User:Camillem/aboutWriter

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Revision as of 23:12, 15 November 2009 by Camillem (Talk | contribs)

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Improve working with styles

Styles are great, so the apps should incitate the user to love them.

Reduce the number of styles available by default

Create additional styles on the fly when they are needed.

You don't need User index styles when you don't have a Table of Contents, etc.

Make importing other styles easy and obvious

I know I can already import styles from the menu that says “New Style from selection” but we should have it a little bit more obvious than that.

Rationalize the stuff around List Styles and numbering

“Default formatting” should bring back the default formatting...

...numbering included. Try this simple experiment: create a paragraph in Text body, center it and add a bullet to it. Then Format > Default formatting : the paragraph is left aligned back but the bullet is still there. ...and language setting included also.

Paragraph styles that are List styles should be linked to a list style

(it sounds confusing, it is for the average user). What I mean is that by default the paragraph style called List 1 should have its numbering property, its numbering style (see next) set to the list style List 1, so that when you apply this paragraph style to a paragraph it actually looks like a list paragraph. I still haven't figured out why it's not already like that.

List Styles, Numbering styles, consistency and disambiguation

So as seen is the previous paragraph, we have one expression for two different things, and then two different expressions for one same thing. It would be nice to have one expression = one thing.

“Numbering...Restart at this paragraph” should be available is paragraph styles

It's available as a paragraph setting, so it should be settable at a paragraph style level.

“Line numbering” should not be close to other kind of numbering.

I know it sounds similar. But that's just confusing to the user, because line numbering is never used. I mean compared to the other kind of numbering. So it should be cast away to prevent confusion.

Drop the whole idea of levels for numbering other than Outline numbering

Clarify the "Next style" stuff

The "next style" attribute is a key point of style behaviour, but is hard to guess by the user. One problem is that "Next style" in a paragraph style is not the same as "Next style" in a page style, because "Next" doesn't mean the same thing. The first difference is that in one case it's static (paragraph) in the other (page) it's dynamic. May be it's just a question of wording. For paragraph's "Next style", may be we could have something like "Next paragraph created with style:", or something that mentions "creation", because the stlye of the next paragraph won't change when you change the value of this attribute.

"Paragraph Style" Dialogue

General consideration

  • The "don't change anything" state should be more obviously pictured

Organizer tab

  • "AutoUpdate" option : is it really a best practice to use that ?
  • "Next style" : cf. dedicated section
  • "Category": linked with the redesign of the Styles & Formatting window
  • "Linked with" should be "Inherit from" and followed by the description of what's inherited
  • "Contains" should be "Adds" (what is added to the inherited style


OrganizerTabDraft.png

Miscellaneous

Allow direct page formating ?

At the moment, you can't format a page directly, you have to modify its style. It has various drawbacks, including poor performance in mail merge. One first point to address is that you don't format pages on a page basis, but on a group of pages basis, these groups being delimited by explicit page breaks and the "Next style" property.

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