Revision as of 18:13, 22 October 2007

Introduction

This page shows the planning and progress of the Multi Page Layout feature,see i1598.

Background/Short Description

With the availability of wider screens, users expect to use the extra space to view additional pages.
Professional designers need often to adjust elements on facing pages and fine tune these various elements depending on a different element on the opposite page.

Competitive Product Analysis

MS Word XP: implemented inside the 'Print Layout'
- upon zooming out, as many pages are displayed within the same row as will fit on the row
- does NOT pair facing pages
- only active page displays a horizontal ruler
NeoOffice: implemented, see example image
- upon zooming out, as many pages are displayed within the same row as will fit on the row
- does NOT pair facing pages
- all pages have distinct horizontal rulers
Adobe Acrobat 7.0: implemented as 'Page Layout' -> 'Facing' and 'Continous Facing'
- the 2 facing pages will be displayed adjacent
- first page is displayed single: TRUE facing
- there is a space between the adjacent pages
- ZOOM: 'fit width' will adapt the zoom level so that the 2 adjacent pages will span the whole width of the window
Adobe Pagemaker: (available since the early '90s)
- option for setting 'Facing pages' when creating a new document
- see this tutorial from Rice University

Specification: Conceptual Problems

These still need to be solved and agreed on before starting the implementation.

LTR vs RTL Text

Arabic and other RTL languages

Hebrew and Arabic pages should be tiled RTL/TTB

For documents with some pages in an RTL language and some in an LTR language, direction would be determined by the text-direction setting in the document's default style

Japanese: both LTR/Top-to-Bottom and Top-To-Bottom/RTL within the same document

Multiple Page Sizes

is there any use case for multiple page sizes within the same document?

Documents that have tables of data often require the ability to show pages in alternating portrait and landscape views. That is, a few pages of portrait layout text, then a page in landscape with a wide table of data, followed by some more text in portrait format.

Horizontal Ruler

one global horizontal ruler vs multiple rulers

Notes

where do we position notes:
- always right vs 'left & right' depending on even/odd page
always right
- disadvantage: notes for left pages will overlap right pages
- need to plan for additional space between pages
right & left side:
- there will be some empty space both on the right and the left of the screen
- need possibly more extensive changes to 'Notes'-code
- for variable-pages-per-row: IF one changes the zoom-level, the number of pages that are displayed will change resulting also in a change in the position of the notes (can be distracting)

Million of other questions

ZOOM: Page Width

IF a user selects a viewing mode where the number of pages that fit horizontally is dynamically computed:

How should the ZOOM -> Page Width behave?

Deactivate this ZOOM-Option
Compute the width only for the active page-row:

Adobe Acrobat behaves similarly (although it displays constantly 2 pages)
DISADVANTAGE: when a different page-row gets the focus, the ZOOM-Level may change. I perceive this as distracting and annoying.
alternatively, compute the ZOOM-level only once and keep this ZOOM-level, even if the cursor is positioned on a different row of pages. Change the ZOOM-Level only if the user selects explicitly to again change/sets the ZOOM.

Computing a global zoom seems very complex. (Actually, I believe that quite often there is NO mathematical solution to compute such a zoom level - at least this is NOT a linear system.)

Implementation: Progress/ToDo

Evaluate OD's hack and start a first prototype (est. 1 week) DONE
Find and resolve problems: (est. 3 weeks)
- Root frame changes (paste page, cut page, change page format) (est. 1d) DONE
- Resolve repaint issues of page frame (est. 1d) DONE
- Cursor Traveling (est. 2d) DONE
- EmptyPages (est. 1d) DONE
- Printing (est. 1d) DONE
- PDF export (est. 1d) DONE
- Browse View (est. 2d) DONE
- examine DOCUMENTBORDER stuff in sw/source/ui (est. 3d)
- Why is DOCUMENTBORDER in SwTabColItem? (est. 1d)
- Object positioning (est. 3d)
- Ruler? (est. 1d)
- Accessibility?
- Screen position depending fields (est. 1d)
- Consider Max' new notes feature
- Writer OLE objects (browse view and normal view)
- 1.000.000 more yet unknown problems (est. 1.000.000d)
Define new algorithm to layout pages (SPEC)
Implement algorithm (est. 3d)

Contact

The team working on this feature is:

Name	OOo Nickname	Role
Leonard Mada	discoleo	User Experience, Spec owner
Stefan Baltzer	sba	QA
Uwe Fischer	ufi	Documentation
Frank Meies	fme	Development

@@ Line 59: / Line 59: @@
 == Million of other questions ==
+=== ZOOM: Page Width ===
+IF a user selects a viewing mode where the number of pages that fit horizontally is dynamically computed:
+: How should the '''ZOOM -> Page Width''' behave?
+# '''Deactivate this ZOOM-Option'''
+# '''Compute the width only for the active page-row:'''
+::* Adobe Acrobat behaves similarly (although it displays constantly 2 pages)
+::* DISADVANTAGE: when a different page-row gets the focus, the ZOOM-Level may change. I perceive this as distracting and annoying.
+::* alternatively, compute the ZOOM-level only '''once''' and keep this ZOOM-level, even if the cursor is positioned on a different row of pages. Change the ZOOM-Level only if the user selects explicitly to again change/sets the ZOOM.
+: Computing a global zoom seems very complex. (Actually, I believe that quite often there is NO mathematical solution to compute such a zoom level - at least this is NOT a linear system.)
 = Implementation: Progress/ToDo =

Difference between revisions of "Writer/ToDo/Layout/Multi Page Layout"

Revision as of 18:13, 22 October 2007

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