Is there a place where design and UI behaviour axioms are discussed and specified as a basis for design consistency and use across the whole of Libre Office?
There is a basic HIG at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Guidelines. But you are right, consistency is something we always have to take carefully
into consideration.
In terms of formatting, there cannot be a definitive hierarchy of which, between a style, and direct format, overrides the other!There are legitimate cases where a user has applied a style and then wants to tweak it, vs a user has hand crafted attributes directly but only afterwards applies a style. In both cases, the style will be a superset of the directly set attributes and which one wins cannot be programmatically determined, nor just asserted as 'the rule'!
Do you have an example where styles don't suit well? For sure there are many (if not most) users who format text directly due to various reasons. But using styles should always be possible and as simple as DF.
It seems to me that some UI flexibility is needed here, where there is an easy default that the user can override, should they require more control. The usage patterns could look like:*Definition of a style: * A style is a named set of related attributes that have default values but where each of the attributes can be changed to a preferred valid value. The set can be saved with a style name and can only be applied to compatible objects, as a set. The applied style inherits from the base style, so within the scope of the document (or section??) changes to the base style will be reflected accordingly. The valid set can be saved, with different names as different styles; all equally but exclusively applicable to a compatible object.
I like it. It perfectly describes what we do. Yet rather from the documentation POV than UI/UX though. If you think this belongs to the HIG you are welcome to create a new page.
*Definition of direct formatting:* Direct formatting is /any valid attribute/ from the /universal set /for an object that has had its value set by the user.
+1
*If a style contains the universal set of attributes, any direct formatting will always clash with a valid style for that object!
DF does not clash but overrides styles. If you indent a paragraph via DF, changing the style wont apply to this text. Unlike styles, DF is an arbitrary combination of attributes- and clearing DF removes all those attributes. (With some exceptions, eg. lists.)
I would also say that for ease of use, there should be a close, but not exclusive relationship between a style and the attribute value settings dialogue, so the attributes CAN be applied as direct settings OR as a style (probably should be the same dialogue but two different contexts).
I wonder what issues you see regarding styles and DF. Better start off with the problem, right.
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