Subject: Re: Commit: Various Lists UI improvements.
From: Randy Kramer (rhkramer@fast.net)
Date: Wed Feb 07 2001 - 16:10:35 CST
Sam TH wrote:
>
> I'm not sure if I'm not making myself clear, or if you are talking
> about something else. If it's the latter, just ignore this.
This is a good discussion (by all involved). One of the original
questions in my head was uncertainty about the difference between
outlines and lists in Word, and this discussion is helping (greatly) to
clarify that. (At times I slip from greater to lesser levels of
confusion, or vice versa. ;-) I think you are making yourself clear.
There are a few points I want to clarify, just for the record. (The
record hopefuly being a summary of these emails that some ambitious
(masochistic?) programmer(s) might convert into a working collapsible
outlining feature.)
>
> In word, outline mode if a *view* on the structure of the document,
> where word determines some levels from the formatting you already
> have. This allows people to see the structure of the document they
> have written, and according to your reports, alter it at a high
> level. This sounds like a cool feature.
>
> In wordperfect, there is no "outline mode". You can create an
> outline, just like we can create a list in abiword. This outline has
> levels, and looks something like this:
>
Ahh, yes. Maybe if I think: WordPerfect outline = Word (numbered or
bulleted) list, and that a Word outline does not exist in WordPerfect,
that may keep my thinking straight.
> ----
>
> here we have some text
> that isn't in the outline.
>
> I heading one
> A subheading
> i sub-subheading
> ii sub-subheading
> B subheading
> I heading two
> A subheading
>
> this is after the end of the outline
>
> ----
Your example touches on a couple of good points. Once you convert a
document to an outline (or view it in outline mode) pretty much
everything is in the outline. In some documents I've had to resort to
the ruse of creating headings in "hidden text" to make some text at the
beginning or end of a document appear as if it's not part of the outline
but still is "accessible" in outline view. (I forget all the details of
why I did that, but, for example, if you try to add text at the end of a
document it automatically becomes part of the text of the last Level 1
heading. If you move that heading and it's text, you also move the text
that you may have wanted to stay at the end of the document.)
Word can have one or more lists (bulleted or numbered) anywhere within a
document, including within documents that "are outlines" (if that's an
appropriate way to describe a document that is based on an outline).
>
> the text looks the same regardless of what view you are in, and prints
> with all the heading (I don't think word prints the outline numbers,
> does it?).
Yes, Word does print out the numbers.
>
> However, if you want to, you can only display certain levels of the
> outline. For example, if you only wanted the top two levels, it would
> look like this:
As best I remember, Word numbered and bulleted lists cannot normally
display only certain levels of a bulleted or numbered list.
(Digression: You could do things like define a custom style for each
level of the list, then create several stylesheets. In one stylesheet,
all custom styles for all levels of the list would use visible (not
hidden) text styles. In another stylesheet, styles for some levels of
the numbered or bulleted list could use hidden text styles. (The trick
here is to stylesheets with the same set of named styles but with
different attributes for the style -- in some stylesheets a given named
style has the attribute "hidden", and in others it does not (and thus is
visible.)))
>
> ----
>
> here we have some text
> that isn't in the outline.
>
> I heading one
> A subheading
> B subheading
> I heading two
> A subheading
>
> this is after the end of the outline
>
> ----
>
> You get the idea. I don't know what printing looks like of a
> partially collapsed outline.
Just in case you are really interested, I will expand the previous
example to show a potential "outline based document" in Word, even
including a list, and then show what it would look like at some stage of
collapse.
First, expanding your example, this is a hypothetical document with an
outline:
---- <unnumbered "hidden text" heading, level one, or alternatively, if the document has a title which is centered on the first line, you can give it the attributes of centered, not numbered, and "Outline Level 1" (and bold, 18 point, or whatever)>here we have some text that doesn't look like it's in the outline, but it is associated with the hidden unnumbered heading above I heading one
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to heading I
I.A subheading
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to subheading I.A
I.B subheading
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to subheading I.B
II heading two
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to heading II
II.A subheading
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to subheading II.A
II.B subheading
The text under this subheading consists of (or includes) a numbered or bulleted list. (The numbers can be (maybe must be) unrelated to the outline heading numbers, but both sets of numbers are generated automatically by Word, and are printed.)
1. List item 1 2. List item 2 3. List item 3
<unnumbered "hidden text" heading, level one>
this appears to be after the end of the outline, but is associated with the hidden unnumbered heading above
----
When printed normally, the document looks like this:
---- here we have some text that doesn't look like it's in the outline, but it is associated with the hidden unnumbered heading above I heading one
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to heading I
I.A subheading
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to subheading I.A
I.B subheading
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to subheading I.B
II heading two
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to heading II
II.A subheading
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to subheading II.A
II.B subheading
The text under this subheading consists of (or includes) a numbered or bulleted list. (The numbers can be (maybe must be) unrelated to the outline heading numbers, but both sets of numbers are generated automatically by Word, and are printed.)
1. List item 1 2. List item 2 3. List item 3
this appears to be after the end of the outline, but is associated with the hidden unnumbered heading above
----
If we collapse, for example, heading I and heading II.A, the document would look (and print) like this:
---- here we have some text that doesn't look like it's in the outline, but it is associated with the hidden unnumbered heading above I heading one
II heading two
here we have zero or more paragraphs of text relevant to heading II
II.A subheading
II.B subheading
The text under this subheading consists of (or includes) a numbered or bulleted list. (The numbers can be (maybe must be) unrelated to the outline heading numbers, but both sets of numbers are generated automatically by Word, and are printed.)
1. List item 1 2. List item 2 3. List item 3
this appears to be after the end of the outline, but is associated with the hidden unnumbered heading above
----
> > This feature was the one I missed second-most when I used Word (after > reveal codes [1]). I think it would be really nice to have in Abi. > > [1] Is anyone thinking about reveal codes in Abi? It's less > neccessary, thanks to the XML file format, but it would still be cool.
I think your comment hits the nail on the head with respect to reveal codes for Word -- the real key in Word is to use styles and then view the attributes of the style(s) applied to text to find out why text appears in any particular format. It becomes more confusing when users apply arbitrary character styles -- I tried to always use named styles, and to create a named style for anything that I needed to format, sort of like the text attributes in something like DocBook (as far as I understand DocBook).
(A point I'm trying to make here but which probably is not clear is that I can define a paragraph style with normal (not bold) text. I might name it "Normal Paragraph". I can apply that to an entire paragraph. I can then go to words within the paragraph and apply the bold attribute to them. That makes life more confusing, because the named style doesn't change. It is easier to follow if you create a different named style and apply that to those words. But, even applying the bold attribute arbitrarily is not tough to follow once you are used to using styles.
(Word has a formatting tool bar with a drop down window. As the cursor moves over text, the named style of the text appears in this drop down window. If you want to change the style, you can select a different named style from the drop down window. (If a block of text is selected, and it all has the same named style, the name appears in the drop down window. If the block contains a mixture of named styles, the named style in the drop down window is blank.))
Randy Kramer
> > sam th > sam@uchicago.edu > http://www.abisource.com/~sam/ > GnuPG Key: > http://www.abisource.com/~sam/key > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > Part 1.2 Type: application/pgp-signature
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