[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 90646] Improving the "Style & Formatting" sidebar tab

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90646

--- Comment #28 from Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz1 at gmx.com> ---
Catching up on the discussion here...

Non-replay comments
----------------------

* I think this "super-bug" is getting too big. I realize that a lot of specific
suggestions may clash or supplement each other, but right now the bug seems
like too much of a kitchen-sink/latent meta-bug.

* Please have a look at my (not-quite-dupe) bug 141483: "Convert style filter
menu into several orthogonal filters". And, specifically, about my additional
suggestion there to have the style category selection buttons to be
independent, so that one can view, for example, character and paragraph styles
together, or separately.

Re Tomaz' comments 0, 2, 14:
-----------------------------

* It's not that the sidebar is "too complex": Complexity is inherent in the
style (sub)system; but the style bar is sub-optimal in mediating that
complexity, or facilitating it.

* Context-awareness of styles may have some merits but also detriments:
Instability / lower predictability of the style sidebar.

* I disagree on principle that styles should be found within properties dialogs
(Character, Paragraph etc.). Styles should be first-class citizens.  ...
unless... we were willing to consider "forcing" styles onto people by strongly
embedding styles into the properties dialogs, so that you are always either
editing an existing style or creating a new style, and never just formatting 
directly.

* As the suggestion of a separate modal dialog for managing all styles - I
don't see what's so great about that. Can one of the proponents make a pitch in
favor of it?

* About encouraging the use of styles: I agree with Yousuf that the style bar
is not the main venue of encouraging use of styles.. Actually, I don't think
such encouragement will be meaningful before we _stop_ actively encouraging
direct formatting, which is something we currently do.

* Regarding drag-and-drop to move styles: We could disable it by default, and
perhaps allow it optionally.

* I don't agree that advanced users assign shortcut keys to styles. Why?
Because different docs have different styles, so it's not easy to remember
shuch shortcut keys. Also, many people tend to accept, rather than define
themselves, shortcut key combinations.


Re Yousuf's comments 1, 8, 12:
-----------------------------

* It is not at all clear that listing paragraph and character styles together
is simpler: A novice user could confuse them. This is particularly an issue
when many styles are visible, so you'd get over two screenfuls of styles if you
put Paragraph & Character styles together. 

  However, that's a bit of a moot point, because if we made the chosen style
category a multi-selection rather than single-selection, users could decide
which styles they want to see.

* Another idea is a pair of half-height lists for Char and Par styles, like in
one of the mockups. However: 1. This doesn't work well for shorter screens. 2.
If we allow that, we should let the users decide which categories of styles go
in which half of the bar. The UI for this choice could be out of sight, to not
overburden novice users, but should exist somewhere.

* I also like the suggestion that, initially, Recommended styles should be the
ones suggested. But recommendations should be more specific and contextual.
Should probably open another bug about that.

* I'm generally against the style list presented as Previews. I think it's
almost entirely useless, and very distracting. MS Word has some previews on
their ribbons, but not on their style sidebar; I find their previews kind of
useless too. If preview is desirable, an approach to adopt could be a mock
document with not just the one style, but some related styles (e.g. Heading 1,
Heading 2 and Text Body in a tiny sectioned article) - a bit like the preview
in IDE's formatters where you get a tiny formatted example source file.

* About the entries in the menulist of style categories: referred to that bug
141483.

Re Cor's comments 5, 11:
-----------------------------

* While the idea of representing the link between a numbering style and a
paragraph style sounds appealing, it also sounds difficult to implement in a
useful way, since the same numbering style relates to many paragraph styles,
and any UI elements regarding that relation run the risk of cluttering the
style bar terribly...

* I actually like that MS Word shows you director formatting combinations as
pseudo-styles. But it is quite confusing to have everything in one big list;
and it's even more confusing for novices.

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