[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 126608] Writer: Can't switch to Portrait

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126608

--- Comment #62 from Wolfgang Jäger <jag at psilosoph.de> ---
It's a kind of surprise to me that this monster thread -in a sense- leads
anywhere after all.  

In fact I considered to file a new bug related to this one and discussing the
causes of the problem (and of similar ones) basically, and, of course, aimed to
find appropriate suggestions how to solve (relieve) them.

The above announced change only addresses this very specific part of the case,
as far as I can see.

Without having finally prepared a bug report as mentioned above, just a
spontaneous very crude draft here:

The situation (partly as "felt" by myself):
The main menus of the UIs per docment class were changed again and again (and
much to frequently) within the recent few years. So were the icons and probably
the predefined Toolbars / Sidepanels. And there was the (imo just wasting
development resources) 'Muffin' GUI.

Why? I  would suppose there never was a thorough discussion about what should
be the final goal of all that. But there are things that shold not be subject
to cherry picking based on whatever a few developers think to be a cherry.

One of the relevant changes concerning main menus was the introduction of the
new first-level-item 'Style' used for 'Writer' and for 'Calc' - without at the
same time introducing a 'Print' item missing for decades now, and probably a
'Page' item (which exist for Draw/Impress on the other hand, and thus probably
encourages wrong expectations regarding other document classes).

Just one aspect to a bit more detail:

For Calc the mentioned 'Styles' item is a 'CellStyles' item actually,
"enriched" by (at least) two redundant submenu items, and otherwise allowing
the direct assignmebt of a few predefined cell styles in a redundant way, and
this way disesteeming a well designed style hierarchy probably created by the
user. WHY? Most of the styles listed there are of negligeable use, imo, if not
restricted to conditional formatting, and may wrongly encourage users tempted
to misuse formatting for coding real information. Last mentioned phenomenon is
real as forum posts show again and again.

For Writer even a preliminary listing of the related grievances (and probable
relief) would need a three-page essay. There are sub-items and sub-sub-itims
not actually relate to formatting at all. The sub-item 'Text' e.g. mixes up
some cases of direct formatting ('Small capitals' e.g.) with actual editing of
the content ('UPPER-CASE' e.g.) without any waring or clarification.
Generally both menu items 'Format' and 'Style' contain sub-items definitely not
belonging there or being doubtable basically. 

Concerning pages in Writer and in Calc additional problem are (at least)
- the lack of heritage
- the bad handling introduced by MS-Word (as I conclude from forum posts).

To just move the 'Page...' sub-item from 'Format' to 'Style' may not solve a
problem. Concerning the facts discussed over thousands (?) of lines here the
expectations of users ("the user") are that pages exist as actual and
persistent sub-content of the overall text, and that expectation cannot be
fulfilled without destroying the usefulness of Writer. 
Going to the extreme user Todd concerning "the page I am {he is} working on"
might be satisfied by a sub-item somewhere labelled in a clever way and
meaning: 

Insert a page brake above the currently viewed page and another one below it,
apply the page style I selected to the newly created sequence of pages which is
as yet consisting of just one page, and adapt te page numbering for these
pages, the pages above and the pages below in a way you (the software) guess I
would be satisfied with.

If I am wrong, I beg for correction.

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