Proposed book on styles and templates.

I could add a few items:
(1) The predefined List and Numbering paragraph styles are inconsistent among its various levels, making them less useful. This is an implementation issue that the developers need to fix themselves, assuming that they would care to...

(2) The template (chapter, possibly other templates...) have poorly organized sections in its exposition. I was in the process of remedying that and might resume working on it again within a couple days.

(3) The template exposition suggests that the user could employ AutoText for subsequent insertion of the Tip-type tables. I already incorporated AutoText entries for those tables directly into the template, therefore making it unnecessary for any users to waste their time when needlessly creating those AutoText entries themselves.

(4) The current OOo/Libo template has its share of copyediting and some substantive errors. I will fix them...

Gary

I should have further clarified that the particular styles mentioned above were the OOo/Libo predefined (generic, not any custom) list styles. They are inconsistent with some others of the same kind as to their sublevels--e.g., List 1, List 2, ....

Gary

Hi Gary,

I could add a few items:
(1) The predefined List and Numbering paragraph styles are
inconsistent among its various levels, making them less useful. This
is an implementation issue that the developers need to fix
themselves, assuming that they would care to...

Hey, but that's their job :wink:

Do you have a bug ID?

Regards,
Nino

I will see if any developer(s) takes it upon themselves to issue a bug report.

First, some agreement would/should be made as to how those (list) paragraph styles should appear afterward. That would require a consensus, probably from template designers and such before any such UI changes become reimplemented.

Gary

________________________________
From: Nino Novak <nn.libo@kflog.org>
To: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Sun, 19 June, 2011 22:41:00
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Re: Proposed book on styles and
templates.

Hi Gary,

On Sunday, 19. June 2011 20:11:57 Gary Schnabl wrote:

I could add a few items:
(1) The predefined List and Numbering paragraph styles are
inconsistent among its various levels, making them less useful. This
is an implementation issue that the developers need to fix
themselves, assuming that they would care to...

Hey, but that's their job :wink:

Do you have a bug ID?

Regards,
Nino

Hi :slight_smile:
You mean like allowing Chapter II paragraph 2 section a) part iii) ? Rather
than forcing it to always be Ch2, para 2 section 1 part 2?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

The formatting differs between sublevels. Try some out yourself and see. Make yourself a practice template or such and witness any formatting changes between its preceding level. I forgot exactly how they differed, but I usually had to alter those OOo/Libo predefined list paragraph styles for my own formatting choices at some point or another.

Perhaps, these might have been fixed since I last recently used them. However, I would strongly doubt that because they have remained that way from the OOo version 2 days, possibly even earlier. I noticed around five years ago that somebody complained about them also, on a blog or whatever. But, I only came upon the OOo scene right when version 2 was being introduced back during early 2006. I never brought it up myself, though, until today.

Gary

I was not aware that AutoText entries become part of a template. In
fact, I am sure that they do not. I would be delighted to be proven
wrong, as it would save a lot of hassle.

Same for Table AutoFormats, among other things.

--Jean

I thought that I had incorporated those AutoText entries for such tables already a few months ago--probably in January or February--in one or more of my own versions of the OOo chapter template. I might have posted them on the ODF website, or maybe I did not...

Gary

Are you sure the AutoText entries becomes part of the template? As I
said above, I don't think they do. But I don't have time to test this.

--Jean

I tried testing it on one of my older templates but could not find them right now--probably because I stopped working on OOo templates a while back. Next, I will visit the ODF site and see if that one has them.

Gary

Here is the skinny...

The template I added back in April was intended to reorganize the lousy section-ordering of the chapter template, I think. In any event, that template did not have AutoText entries incorporated, although I had previously done that on other templates.

So, I downloaded that template from the ODF site and just reinserted the AutoText for a Tip table and tested it--again. AFAIK, it works fine on a copy from that new template.

Gary

So the tip AutoText wasn't already in your personal AutoText entries
file before you used the template this time? I hope I can find time to
test this myself, because I really do hope what you say works the way
you say. We'll need to mention this in the UGs. I really was not aware
that AutoText could be stored in a template.

--Jean

I made a simple AutoText for the Tip table by selecting the tip table and simply making an AutoText entry for it. Took about a minute.

Then, I saved the OTT template and opened the template, creating a copy of it. I inserted two tip tables via the AutoText Insert command on the ODT copy from the template. All told, it took less than five minutes to check the old template on the ODF website for its nonexistent AutoText entries, insert a Tip-table AutoText entry on a new template, and test it on a template copy file.

I find it (an AutoText table entry) to be usable on a template copy. Perhaps, somebody else can confirm/verify what I seem to already know.

Gary

I have also tested this. Any AutoTexts I created are stored in my
personal AutoText file and are then available to ANY document, not just
a doc based on the template. If I save the template allegedly containing
the AutoTexts, then delete the AutoText entries from my personal
AutoText file, and then create a new doc based on the template, the
AutoText entries are not there.

Thus I conclude that the AutoText is NOT saved in the template.

--Jean

Perhaps, you are correct. That is why I would like to have somebody verify this.

Gary

I am sure that what you are seeing is the entries in your personal
AutoText file... unless this works differently in Windows, which is of
course always possible.

You could send me (offlist) your test template, that allegedly contains
the AutoText you created, and I'll see if those exist when I install the
template on my machine.

--Jean

Apparently, you are correct. I also tried importing AutoText after first saving the template to a DOC file. The AutoText would not import from that file either.

What would be nice is creating an omnibus AutoText file containing all the various Tables that could be of future use, assuming that they could be imported to a dedicated folder (or whatever) in the personal AutoText file that all document users could import.

Windows can import from XP files (DOC file format) and XP Template files (probably a DOT file).

Gary.

I don't know about this special case but my impression with LibO is that
such things get very very quickly fixed once they are clearly reported
as a bug and do have an accepted solution. So the way to go is, first
verify the behavior in the latest dev release, and if still present,
report a bug as adequately as possible and be prepared to give
additional infos when requested.

Nino

It is not necessarily a bug problem--merely much less than ideal, inconsistent formatting. First, somebody would have to suggest just how they should be formatted.

Gary