Bug 83260

[Matthew J. Francis]

On 03/01/2018 17:42, Miklos Vajna wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 06:56:53AM +0000, Yemelyanenko Fyodor <fyodor_e at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> For now I see 2 possible solutions:
>> 1. Rewrite redlining, so Show option will change how doc is viewed, but
>> not how it is formed (list of nodes)
>> 2. When toggling change tracking or show option ON/OFF - clean
>> Undo/Redo.
>>
>> For now, I prefer option 2 :-)
>>
>> Do we need to warn user, that we going to purge Undo/Redo (say, by
>> displaying some warning?)
>> Any additional suggestions will be appreciated.
> 
> We raise a similar warning when deleting a header, you can probably
> reuse that code here. And sure, clearing the undo stack instead of
> crashing sounds like an improvement (especially if we ask the user
> before clearing the undo stack).

I use tracked changes on a regular basis, and would much rather this be 
treated as "maybe difficult but important to get right" than "too hard, 
so don't bother"

When editing a document with tracks, I frequently switch between viewing 
changes and not (alternating focus between "what exactly has been 
changed" and "what the final text should look like"). Not also being 
able to undo at arbitrary times, if for instance I decide after 
switching to "reviewing final text" for a section that I would prefer to 
go back and start again another way, would be a major annoyance in the 
process.
I can't say for certain if other people use the feature the same way, 
but I doubt it's that uncommon as a use case.


Perhaps a few well placed unit tests would clarify what the invariants 
are that should hold in this case, but don't? There must be a middle 
ground to be found between "painful major refactoring/rewrite" and "rip 
it out altogether"

Regards
Matthew Francis