Latest revision as of 22:14, 1 October 2008

General

Hope you did read Caolans blog http://blogs.linux.ie/caolan/2007/03/12/notesmarginnotes-in-sw/

Peter

Yes, I think they (the developers) did notice it, because it was mentioned very early on GSOC Better Notes Functionality.

--ChristophNoack 00:44, 26 September 2007 (CEST)

Complex Structures

Sometimes, it makes sense to attach the same note to 2 or more text-positions. Instead of 2 different notes, it really makes sense to have the same note point to the 2 positions, e.g. IF the comment points to some inconsistencies between the 2 paragraphs.

Discoleo 22:39, 16 August 2007 (CEST)

When I edit some text, this is something I also thought about. During the discussion on how to set the Notes Anchors I realized how hard this is to implement and to manage for the user. Example: Lets have a note at position A and a note at position B (in another section). But how to represent the note? Should we draw a Note Connector Line from position B to A (not really obvious and clear) or should we provide the a Notes Window with the same content (this is something the user does not find in the real world, because he does not write on one sheet of paper and on another one the content changes too).

Proposal: So my proposal would be to just "link" from one note to another note. Think about something like a hyperlink which could easily be added from the e.g. the Navigator which - even today - features creating links from objects (e.g. drag-and-drop). Okay, this may require some additional work for the user (cross-reference both notes), but provides much more flexibility for other tasks. The biggest advantage is, that it would make use of a concept that is already available in Writer.

Does that fit to your needs?

--ChristophNoack 00:33, 26 September 2007 (CEST)

The ultimate use of a note is to explain, elaborate, or oppose something that is already there on the visible part of the page.

Therefore, we need to point out EXACTLY WHAT are we responding to. That is precisely the role of the anchor marker.

Here are some typical places where we want to react with our comments: 1. A SPOT in a sentence -> The current marker can show that. 2. A PART of a sentence -> The proposed "highlight text and comment" method will address that.

But the proposed notes system cannot address the following: 3. Two NON-ADJACENT sentences on the page (may be on different pages) 4. Several paragraphs put together 5. An image 6. SEVERAL specific parts of an image (each invoking a separate comment)

The marker should be designed to take care of all such uses. --Raindrops 17:35, 7 February 2008 (CET)

Raindrops, please have a look on the answers in issue 85814. --ChristophNoack 00:33, 26 September 2007 (CEST)

Thanks! When I say "Need to comment on two non-adjacent paragraphs", the idea is to pick scattered sentences, juxtapose them to highlight a picture that was hitherto hidden; and then say something about the newly emerging picture. The idea is NOT to comment in isolation on each half.

For example: Compare two conflicting statements. Support one of the statements; or proffer a third view that differs from both.

Another example: Highlight the similarity/difference between the contents of two separate paragraphs and add more observations.

In such cases, one solution is to copy substantial part of the original text, add paragraph+page reference numbers and then add the comment. Instead, the structure of the note itself should suffice. What we need is a single note and then a two-way linkage (pages <--> note). This should work even if the text is split across pages.

My UseCase for "several parts of image" will not work if we edit in another application. I visualize something like extended tooltips or balloon text when the user hovers his mouse on different parts of the image. To edit the same, he would have to click and switch to edit window. In fact, this feature is very close to ImageMap Editor. The only difference is that instead of a URL, I want plenty of Rich Text attached to parts of the image (or hotspots). Also see Issue 61093on how to let Imagemap hotspots jump to local targets within the document.

I Googled for a sample, and found this close enough: http://flickr.com/photos/samhirst6359/435258989/in/pool-abandonedbuildingart Just imagine that there are plenty of hotspots in the image.

--Raindrops 18:43, 13 February 2008 (CET)

Note Categories

Tags

I would like to be able to tag the notes: each note will have a category, so that notes in the same category are grouped together, e.g. 'ToDO', 'ERRORS', ...

This makes conceptual reviewing more easier.

Hierarchical View

This borrows some concepts from the 'FreeMind' mind mapping software.

It makes sense in a more complex document to organize hierarchically the notes for easier tracking of changes and inconsistencies. The 'Note Tags' discussed in the previous paragraph are another useful feature with the same purpose.

Discoleo 22:39, 16 August 2007 (CEST)

Thanks for your proposals. I hope it is okay if I will describe you demands a bit more abstract and say that "the user wishes to define criteria to sort and filter the notes". Tagging and a hierarchical view could be powerful implementations for solving this user requirement. Maybe we have to start with little less complex implementations to serve even those users, who are not too familiar with those concepts - I would like to have a balance of "just works" and "serves even professional writers". Let me introduce some of our ideas to you how to achieve that:

1. Make notes searchable: the user would be able to find "keywords he can define for himself. Although this is manual work for the author, the effort for implementing this seems manageable. And, it would be "compatible" with the export of data in e.g. the Microsoft Word format.
2. Filter notes (idea): I'm sure that many people will rate the importance of comments by e.g. their author (the boss, the expert). Therefore it would be desirable to filter notes according to their author. A general filter functionality would this make possible. The advantage is, that the information is already present in the Notes Property Data and does not require further user interaction like tagging.
3. Prioritize notes or set a work status (idea): This very close to your ideas. The user could prioritize notes by assigning e.g. the information "important" to them; or use a kind of work status (e.g. "idea", "todo", "completed"). As far as I understand, the difference to your proposals is, that I would prefer to provide a set of pre-defined tags and a flat structure. Then, the filter function could be used to find notes both "important" and "todo" without necessity of real hierarchy.

More information on that is available at Other Ideas filed under "Status Icons", "Task Management", "Sort and Filter Notes". I think, that this order fits to the strongest needs of users and - simultaneously - is not too complex. What do you think?

--ChristophNoack 00:16, 26 September 2007 (CEST)

Specific Issues

Print

First of all, thank you Maximilian that you are going to take on to solve this important issue in OpenOffice. Frequently, I have to review articles changed and commented by other people in a document. This is actually the only reason, why I have to switch (sometimes) to WORD. And here my point: Quite often I print out the document (including all comments etc.) in order to incorporate the suggestions made. Hence, I would be very happy having the possibility to print out the document nicely including all comments. Thank you Gerald

Thanks for your input, we are fully aware that the area of printing needs some rework. Hopefully, this can be done for the 3.0 version of OpenOffice.org

I would also like to see the option to either view/print the Notes in the right margin as proposed, or embedded in-line in the text at the anchor point and visually distinguished from the underlying text -- perhaps with square brackets, background shading, underlining, or some other way. -- --Hfinger 00:13, 2 October 2008 (CEST)

Introduction date?

I actually hoped for some of the imporoved Notes code to be released by 2.4 and then fixed/improved on by 2.4.x, as I had huge hopes for better Notes in 2.4. -martg 15:05, 16 November 2007 (CET)