Re: [libreoffice-users] [Ten questions]

I'm sure I could never think of all the consequences. I'll be the first to 
admit that what I prefer others will not.

However, in my experience in a law office using primarily MS-Word, I have 
seen many lawyers try to create numbered list using (a), (b), and (c). When 
I received their document, instead of a (c), I saw a copyright symbol. The 
lawyer who wrote the document had no idea that the program automatically 
changed his (c) to a copyright symbol and, more importantly, didn't know how 
to prevent this presumptuous behavior. Given the Open Source community's 
disdain for MS-Word's insistence on doing things ITS way, I was surprised to 
see OpenOffice and, later, LibO have the same attitude as MS when it comes 
to autocorrect. The program assumes that (c) means copyright. It assumes 
that my lower case roman numeral "i" should be capitalized to an "I". It 
tries to think for me in ways imagined by its designers. Now, it’s a great 
feature if I want it, but a true annoyance if I don't.

I think it would be better to have the program default to preserving what 
the user types. Then, if the user wishes to allow the program to make 
automatic changes, he can set it up to do so. True, a novice may never learn 
that such autocorrect features exist, but I still think that's better than a 
novice wondering why he's getting symbols he never typed and not knowing how 
to prevent it.

The fact that the original questioner on this thread had to ask how to 
disable so many autocorrect features, I think, proves my point. A user 
simply trying to type a document should never have to ask why the program is 
making unintended changes to his work.

Virgil

btw, for those of you living in countries that celebrate it, Happy 
Thanksgiving.



-----Original Message----- 
From: Brian Barker
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 10:35 PM
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] [Ten questions]

At 08:12 21/11/2012 -0500, Virgil Aonly wrote:
> These questions raise an interesting design decision made by LibO.
>
> When it comes to Autocorrect, I've noticed that, by default, LibO enables 
> all of the Autocorrect options. LibO naturally assumes that, if I type a 
> "(c)", what I REALLY want is a copyright symbol. It seems to me that is the 
> same faulty assumption that has made people so frustrated with MS Word; the 
> software publisher decide what people want and sets the defaults 
> accordingly.
>
> Every time I load a fresh install of LibO, the first thing I have to do is 
> go into Autocorrect and disable nearly all of the options. I think it would 
> make more sense for the default install to have Autocorrect disabled and 
> allow the user to enable it as desired.

But think of the consequences.  Remember that most users of any
software use only a small subset of its capabilities.  If automatic
correction was hidden by default, many (most?) users would never know
it existed.  The fact that you can describe having to disable the
parts you don't like shows that you have learned at least of the
existence of the facility.  I hope that's true of most users.  The
frustration may be evidence of didactic success!

Brian Barker


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