[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 141429] CROSS-REFERENCE DIALOG: Allow prefixing section-numbering reference with section symbol

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141429

--- Comment #8 from Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz1 at gmx.com> ---
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7)
> The more elegant solution would be to have an extra character style for the
> separator before a chapter numbering. You could add the symbol to all
> chapters but make it hidden per character style. The cross-reference
> wouldn't take this CS, however, and show the symbol. Not possible, and
> pretty questionable too.

I actually don't find this to be elegant... the section symbol should really
not be part of the number; fundamentally, it is added when referencing, as
opposed to being hidden when not-referencing.

> Once you picked it up in the special characters dialog, eg. by searching for
> "section", it will be on the list of recent characters. Not too difficult to
> use.

This means that for every insertion of a cross reference you have to perform
several actions (keypresses, mouse clicks) which require a bit of concentration
and aren't just some mnemonic. This is a significant de-motivator for people
using the section symbol for all their references; if this were automated, they
are much more likely to adopt the custom if they approve of it.

But there's another kind of difficulty which I only alluded to in my opening
comment: The "discoverability" of this custom. The people who use section
symbols in LO never do it because LO made them consider doing so; they saw it
in print, and as the result of other typesetting systems or customs, and try to
adopt this use. Part of the motivation for this issue is to expose this custom
to people. Of course, not in a way which makes them take an active decision
("Do you want to add the section symbol Y/N?"), but as an option they can
choose to explore or to ignore.

> OTOH, changing the cross-reference dialog is cumbersome.

Actually, I think it's a bit unwieldy right now anyway, regardless of the
section symbol issue, but I should probably open a separate bug about that. But
of course placing this in the dialog would require a bit of thought.

It also occurred to me that another (less flexible) option is to add this as an
item in the "Insert Reference To" menu. That way it is constrained to be
available only for the appropriate types of reference. The downsides are that
you can't add/remove the section symbol from all relevant references after
having inserted them; and also this:

> I see users requesting other symbols, for example an arrow, or more than one
> character.

That's not impossible, I suppose. However, it is not so likely to 1. happen 2.
happen quickly and 3. require immediate action. After all, it's taken 10 years
of LO for this bug to be filed, and that's for the most (and only?) common
section-reference character. I get how you would not be thrilled about making a
UI change anticipating a potential additional required change further down the
line, but that shouldn't be an argument against making the change at all.

And one can always conceive of further complications, e.g. wanting a
multi-character rather than single-character prefix, wanting style for the
character prefix etc. etc.

> The option would be
> available only in case of Heading/Numbered Paragraphs using Chapter/Number.

I'm not sure what you mean by "using chapter/number".

Anyway, note that we already have some grayed-out elements in the dialog; so
perhaps this one could get grayed-out when irrelevant, if it's placed as a
checkbox.

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