[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 83364] UI: Help information missing in the Outline & Numbering tab of Paragraph Style window
bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org
bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org
Wed Jan 1 17:55:38 UTC 2020
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83364
--- Comment #4 from Albrecht Müller <albrecht.mueller at astrail.de> ---
(In reply to sdc.blanco from comment #3)
> (In reply to Albrecht Müller from comment #0)
>
> > The expected behaviour is that there is useful help information which
> > explains that...
>
> See https://help.libreoffice.org/6.5/en-US/text/swriter/01/05030800.html
>
> (under Edit Style)
>
> Maybe this is sufficient for closing this bug?
OK, I think the major problems have been fixed: In Version 6.0.4.2 the help
button brings up some reasonable help information. The 6.5 version of the help
information contains the information that gives the user a chance to find the
right place to change the settings. Maybe a hint in some tooltip could make
things still easier for the (novice) user.
What I still miss is a more comprehensive explanation of the numbering concepts
and of its limitations. This explanation could save the user the time to find
out these concepts and limitations by trial and error - there is a pretty big
space to search and I guess there are some bug reports related to this problem.
I try to sketch out what such a explanation should contain. Note the
information in this sketch may be wrong due to my limited knowledge. I did not
include the description of some use cases that may take advantage of various
features or best practices to overcome limitations.
LibreOffice Writer supports two hierarchical numbering systems: chapter
numbering and numbering styles. Despite the fact that their properties are
pretty similar they serve different purposes and therefore behave differently.
The chapter numbering system is intended to reflect the global structure of a
document. Therefore you can define only a single chapter numbering system for a
given document. Numbering styles are intended to deal with structured content
within some parts of the document. The structure of this content is assumed to
be unrelated to the structure of the document. Therefore it is possible to use
an arbitrary number of different numbering styles in the same document.
There are different user interfaces for both systems: The Chapter Numbering
Dialogue (reachable by Tools -> Chapter Numbering...) allows to define the
properties of the single chapter numbering system.
Numbering styles are identified by their names. There is a numbering style
dialogue that allows to define the properties of each style. You can open this
dialogue from the Styles and formatting window (to open this window choose
Styles -> Manage Styles or press F11). Select the list styles display, bring
up the context menu of the style to change and choose "Modify...".
You will get the same dialogue to edit the numbering style associated with some
paragraph if you open the "Paragraph Style" dialogue, choose the "Outline &
Numbering" tab and press "Edit Style" button.
There are also separate user interfaces to change the structure of the content:
To assign a hierarchy level to a chapter heading use CTRL+0 ... CTRL+9 or use
the "Headings" part in the navigator. In addition to promoting and demoting the
hierarchy level (called "outline level" in this case) the navigator allows to
rearrange chapters.
To change the hierarchy level of a numbering style use the "Increase indent" or
"Decrease indent" buttons in the formatting toolbar or the entries in the
Format -> Lists submenu. The functions there are roughly the same as those
found in the navigator but the work on number formats instead of the chapter
numbering. The context menu opened at the end of a line also allows to promote
and demote numbering styles.
If the cursor is at the beginning of some line you can demote and promote the
hierarchy level using the TAB or SHIFT+TAB keys respectively. This works for
both systems. Note that this methods works differently if you apply it to the
first header or the first numbered paragraph. In this case is does not demote
or promote the hierarchy level but changes the indentation of all paragraphs
that take part in the numbering.
There is a limitation in the chapter numbering system such that you cannot
define a common document structure like the following:
1. Chapter one
2. Chapter two
...
m. Chapter m
A1. Appendix one
A2. Appendix two
...
An. Appendix n
(maybe I am wrong - but I still have to find a straightforward way to define
this kind of outline. Numbering styles have the same limitation but in this
case it is easy to work around this problem. You may simply define an
additional numbering style for the appendix. Note: As this is not the intended
use of numbering styles this approach has the problem that outline level and
numbering level may get out of sync.)
Chapter numbering is relevant for the table of contents and the Navigator,
numbering styles are not. Nevertheless numbering styles may appear in the table
of contents and in the Navigator as part of the paragraph they belong to.
The outline level controls the hierarchical position in the table of contents
and in the Navigator. If the paragraph format is part of the chapter numbering
system then it also controls its numbering. The outline level does _not_ affect
the numbering level of a paragraphs numbering style. This is the general rule.
There are some special cases:
For any outline level you can define at most one paragraph style in the chapter
numbering system. But you can have an arbitrary number of paragraph styles at
the same outline level. They behave differently in various respects:
If a paragraph style is in the chapter numbering system then demoting and
promoting in the Navigator assigns a different paragraph style to the
corresponding paragraph. You cannot change its outline level using the
paragraph format dialogue: You have to use the chapter numbering dialogue.
These paragraphs generate at most one entry in the table of contents.
If this paragraph is not part of the chapter numbering system then demoting and
promoting changes the outline level of this paragraph but does not assign a
different paragraph style. This paragraph may appear in the table of contents
twice: One entry corresponds to its outline level. The other may appear at the
position that you specify for its paragraph style in the table of contents.
As the outline level and the numbering level of a numbering style are
independent of each other changing the outline level of some paragraph does not
affect its numbering: You have to promote or demote the numbering level in a
separate step. It is possible that this paragraph is also part of of the
chapter numbering system. If these two systems are really independent then this
paragraph should get two numbers. One should come from the chapter numbering
and one from the numbering style. But only one number is shown. I was not able
to find out the semantics of this case: The relation between chapter numbering
and numbering style is unclear. Note: Promoting and demoting in the Navigator
changes the paragraph style which causes the numbering to change. This somehow
seems to affect the level of the numbering style too.
There are a couple of situations where there is a transfer of numbering styles
or chapter numbering to other locations. It is possible to import styles, e.g.
numbering styles, from other Writer documents. But I still have to find a way
how I can do the same with definitions of chapter numbering.
The Cut/Copy & Paste or Drag & Drop mechanisms will - among other things -
allow to transfer numbering information to other positions in the same
document, to some other Writer document, to documents of different components
of LibreOffice such as Calc, Impress or Draw. This kind of information may come
from or go to applications that are not related to LibreOffice: web browsers,
Microsofts Word Pad or Microsoft Office, PDF readers ... to name a few.
LibreOffice also supports importing from and exporting to various document
formats such as plain text, RTF, various Microsoft Word Formats, HTML etc.
These sources and targets may support concepts that are similar to
LibreOffice's chapter numbering or numbering style systems. Details may differ
and this can cause loss of numbering information during the conversion process.
If interoperability is a concern some kind of cross reference could be useful
that tells which information will be lost and which will preserved in various
conversion processes.
I assume there are various issues to discuss in the context of master documents
but I did not use this kind of documents yet.
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