Bug 104151 - [Writer] Move item "Outline numbering" from menu Tools to menu Styles
Summary: [Writer] Move item "Outline numbering" from menu Tools to menu Styles
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
5.3.0.0.alpha1+
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired)
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Menus
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2016-11-24 19:24 UTC by Roman Kuznetsov
Modified: 2021-04-02 09:42 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Roman Kuznetsov 2016-11-24 19:24:18 UTC
Description:
Move item Outline numbering from menu Tools to menu Styles. Because this item opens dialogue, that allows to control outline numbering for styles type Header. And all items for work with styles located in menu Styles

Actual Results:  
Item Outline numbering is in menu Tools now

Expected Results:
Item Outline numbering will in menu Tools


Reproducible: Always

User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:


User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:50.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/50.0
Comment 1 tagezi 2016-11-24 21:38:03 UTC
o_O

Do you mean that "Expected Results:
The item Outline numbering will be in Styles main menu"?
Comment 2 Joel Madero 2016-11-25 04:55:57 UTC
Throwing this to UX to deal with.
Comment 3 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2016-11-27 11:47:31 UTC
Outline numbering in the tools menu isnt related to styles as found in the style menu and style & formatting sidebar.

Setting to WONTFIX. @Heiko, @Cor, @Stuart: Reopen if you disagree.
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2016-11-27 11:49:51 UTC
This dialog is rather the configuration to a direct formatting than a styles feature. I'd keep it where it is because Format, which could be an alternative, is overly large right now.

Assigning this ticket to the custodian of menus.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2016-11-27 11:51:25 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> Assigning this ticket to the custodian of menus.

Mid-air collision :-)
Comment 6 Mike Kaganski 2016-11-27 12:26:45 UTC
(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #3)
> Outline numbering in the tools menu isnt related to styles as found in the
> style menu and style & formatting sidebar.

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> This dialog is rather the configuration to a direct formatting than a styles
> feature.

Let me respectfully disagree.
The Outline numbering feature has direct relation to styles, and has nothing to do with direct formatting:
1. It couples a special kind of numbering style (defined in this dialog) to paragraph styles, has global effect on all places that have corresponding styles applied (unlike direct formatting);
2. It is applied to Heading N paragraph styles by default in new documents (you cannot make modifications on Outline & Numbering tab of those styles unless you break the relations in Outline Numbering dialog);
3. If it is applied, the Outline & Numbering tab of paragraph style shows that Outline Numbering is the Numbering style.

I suppose that this request is consistent with overall policy to encourage styles usage in LO.
Comment 7 Mike Kaganski 2016-11-27 12:33:25 UTC
And it is the only numbering style that has unique ability to link its levels to paragraph styles.
Comment 8 Cor Nouws 2016-11-27 20:10:53 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #6)

> Let me respectfully disagree.
> The Outline numbering feature has direct relation to styles, and has nothing
> to do with direct formatting:
> [...]

In users perspective (esp. basic users) it is nothing more then turning on numbering of chapters..
Comment 9 Roman Kuznetsov 2016-11-27 20:31:09 UTC
(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #8)
> (In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #6)
> 
> > Let me respectfully disagree.
> > The Outline numbering feature has direct relation to styles, and has nothing
> > to do with direct formatting:
> > [...]
> 
> In users perspective (esp. basic users) it is nothing more then turning on
> numbering of chapters..

but, it isn't manual activate. Right? this is adding numbering to style
Comment 10 Cor Nouws 2016-11-28 08:34:43 UTC
(In reply to kompilainenn from comment #9)
> (In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #8)

> > In users perspective (esp. basic users) it is nothing more then turning on
> > numbering of chapters..
> 
> but, it isn't manual activate. Right? this is adding numbering to style

Sure - but the user IMO simply thinks: I want to turn on outline numbering..
Comment 11 Mike Kaganski 2016-11-28 09:34:12 UTC
(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #10)
> > (In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #8)
> 
> > > In users perspective (esp. basic users) it is nothing more then turning on
> > > numbering of chapters..
> ...
> but the user IMO simply thinks: I want to turn on outline numbering..

From a basic user's perspective, any styles usage is simply that: make some formatting. I don't see your point from it. If you worry about discoverability, then the very naming is not too intuitive (Outline Numbering doesn't easily connects to headers), and with this regards, Tools is no better than Styles (I suppose basic user would look under Format first).
Comment 12 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2016-11-28 13:50:36 UTC
Outline numbering, just like 'line numbering' and 'footnotes and endnotes' in the same section of the tools menu, are advanced level formatting options/settings for a document, which is why they werent moved out of the tools menu. Styles are tagged group of formatting attributes that can be applied to various text or objects of a document, all of which are present and modifiable in the styles sidebar.

(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #7)
> And it is the only numbering style that has unique ability to link its
> levels to paragraph styles.

Being linked/associated with a paragraph style, doesnt make it a style.

(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #11)
> From a basic user's perspective, any styles usage is simply that: make some
> formatting.

Basic users dont primarily use styles, they use direct formatting, but yes styles are nothing more than a tagged group of formatting attributes.

> I don't see your point from it. If you worry about
> discoverability, then the very naming is not too intuitive (Outline
> Numbering doesn't easily connects to headers)

The word outline is common place throughout the office suite and generally, but if you'd like to suggest a different naming for the entry, we are more than happy to listen to your suggestion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_(list)
Comment 13 Mike Kaganski 2016-11-28 17:57:29 UTC
(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #12)
> Basic users dont primarily use styles, they use direct formatting, but yes
> styles are nothing more than a tagged group of formatting attributes.

While I won't comment on other statements (that are questionable, but may be seen either way), I cannot pass by this one.

Technically, yes, the definition made by Yousuf makes sense. That's how the styles work inside.

But this definition misses the fundamental property of styles in their essence: their ability to structure documents, instead of formatting it. It allows to mark parts of document according to those parts' logical/structural sense, not to their intended formatting; actually, it makes sense to have different "tags" for same "tagged groups of formatting attributes", because despite those parts of text shouldn't differ on paper, they should be distinguishable from each other from the structural PoV. The styles bring new property to documents, that isn't bounded by the formatting that's associated with each of them; a new quality that is greater that sum of their constituents. It turns bits and characters into useful entities of human thought process.

It's possible to use styles just like Yousuf explained. And I'm not amazed that a person involved in decision-making in LO/TDF with regards of UI, sees the great feature like styles that way. But that simply saddens me; and I see that the disagreement here stems from that fact.
Comment 14 tagezi 2016-11-28 18:09:12 UTC
(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #10)
> (In reply to kompilainenn from comment #9)
> > (In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #8)
> 
> Sure - but the user IMO simply thinks: I want to turn on outline numbering..

I think that we can not decide for the user what thay think. This is at least unethical.
On the other hand, all clear, this function is an integral part of the style configuration. And how we would not think about it (even a goat with accordion (and a bunch of links to Wikipedia :))), we could not adjust the automatically numbering of headings without it.
And it's really strange to see the item style settings are not in the style menu.

There is one more a look. Everything that in the program is responsible for the appearance of the document is divided into two parts: the styles and direct formatting. If this is not a style, then it is direct formatting. So, it is required to open the bug report, because we cannot delete it by choosing "Clear Direct Formatting". :)
Comment 15 Heiko Tietze 2016-11-28 21:20:35 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #13)
> But this definition misses the fundamental property of styles in their
> essence: their ability to structure documents, instead of formatting it.

We all are aware of the capabilities of styles. But the average user isn't. Benjamin does not care about structure or consistency over larger text passages, he just wants to get his home work done. If we solely focus on experts and tech-affine people like Eve we fail for 80% of our users. 
While you may acknowledge this as a negation of styles it is actually the opposite. Our goal is to educate users and to make the use as easy as possible. And that means here to put questionable things into another menu.

/offtopic
Comment 16 Roman Kuznetsov 2016-11-28 21:53:33 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #15)
> And that means here to put questionable things into another menu.


оооо. let us remember about new Menu "Sheet" in Calc, that include items, as

"Fill cells", that need to move in menu "Data"
"Link to external data", that need to move in menu "Data" also
"Cell comment", that need to move anywhere from menu "Sheet"

ps: I know, where is item "Fill cells", but I'm always looking it. My brain always links term "Fill cells" with term "Data" , because i'm inserting DATA in cells!

pps: what does HIG speak us? where must be item, linked with DATA?!
Comment 17 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2016-11-28 23:12:33 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #13)
> It's possible to use styles just like Yousuf explained. And I'm not amazed
> that a person involved in decision-making in LO/TDF with regards of UI, sees
> the great feature like styles that way. But that simply saddens me; and I
> see that the disagreement here stems from that fact.

I see styles in this manner as that is how they are presented to me in any office suite and is a simple and clear definition that most users can wrap their minds around and distinguish between direct formatting. The point here is that the 'Styles' menu was create for features of this definition, while the 'Format' menu is for direct formatting features, so placing 'Outline Numbering' in the Styles menu doesnt make sense.

@Sophie, @Regina: What is your take on this issue?
Comment 18 Mike Kaganski 2016-11-28 23:45:12 UTC
Oh. That's hilarious.

I don't feel that resolving this specific request is Absolute Requirement. But what I see is much more important than that.

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #15)
> (In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #13)
> > But this definition misses the fundamental property of styles in their
> > essence: their ability to structure documents, instead of formatting it.
> 
> We all are aware of the capabilities of styles.

Oh really? You make logical mistake when discussing like that. You take my phrase out from the context, and declare it as useless on the grounds that it doesn't have any value.
Let's cite the sentence by Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #12 I've answered with the above:

> Basic users dont primarily use styles, they use direct formatting, but yes
> styles are nothing more than a tagged group of formatting attributes.

This sentence is comprised of two parts. In first part, basic users' modus operandi is discussed; and then word "but" starts author's PoV that clearly states what author thinks styles are. That "but" clearly states, that "however misguided (or uneducated, or use any word you like) basic users are, their PoV at styles as heap of formatting is absolutely comprehensive, and there's nothing more to styles that that". That's why I went into describing what *should* be familiar and close to people here, but what is clearly news for some.

> Benjamin does not care about structure or consistency over larger text
> passages, he just wants to get his home work done. If we solely focus on
> experts and tech-affine people like Eve we fail for 80% of our users. 
> While you may acknowledge this as a negation of styles it is actually the
> opposite. Our goal is to educate users and to make the use as easy as
> possible. And that means here to put questionable things into another menu.

And here I start to think that the whole case here is about our Design Team is afraid of the word "Style". It seems that the team supposes that Benjamin hates the word so much, he will never ever click on that dreadful word in menu bar. He will paint the screen area where the menu is located with black paint and will forbid his relatives to even whisper it.

But is that so? Do you really think that Benjamin gravitates to "Tools" more than to "Styles", provided that he doesn't care about all that power of styles, and possibly even doesn't know what is that in office suites? Don't you see how much the generic, common meaning of the word naturally fits anything related to appearance? Hadn't you ever heard about "stylish" appearance, clothes, haircut, ...? No? Personally I suspect, that Benjamin, while searching for a menu item that would make his headers numbered, will of course start at Format, but then he will simply look at all other menus, of which Styles will be tried first, both because Styles menu is located before Tools (just next to Format), and also because it is better fit.

And then I wonder, how should be treated that Design Team proclaims that it "educates users and makes the use as easy as possible" by putting a "questionable" item into Tools? When they acknowledge it "questionable", they agree that at first, when average user hadn't learned its location yet, it *may* be put to either menu without any hindrance. But putting it to Tools, they "educate" users by hiding the Styles menu from their eyesight (if a user would just open it, and passed the items there by his eyes while going to the single item he needs there), and preventing them to collaterally just get an idea what is located there? Users won't open menus that has no known value for them!

They make the use as easy as possible by insisting on two clicks (Tools->Outline numbering) instead of ... tada! ... two clicks (Styles->Outline Numbering)?

Sorry for incoherent rant. I won't continue the offtopic here any more.
Comment 19 V Stuart Foote 2016-11-29 01:00:01 UTC
I don't really see a strong case to change the placement of this or other controls from the Tools menu. 

The "new" Styles menu was assembled and populated with controls that would be obvious elements of applying styles to a document.  Some were pulled from the Format menu, some from the toolbar(s), some from the context menu(s) but assembled to be a consistent UI to encourage application of styles.

The Tools menu on the other hand has long been the repository for more detailed and less obvious UI and document configuration dialogs--Outline Numbering, Line Numbering, Footnotes and Endnotes, etc. Controls that a "Benjamin" user would not spend much time poking at. In truth pretty much anything on the Tools menu is not needed to do simple documents based on default templates with default styles.

"Eve" users know to look to controls on the Tools menu for the configuration elements they need--and for the most part understand where and how they are affecting styles by changes they make using those tools.

For general use, is this change necessary to improve the UI/UX?  I don't think so.

RESOLVED WONTFIX is correct.
Comment 20 Heiko Tietze 2016-11-29 08:06:02 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #18)
> ... Personally I suspect, that Benjamin,
> while searching for a menu item that would make his headers numbered, will
> of course start at Format, but then he will simply look at all other menus,
> of which Styles will be tried first, both because Styles menu is located
> before Tools (just next to Format), and also because it is better fit.

Your advisement would be much more acceptable when arguing this way. Also a simple 'Please reconsider in the design team meeting' helps. In this particular case we all agree on the solution.

> Sorry for incoherent rant. I won't continue the offtopic here any more.

Offensive wording is counterproductive. I'd have said 'passionate argumentation' instead of 'rant' :-).
Comment 21 sophie 2016-11-29 10:17:55 UTC
Hi, my opinion is that it could be moved without confusion. When I trained users on managing long documents, I begin by learning them styles, then I let them search for outline numbering. First they go to Format, then Styles menus, never under Tools... There is a logic on being it under Tools and I understand it, but that's not the first one of our users :) And by the way, in French I translated it Chapter numbering - Sophie
Comment 22 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2016-11-29 15:20:11 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #18)
> And here I start to think that the whole case here is about our Design Team
> is afraid of the word "Style".

The design team doesnt have a problem with the word "Style" when it is clearly defined, as some people use the word style interchangeably with formatting and many discussions get over complicated because of people discussing two different things.

> It seems that the team supposes that Benjamin
> hates the word so much, he will never ever click on that dreadful word in
> menu bar. He will paint the screen area where the menu is located with black
> paint and will forbid his relatives to even whisper it.

The team defined Benjamin as a basic user, who will primarily utilize the toolbar and will have limited usage of the menu bar. The menu bar will primarily be used by intermediate and advanced users like Eve.

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/HIG_foundations#Persona

> But is that so? Do you really think that Benjamin gravitates to "Tools" more
> than to "Styles", provided that he doesn't care about all that power of
> styles, and possibly even doesn't know what is that in office suites?

Benjamin may or may not understand the concept of styles, so he will not use them or will have limited usage of it, and if so, he would gravitate to using the style name drop down control in the toolbar, the styles sidebar deck or the "Styles" menu.

> Don't
> you see how much the generic, common meaning of the word naturally fits
> anything related to appearance? Hadn't you ever heard about "stylish"
> appearance, clothes, haircut, ...? No? Personally I suspect, that Benjamin,
> while searching for a menu item that would make his headers numbered, will
> of course start at Format, but then he will simply look at all other menus,
> of which Styles will be tried first, both because Styles menu is located
> before Tools (just next to Format), and also because it is better fit.

Doubt that Benjamin would be after numbering his headers, as it is an advanced feature that Eve would likely use, but if he wanted to do so with the functionality provided by 'Outline numbering' and is unfamiliar with the menus, I could see him going through the Insert, Format, Styles and Tools menus searching for the feature. But as Benjamin is a basic user, i would presume he would simply just add the numbers before the headings manually.

> And then I wonder, how should be treated that Design Team proclaims that it
> "educates users and makes the use as easy as possible" by putting a
> "questionable" item into Tools? When they acknowledge it "questionable",
> they agree that at first, when average user hadn't learned its location yet,
> it *may* be put to either menu without any hindrance.

The design team can only make things as easy as possible within the limits that the UI and toolkit can provide, and we never put the entry in Tools, it has always been there, we have chosen not to move it as a more suitable location isnt available - Format menu is already over crowded and Style menu wasnt created to have such an entry.

Just so that you know Mike, the design team is made up of members from many other teams like UI, dev, QA, documentation and a11y.
Comment 23 Roman Kuznetsov 2016-11-29 17:25:59 UTC
(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #22)
 
> The design team can only make things as easy as possible within the limits
> that the UI and toolkit can provide, and we never put the entry in Tools, it
> has always been there, we have chosen not to move it as a more suitable
> location isnt available - Format menu is already over crowded and Style menu
> wasnt created to have such an entry.

But, menu Style already exists today! And my enhancement is to move Outline numbering to menu Style! TA-DAM!
Comment 24 Mike Kaganski 2016-11-29 18:30:44 UTC
(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #22)

Well, as I already mentioned, I won't post offtopic here anymore, so I'll be positive. Also, as I said, this problem (i.e. to move or not to move) isn't crucial to ensure next year as the year of LO desktop :)

Still, I wanted to notice that the discussion here reveals some incoherence in expressed views.

1. There is a PoV that Outline Numbering is a special kind of style (that's my PoV, and I want to discuss this topic if there's some interest, possibly in mailing list), while opponents, naturally, have opposite view.

2. Even if we take this that they aren't styles, they undoubtedly have very tight connection to styles. And here I see mutually exclusive statements:
* This dialog is rather the configuration to a direct formatting than a styles feature. I'd keep it where it is because Format, which could be an alternative, is overly large right now (Heiko, comment 4)
* In users perspective (esp. basic users) it is nothing more then turning on numbering of chapters (Cor, comment 8)
* Benjamin does not care  ... While you may acknowledge this as a negation of styles it is actually the opposite. Our goal is to educate users and to make the use as easy as possible. And that means here to put questionable things into another menu (Heiko, comment 15)
* Doubt that Benjamin would be after numbering his headers, as it is an advanced feature that Eve would likely use (Yousuf, comment 22)

So, I see here several reasons to refuse moving the menu. And I just wanted to sort out those of them that are irrelevant here at all:
* That "basic user" would use it, and also that for some reason, this move would make things worse for him; as already evident, *if* Benjamin cared about headers numbering, he would have no usability problems in either case;
* That this is a direct formatting feature. It is not.

So, the last reason that is left is belief that the Outline numbering is not style, but rather "advanced level formatting option/setting for a document", and has too little relation to styles to justify the move. It is worth discussing, as I mentioned above.

I will present my arguments in favor of treating Outline numbering as special kind of List style here, though.
1. Yousuf stated in comment 12:
> Outline numbering ... are advanced level formatting
> options/settings for a document, which is why they werent moved out of the
> tools menu. Styles are tagged group of formatting attributes that can be
> applied to various text or objects of a document, all of which are present
> and modifiable in the styles sidebar.
So I want to show, that Outline numbering (ON) is a "tagged group of formatting attributes", and also that it could "be applied to various text or objects of a document", and it could be "present and modifiable in the styles sidebar".
First one is easy: just like in List style, ON groups multiple settings that are specific to lists (number type, its position, alignment, prefixes/suffixes etc), in one place, and this place has its name ("tag"): "Outline numbering".
Second and third combined: the only thing that prevents from applying it to arbitrary paragraph in a document is just absence of corresponding style in List styles palette. I see it so that if there were an item there named, naturally, "Outline Numbering", then applying such style to any paragraph would make that paragraph to become part of Outline numbering, i.e. to have all the properties ("formatting") set to this style, *including paragraph style*, set for its level 1 (as is normal for other list styles). It is ste same as when we apply a paragraph style with list style set, the paragraph also gets that list style, too.
So, the problem here is not some fundamental property of the concept, but rather absent UI implementation.

2. Yousuf further said in comment 12:
> Being linked/associated with a paragraph style, doesnt make it a style.
So, I want you to notice the resemblance that ON dialog has with last two pages of List style dialog. Yes, the first pages are unnecessary in ON, because only the Outline style lists are useful in ON. But the last pages have basically one-to-one relation. ON has single distinct feature, that makes it special. Still, inclusion of it in List Styles panel wouldn't be something wrong: there are "special" items in other styles, too: basic paragraph and character styles also have their unique properties (e.g., basic character style cannot be edited at all; basic paragraph style cannot be based on another one).
I even made an enhancement request to extend normal list styles to include that ON's unique property: bug 104206. Implementing it would make ON a natural member of other list styles. And anyway, even simply adding the feature to list styles would make its discoverability and usability greatly.

This all wasn't directly meant to widen the scope of this request; I just tried to present an alternative view on this feature, a view that is, IMO, more consistent and logical then simple treatment of the feature as a tool of its own, without close relations to other Writer's features.
Comment 25 Cor Nouws 2016-11-30 06:24:39 UTC
(In reply to sophie from comment #21)
> Hi, my opinion is that it could be moved without confusion. When I trained
> users on managing long documents, I begin by learning them styles, then I
> let them search for outline numbering. First they go to Format, then Styles
> menus, never under Tools... There is a logic on being it under Tools and I
> understand it, but that's not the first one of our users :) And by the way,
> in French I translated it Chapter numbering - Sophie

The same in Dutch. And - despite my comments - I don't have strong objections to moving the menu entry - users get used to it that we change anyway ;)
Comment 26 Eyal Rozenberg 2021-04-02 09:42:06 UTC
I would appreciate discussants' comments on my highly related bug 141453.