is some phone number 1030/73506|9495” would be “This is some phone number >1030/73506|9495<”.

Example 2: The Notes Anchor Area for the text “This is we|ird, isn't it?” would be “This is >we|ird<, isn't it?”

Example 3: The Notes Anchor Area for the text “This is weird|, isn't it?” would be “This is >weird|<, isn't it?”

Example 4: The Notes Anchor Area for the text “I do not think this is too good ..|.” would be “I do not think this is too good >..|.<”

Example 5 (with whitespaces): The Notes Anchor Area for the text “And then he said       |      nothing at all.”
would be “And then he said       ^|      nothing at all.”.

Example 6: The Notes Anchor for such a selection “This is [some selected] text.” would be “This is >some selected< text.”.

Proposal "Editing Document Text" (Italic text = Not implemented in 3.0 - See above)

Editing the document text may have influence on the Notes in general. The influence on the Note Anchors are:

  • In general, the Notes Anchors keep their position relative to the document text.
  • The size of the Notes Anchor Area is dependent on the the text it includes. If the user edits the document text, which is included in the Note Anchor Area then the Note Anchor Area will be adapted accordingly.
    • If characters are deleted inside the Note Anchor Area, then the Notes Anchor Area is reduced accordingly. (refer to Example 1)
    • If characters are added inside the Note Anchor Area, then the Notes Anchor Area is expanded accordingly. (refer to Example 2)
    • If the Note Anchor Area is reduced from on character to “zero” characters, then the Note Anchor Area is converted to a Note Anchor Point at the same position.
    • If the Notes Anchor Point is deleted (e.g. by using the backspace key), then the Note is deleted too. (Todo: If necessary, move this point to Deleting notes.)
    • A Note Anchor Point behaves similar to a normal character in the document text. This behavior is similar to the current implementation of the Notes Anchor in OpenOffice.org Writer.
    • Please note: The kind of Notes Anchor cannot be explicitly altered afterwards by the user.

Example 1: If the text “This is woonderful text.” is corrected to “This is wonderful text.” the Notes Anchor Area “This is >woonderful< text.” would be “This is >wonderful< text.”.

Example 2: If the text “This is wnderful text.” is corrected to “This is wonderful text.” the Notes Anchor Area “This is >wnderful< text.” would be “This is >wonderful< text.”.

Proposal "Viewing Notes"

(proposal will be provided soon: Note Window, Note Preview, ...)

If in doubt, draw the Notes elements according to their document text position (document text position: considering the reading direction of the document language)

Selected Design

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Implementation

Please note: Before the proposed behavior can be implemented, it is necessary for us that the document format ODF supports Note Anchor Areas. Until then, we will only be able to support the old behavior of OpenOffice.org Writer (which is not specified here).

Code Changes

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Outstanding Issues

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