Subject: Re: PATCH request: edit headers
From: Bryce Nesbitt (bryce@obviously.com)
Date: Sun Dec 30 2001 - 10:07:32 CST
Martin Sevior wrote:
>
> On Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
> >
> > I'm so unsure of what was meant by these features (how they are supposed
> > to work) that I can't be more specific. Just take the message
> > "the process of inserting headers, editing them, and returning to normal
> > is not clear to users, and appears to be non-functional.". On quick
> > inspection, I concluded the feature was not finished enough to be useful
> > to me, and I formatted my document another way. Maybe I just did
> > not have enough patience.
>
> OK if there is no header in the document, click on the header button
> and/or the Edit Header format option. Type in what you want. Then click in
> the ordinary document to enter text and edit there.
>
> Thereafter, single click in the header, or click the header toolbar button
> or choose the edit header format command.
>
> A header/footer is as much as an ordinary part of the document as
> possible. (Except it disappears during Normal Mode.)
>
> Cheers
>
> Martin
If you have to explain it, it's not clear enough.
It works OK if you follow your instructions. But there are lots of
little confusing things about how it works now.
Try AbiWord's defaults (extra toolbar off, normal mode) and turn on
"show paragraphs". Now try to use headers. All the header controls
are ghosted. If you figure out how to add a header you have a bad
situation where (in normal mode) body text appears in the clearly
marked header area. If you figure out to switch to print layout
and type, the first character of the header is trashed. If you
remove a header garbage appears on screen.
How about this:
Add a new menu item "insert->header". That's where
I expected to find it anyway.
In "normal" mode zoom the page past the header. Don't
show body text in the header!!!
Eliminate menu items relating to headers from the edit menu.
Eliminate the toolbar icons.
Add a header enable checkbox in the page setup dialog.
Add a context menu to delete a header.
Same for footers. The user will need to learn about page layout mode,
but won't be mislead at any point.
Making "edit header" switch to print layout mode is OK also, but at
that point you've switched modes out from under the user, which is
bad.
-Bryce
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