Re: [libreoffice-users] Outline Numbering

Hello Mr Sochet,

I'm a law student, would also be interested in finding answers to the 
points you raise. This long email doesn't provide any, but hopefully 
provides some possible ways of solving the problems.

On 11/03/11 00:23, gmanrpi wrote:
> 1) If I use Roman Numerals for my Article numbers my child outline members
> are numbered using roman numerals for the show parent numbering even when I
> select Arabic numerals for my section.
> EXAMPLE:
> I want:
>
> ARTICLE II
> ORGANIZATION
>
> 2.01 Formation
>
> I get:
>
> ARTICLE II
> ORGANIZATION
>
> II.1 Formation
>
> Is there an existing, easy not bend over backwards way to accomplish the
> want?

I tried this. The only way I could get was defining two separate 
numbering styles and using the second one for the "2.01" line, and 
starting that style at numbering level 2, if you understand what I mean. 
If you apply these numbering styles to two corresponding paragraph 
styles you can get some degree of automation using 'Next Style', but I 
agree this requires a lot more work than it should, and since you're 
using two different numbering / paragraph styles the results could be 
tricky for TOC's etc.

> 2) [...] I would like there to be a leading zero.
>
> 3) Once Outlining is going, I would like the section number to non-bold, and
> the section name to be bold. [...]

No luck on either of those. I was particularly surprised about number 
3). I didn't fully understand your example, but for me while I can apply 
a character style to make numbering bold when my text is non-bold, I 
can't do the reverse, i.e. what you want, having the number non-bold 
when the text is bold. That seems more like a bug than an unimplemented 
feature.

I think one way people in our position could help in addressing these 
shortcomings would be in making some quite precise specifications or 
even visual mock-ups of how the options we require would be presented. 
Very often creating a usable, logical UI for new features is as much a 
challenge as the behind-the-scenes work.

For your point 1), I would imagine we could use presentation of options 
the same as for 'Structure' on the 'Entries' tab in the 'Insert 
Index/Table' dialogue. This would be added in to the 'Options' tab on 
the 'Numbering Style:' dialogue. One could use that 'Structure' 
formatting to specify the formatting of the numbering for every 
individual Level of the Style. So in your example, when you first looked 
at the formatting for Level 2 of your Numbering Style, it would look 
something like this:

<-  [ I ]  [ 1 ]  ->

... because it's taken the default 'I', meaning Roman-numeral numbering, 
from the Level 1 format. So for your requirements, you would change it to:

<-  [ 1 ]  [ 1 ]  ->

... where putting a '1' in the boxes indicates that you want regular 
arabic numerals used. Can you see what I'm imagining here?

As regards your problem 2), I guess you could solve it by inventing more 
new syntax for the same 'Structure' option. The rule could be that if 
you want leading zeros then before the 'formatting' character (i, I, 1, 
a, A...) you include the number of leading zeros you want. So for example:

<-  [ 01 ]  [ 001 ]  ->

Would be the formatting for the way many law textbooks number their 
paragraphs, e.g. "02-013".

Come to think of it, this could add great flexibility. Currently we can 
only set a character or string to appear before or after all of the 
numbering at each Level (which in itself is very flexible and useful). 
But if we used the 'Structure'-option style of codes in boxes instead, 
we could do things like:

Level 1: <-  [ I ] [.]  ->
Level 2: <-  [ 01 ] [-] [ 001 ]  ->

Which would display like so:

II.
02-001

Putting the dash between the 'levels' of numbering is something we can't 
currently do. All the above is probably complex enough to merit being 
hidden in a 'More options' pane on the Numbering Style Options tab.

As I said, no actual solutions here, but I hope as a proposal, for 
presentation if not implementation, it might at least be enough to get a 
developer interested.

Best regards,

-- Ryan

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