[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 129451] Is documentation for hide section with condition correct?

Mon Dec 23 00:22:01 UTC 2019

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129451

--- Comment #2 from sdc.blanco at youmail.dk ---
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #1)
> I do not understand your problem.

Please note that this ticket was filed in relation to the documentation. 

I will try to explain again.

I.  Start with the information from:
https://help.libreoffice.org/6.4/en-US/text/swriter/guide/hidden_text.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=WIN

where it says:

"In the Hide area, select Hide, and then enter an expression in the Condition
box. For example, using the variable you previously defined, enter Hide==1."

Now -- I tried to do this -- *without* previously defining the variable Hide.

Putting the following into the Condition 
a. If Hide==1 then the section is shown.
b. If Hide==0 then the section is not shown.

(I now understand the logic here --  when Hide is not defined, it is like "0",
so
case a.   0==1 (or any other non-zero value)is false, therefore show.
case b.   0==0  is true, so do not show.

I must explain that, in the first instance, I thought, naively, that I would
just try Hide==1, like the documentation says (but without defining "Hide"),
just to see what would happen.

Point 1:

I was surprised that:

a. I could get an effect, even though I had not defined Hide.   
b. that the effect was the opposite of what the documentation was suggesting.  

This raised a question for me about whether the documentation was adequate.

II. This experience motivated a new experiment, where now "Hide" would be
defined as a variable. 

If I just put the variable Hide alone into the condition, then if Hide has
value 0, it is shown, and value 1 then it is hidden.

Point 2.  If the "recommended" way to use the "With Condition" is with a
predefined Hide variable, then why mention Hide==1 in the documentation, when
this can be controlled "externally" so to speak by setting the Hide variable?

(It seems necessary only to put Hide, and then suggest that the variable value
should be changed.)

III.  Now that I could see that I could control the section appearance with
Hide alone, then I was curious about the interaction between the external
variable and Hide==1 (in the "With Condition").

So -- please look at Test 5  (step 6) in the original report.

Thanks to your comment, I understand now why this result appears. But...

Point 3.  Notice how this example "contradicts" the help page.  Now we have put
in Hide==1 but the section is not hidden.  Again my point is not the logic of
what has happened in the software, but the confusion that is likely to arise
with the way the help is written.  

I am reasonably certain that the documentation can/should be improved -- but
was uncertain about a good/preferred way.  If you could help me with the
formulation, then I can make the "commits" in the source.

Along the same lines, please look at
https://help.libreoffice.org/6.4/en-US/text/swriter/01/04020100.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=WIN 

It has a slightly better discussion of the condition, but it also has:

"Another example would be to create the field variable "x" and set its value to
1. Then specify a condition based on this variable for hiding a section, such
as: "x eq 1". If you want to display the section, set the value of the variable
"x" to "0".

Again, it seems unnecessary (and confusing) to put "x eq 1" into the "With
condition" -- as noted in Point 2,  it is enough to just change the field
variable. 

In short, before I started this, I was a naive user, trying to understand how
"With condition" works.  Now I am hoping to modify the documentation so that
others can continue to be naive users, but can at least get some advantage from
hiding sections (e.g., to hide answers to questions in a school paper), without
having to become sophisticated about conditional logic.  I assume sophisticated
users (who know about writing and using conditional expressions) will not need
the documentation, while semi-sophisticated might be less confused with a more
parsimonious explanation. 

Sorry for the length, but I hope this clarifies --

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