[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 138544] FORMATTING: FILESAVE: Writer compatibility setting doesn't save properly and keeps resetting unwanted option to be used

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138544

--- Comment #13 from Justin L <jluth at mail.com> ---
I'm trying to wrap my head around what the purpose of disabling "Load
user-specific settings with the document" is. There are lots of settings that
are saved in the document. Disabling "Load user-specific settings with the
document" tells LO to ignore the subset of settings that can be specified by
the user - i.e. those found in Writer - Compatibility. So instead of using the
document's version of what compatibility options should be used, we use the
program defaults (which can be adjusted by the user).

So why would anyone change that setting?  One possibility could be mass
conversions - where you want to change the document settings to match some
user-specified settings. But other than that, I am coming up blank.

The key problem exposed in this bug report is that when the document settings
are read, it needs to apply a default value in case the document doesn't
contain that setting. That is a natural part of supporting older documents.
They will be missing settings that didn't exist when they were created. So if a
setting is missing, that indicates that an OLD behaviour needs to be applied.

Well, in this case, we are specifically telling the program to IGNORE the
user-controllable settings in the document. And since we are ignoring them,
obviously they are not set. And so that means they are getting the old
behaviour settings. But instead of giving them old behaviours, they should just
use the user-specified behaviours.

The Writer - Compatibility settings therefore have two roles - and perhaps that
hasn't been entirely clear to programmers over the years.
1.) The primary purpose is probably to allow the user to assign new defaults to
documents they are creating - new documents. My guess is that this would be
beneficial to create new documents that work with older versions of
LibreOffice, or MS Word - aiding in a long corporate rollout for example.
2.) The second purpose is to force certain compat settings when loading old
documents (via turning off Load User settings from document).
3.) A third role could be seen as giving a UI way to adjust the compatibility
settings of a single document (but that is where we would run into these kinds
of problems, because it can mean more than just that).

I still might not have a correct understanding of any of this, but that is what
I am getting from reading the code.

I have some proposed patches at
https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/q/LoadUserSettings

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