[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Hiding/Showing the page breaks in writer

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Olivier!

Am Samstag, den 17.09.2011, 14:28 +0200 schrieb Olivier R.:
> Hello Christoph,
> 
> Le 16/09/2011 22:40, Christoph Noack a écrit :
> 
> > Okay, let's address this step by step - I think everybody agrees that
> > the visualization of page breaks is valuable. I, personally, also use
> > the page break information quite heavily.
> 
> So am I.

Well, then let's see how we can combine the needs of those millions out
there and us ... :-)

> > But, the blue (or whatever colored) line isn't self explaining - so the
> > question is whether it helps (advanced users) or worries (less advanced
> > users) if it is shown in the Writer WYSIWYG mode - it could even be a
> > document border. That was our rationale to switch the visibility of this
> > "line" with the non-printing characters, plus adding a "this is a page
> > break icon" plus tooltip.
> >
> > So I currently see two alternatives trying to balance the needs of the
> > variety of users ...
> >
> > Version 1: Back to a (tweaked) former behavior
> >        * non-printing characters off -->  show the line (but: use a narrow
> >          dashed line to make it look like a markup, like the
> >          headers/footers indicator or the Notes connector lines)
> >        * non-printing characters on -->  show the line and add the icon
> >          for "this is a page break" (which is currently implemented via
> >          text, as Cedric stated)
> >
> > Version 2: Make the border a formatting aid -->  Same behavior as above,
> > but make the the line a configurable formatting aid (Tools - Options -
> > Writer - Formatting Aids). [BTW: I don't like to add more configuration
> > options, but it would fit to the concept we have today...]
> 
> Imho, page/column breaks are text boundaries more than special 
> characters, so I think it should be visible as well as page/sections 
> boundaries, and that’s why I suggested the first solution. But it does 
> not really matter if it should be a full page/column line, a dashed line 
> or a shortened line (to fit more to WYSIWYG), or something else, as long 
> as this information is available WITHOUT displaying non-printable 
> characters. That was the main concern on the French ml.

As I said, the line could be kept (either always, or being a formatting
aid), but needs more explanation (doable if non-printing characters are
"on"). Concerning the visualization: some good proposals have been made
by Cedric at the Hackfest ... so I think he is aware how this could be
done.

And, the behavior/visualization you are referring to is clearly the less
WYSIWYG draft mode we lack since quite some time ...

> Why? Simply because some of us just never display the non-printable 
> characters. So removing all hints of the presence of page/column breaks 
> without NP-chars is like removing them totally. Switching all the times 
> the displaying mode would be really unconvenient.

Well, the "some of us" is my question here - looking at the major
userbase of LibO, the question is always which part of the users
benefits from what decision (or gets worried).

> > @ Cedric, Olivier: Mmh, currently thinking if (after our changes) the
> > former upper document border is still the right place to draw such a
> > line, or whether the upper page border would fit even more ... Any
> > opinion?
> 
> It could be small red arrow in the margin, or two slashes // at the 
> corner to suggest that the text flow has been cut.

Mmh, will think about that as well ... but at the moment we need a
solution that considers Cedric's workload and that works for all of us.
So, waiting for his opinion on the two alternatives.

[...]

Cheers,
Christoph