Subject: Re: lists stuff
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Dec 01 2000 - 16:51:24 CST
OK I've been giving quite a lot of though to Joaquin's point of view which
is simply that the MS Word dialog is a lot easier for people to use than
our modeless dialog even when it is complete and without bugs. Mike asks
to give a real world example of why I would want a Modeless dialog.
I can give the example: Here it is:
I'm busy using lists in a way similar to "Headings" in MS Word. I create:
--------------------------------------------------
1. Here is a heading describing something
Another paragraph under the same heading
Another paragraph under heading 1.
1.1 Sublist started here
Another point in the sub list
Another point in the sub list
2. Back in the main list
---------------------------------------------------------
How do I make this list?
Well like this.
I click on the number list icon at the first paragraph. This give me Label
1.
Every time I press return I get the next label in the list. I press
"back space" to delete the label. For label 1.1 however I have to fire up
the dialog and press start "sub list". Then each paragraph gets 1.2 , 1.3
, 1.4 etc. Each of those labels has to be deleted however.
Then how to a get the 2.? I press "stop list" and 1.4 turns into 2 and the
text gets the indentation associated with 2. If the dialog was modeless
you don't have to go through the start dialog/stop dialog business while
manipulating the list.
Now in pratice I admit this benefit may be spurious because the user would
have to manipulate the dialog out of the way of the document before she
could go on typing. It may well be easier to just dismiss the dialog and
put it up later.
However there is one additional benefit we could give but is presently not
in place. Right now if you delete a list label, the text indention changes
to the same level as the following paragraph. The assumption is that most
likely if you delete a list label you have finished with the list.
If you are developing a new document, this is a real pain
using the above scenerio since every paragraph will have to be reindented.
If the dialog is active however we could make the assumption that deleting
a list label does mean you've finished with the list and so we would
keep the indentation at the current position even after deleting the list
label.
We can also use the "resume list" feature to attach a paragraph to the
previous list matching the indentation of the current paragraph. Being
modeles would also make it easier to fiddle with the indentation of
paragraphs to make them match the paragraphs with list labels.
Now I will admit that the MS Word dialog is easier for users to choose
amongst a limited range of options since they just to lick one one list
picture and bingo it is done.
I must admit however that I don't have a particular desire to actually
implement a Word Style dialog for Lists. I personally would rather move on
to other things. If you Joaquin want to implement I modal MS Word Dialog
I'll gracefully bow out of the list dialog business except to provide help
if you need it, provided that Thomas and Mike also agree that this is the
way to go.
I think our backend code provides all the functionality of MS Word 2000
except for the "Choose your own symbol" part. I can easily add that if you
wish.
Regarding the list backend code, the next things I'd like to see
implemented are:
1. Mapping our list label fields to rtf/MS Word/html/docbook/latex for
import/export.
2. Working out a way to paste a list structure elsewhere in
the document.
Luke are you interested in doing this? I can give you my ideas on how I
think this could done if you like.
Cheers
Martin
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