Subject: Re: Headers/Footers Page numbers.
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Mar 20 2001 - 08:33:57 CST
On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Paul Rohr wrote:
> At 04:33 PM 3/18/01 +1100, Martin Sevior wrote:
> >I get it Paul. I agree 95% with you. The 5% of disagreement is that if
> >either the boxes are visible or a header is already present *single*
> >clicking in the header will activate it. You still have to double click in
> >order to create a header.
> >
> >I did not know about the double clicking in Word to activate the header
> >after using the program for 3 years. Consequently dealing with headers was
> >a MAJOR frustration in Word for me.
>
> Wouldn't it be more consistent and easier to explain if we used the same
> number of clicks in both cases?
>
> I've expected that double-click was well-known by now, and thus less
> annoying than single-click, but that was only a guess. It's not like we
> have hard data from a usability lab or anything. :-)
>
> In any event, it's probably less confusing to have them both be
> single-clicks than have one of each.
>
Hmmmm it's a tough call. I know what behaviour I'd prefer. I'd MUCH rather
single click to go into a pre-existing header/footer and double click to
insert one. To me they are different things. Maybe to a Church secretary
they're not.
> >I really like the 4.* Header/footer Edit dialog too. I'm inspired to make
> >a cute Modeless dialog to implement this.
>
> Actually, I don't think a dialog is needed for this. What I was trying to
> propose was that the *only* "Headers and Footers" menu we'd have (the one
> off the existing View menu) would just move the cursor into the header and
> let you start editing there.
>
OK. How about two entries on the Edit Menu? "Edit Header" and "Edit
Footer". Selecting these puts the cursor in either the header or the
footer and of course draws a box around them. I think this is simple and
obvious. I was confused by the "Show Header/footer" command in Word since
boxes appeared at the top and offscreen where I couldn't see it in the
footer. I wanted to edit the footer but I thought Word was just giving me
the header.
This way what happens is unambiguous.
> >Later I will add icons to
> >insert "Page Numbers", Number of Pages, Most recent "Section or Chapter",
> >Most recent "sub-section" fields.
> >
> >Section and sub-section fields will be implemented after I do numbered
> >headings which will happen after this header/footer stuff is done. It's
> >all straight forward code. It just to get written.
>
> Could these all be items on a task-specific popup toolbar instead of a
> full-fledged modeless dialog? Our XP support for toolbars is much better
> than our XP support for dialogs. ;-)
>
I can't let this slip by. Toolbars != Dialogs. Where did I see that before
just over a year ago? :-) Word does this though and it makes sense since
you want to minimize the amount of text covered by the dialog.
Actually I'll leave this for post 1.0. I think simple Edit Header / Edit
Footer in the menus will be sufficient for 1.0. Although the code for the
modeless dialog is quite straight forward and mostly in xp.
Cheers
MArtin
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