[libreoffice-users] Re: Feature Request: Lack of Outliner Functionality a Deal Breaker for Me

Macros are not the answer. Even with the best, most focused macros, I would
not be able to reduce the amount of time and the number of clicks
sufficiently to equal the efficiency of the Word outliner. That's dreaming.
Here's a case in point, and in the PS after my signature, I'm providing a
second case.

I just got an email from someone who took notes at the same meeting as me.
However, she brainstormed an entirely new direction, which was our
agreement. Combining the two emails and breaking up every paragraph into
separate points yielded 35 paragraphs of between 1 and 4 lines, totaling 78
lines, which is too much to display on a single page, especially with
spaces between paragraphs. However with Word, with one click, I collapsed
all the paragraphs into single lines--which is like code folding.

I created five heading buttons, which required five returns and one
ctrl-arrow. (Plus typing the titles.) Then I began dragging the points up
into the headers. This required one click to capture the paragraph and a
mouse move and release to drop. Periodically, I had to collapse the five
headers so that all of the points under each one were hidden. Doing this
literally took two clicks and no scrolling. I did this three times.

The first edit was done after 41 clicks (35 paragraphs + 6 clicks to
collapse header sections). However, once all of the points were distributed
in the five headers, I had to repeat the process with a header that had
eighteen points in it. By the time I was done, I had clicked 22 more times,
for a total of 63 clicks, and no delay between them. It was extremely fast
and efficient, though I wasn't timing it and can't tell you how long it
took.

Using the native methods in LibraOffice, I would have to click three times
to highlight each paragraph and then I could have sometimes dragged and
dropped it. I suspect that most of the time, I would have had to right
click and left click to cut it, navigate with one more click using the
Navigator,  click to establish an insertion point, and right click and left
click to paste it, and then navigate to the raw notes with one more click.
This would take 4 to 10 clicks, depending whether or not navigation was
necessary or whether it could be dragged and dropped. If two thirds of the
moves required navigation (420 clicks), which is reasonable for this
project, the entire thing would would have required approximately 492
clicks to accomplish what I accomplished with 63 clicks. In addition, it
would have taken considerably longer, since my method doesn't require any
navigation at all. (If only half the moves required navigation, it would
still cost me 441 clicks.)

LibreOffice would quickly give me carpal tunnel syndrome, because I do this
kind of work constantly. It would also literally cut my efficiency in half,
and because I would be spending so much more time and energy on the
mechanics, I would be tired sooner and less clear in my delivery.

This is why I can't switch from Word to LibreOffice. Since I prefer to get
away from M$, an integrated outliner in LO is vital to what I want. But I
won't make the switch when it will hurt my health, my time, my projects,
and my goals.

Cougar

PS. I told you in my original post that I used to take notes as a senior
technical writer in developer brainstorm meetings. It was not uncommon for
my shorthand notes to fill many pages, and when I typed them, a regular
length brainstorming meeting probably created 500 to 700 lines of notes.

With a document of that size, literally all of it would require using the
Navigator to move around the different points to distribute the notes into
their correct buckets. With my method, the organization of these points
into categories would probably have taken at least 1000 clicks, counting
the subcategorization. However, using LO would require at least 10,000
clicks (probably many more) and would extend the time required to organize
the notes into something coherent by a huge amount of time.




On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 9:05 PM, toki.kantoor [via Document Foundation Mail
Archive] <ml-node+s969070n4077825h46@n3.nabble.com> wrote:

> On 10/10/2013 10:50 PM, Kracked_P_P---webmaster wrote:
>
> > I am not a Macro person, but I wonder how much of this can be done with
> Macros.
>
> This is where it would have been extremely useful to have access to
> source code for OOo extensions.
>
> Everything requested was not only doable, but done by people using OOo
> 2.x, and the appropriate extensions. Those extensions were, naturally
> enough, broken in OOo 3.x.
>
> Use Running Headers, configure Outline Numbering appropriately, and use
> Navigator to move the paragraphs around, will take care of the first
> request.
>
> I've forgotten what the name of the extension that provided the
> functionality described in the second and third request.  :(
> Adroit use of Navigator almost suffices for that functionality.
>
> Navigator does have its annoyances, chief of which is collapsing when
> switching between different objects within the document.
>
> jonathon
>
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