[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 128960] Editing: Add a more direct way to clear character styles

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128960

--- Comment #5 from Mike Kaganski <mikekaganski at hotmail.com> ---
At risk of being off-topic here (since the request was about character
styles(!)), I have to describe my PoV.

While the imaginary "Default character style" (internally = don't use any
character style, and use what is defined in paragraph style) is perfectly
reasonable in any sense (and would be most used in ~any stylistically
consistent document), Default paragraph style (an actual style, which might -
and often should - be modified - consciously) is a *root* of most pre-defined
styles, and thus its direct use is wrong from the proper styles use PoV. Of
course, using it is not wrong from the programmatic PoV, but its default use in
templates is just an unfortunate implementation detail that needs fixing. So
making means to directly use it even more prominent than now is a bad thing.

Specifically, using "Default paragraph style" in documents, and then starting
use styles, would mean that a novice user has main text in that "Default
style", and also applies, say, Heading N; also using headers/footers and tables
automatically uses relevant styles in those elements. And when user then wants
to edit the main style (Default!), this will propagate inherited settings to
all the styles right and left - which might be (and often is) not what user
needs. The inheritance levels are there for a reason: e.g., if user wants font
face to be consistent across all used styles, user sets that in the lowest
possible inheritance level; if user needs some paragraphs have indents or
spacings, that wouldn't make sense to do at lowest level. Forcing users to
start with base-of-everything Default style provokes each style edit to have
too widescale (potentially destructive) consequences.

We have too much of that Default paragraph style usage in our
controls/templates: being the default in the templates; being set when e.g.
Alt+Enter'ing out of a table; resetting to it when using the "Clear formatting"
item in style list in toolbar... please don't create another prominent way to
promote logically inconsistent workflow! It goes against the overall
architecture of LibreOffice being built around using styles; and it makes
learning using styles much more difficult for beginners (who try simple things
like editing the used styles, and suddenly see unwanted results all over the
document, which would cause distrust in the tool).

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