[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 141077] Writer Web mode should be one-column, instead it shows meaningless page breaks and column jumps

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141077

--- Comment #4 from Lobotomik <nachodelosrios at gmail.com> ---
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #2)
> If you want to use the uncluttered Web view layout to write in, great. Just
> accept that its VCL handling is calculated against an unisized page (10
> meters tall, at the current app frame width minus controls).
> 
> Reflowing from Web view to Normal view, or reverse, will otherwise honor the
> page settings of the document.
> 
> If you don't want columns in Web view reformat the page style for the
> document to single column--you can't have it both ways.  Single column in
> Web view and multicolumn in Normal view.

I know that is how it works, but I don't think it is how it should work. I
cannot have it both ways *now*, but I think that is a bug, not a feature.

The web view is inconsistent. Why are margins, headers, footers and page breaks
ignored, but not columns? They make as just as little sense in a web view, if
not even less. Flowing columns in web pages are an extremely rare occurrence,
and a very dubious design choice.

The column management in web view is buggy anyway: 

I cannot think of any setting where it makes any sense to flow columns counting
on a non-configurable 10-meter tall page, which in itself could be considered
buggy behavior. I don't think that is how it works, anyway:  in documents a lot
less than 10m long there will be a column wrap in web view, though both columns
are very different in length. And if there are changes in the number of columns
(because you have they have to be separately enabled and configured for every
section and page style), then it also inserts visible page breaks.

And the behavior changes depending on whether your whole document is in
"Default Page" page format, or the first page is in "First Page" format, and
whether you change columns while within the web view, or in the Normal view
(and then depending on whether you change one style, the other, or both). You
can get page breaks at impredictable places, with different lengths, and the
text sinuously flowing up and down.

But I don't think fixing the buggy column management in web view is the right
thing to do (or even possible). I think that the bug looks like the untested
behavior of code that is being used in a setting that makes no sense. The
easiest thing to do, and most logical in terms of fixing the behavior, whould
be to stop trying, as it seems to be done with margins, headers and footers.

If these issues with the web view were fixed, it could make do as a less
cluttered writing interface that removed the biggest distractions, filling the
window with the user's work. And it would work better as a way to publish
documents in HTML for uploading to some CMS or whatever.

In the wishlist arena, a dedicated no-clutter writing interface might satisfy
many writers. Much sofistication could be added, or removed; many features
would be possible. But that will be a long time coming, if it ever comes.

In any case, thanks for your efforts. Really LibreOffice is unbelievable value
at the price, and it must be frustrating for developers watching a growing
queue of bugs that need fixing with no resources to allocate.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are on the CC list for the bug.