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------- Additional comments from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Nov 28 03:48:33 +0000 2007 ------- I haven't used MS Word in over a year... and that was Word 2000. What I remember is you could pile up spaces in the right-hand margin. Another behavior I remember about Word that is different than OO Write: When centering text Word ignores trailing spaces on the line. So you cannot nudge your text to the left by sticking extra spaces on the right. I prefer Word's handling of centered text. @ barryii Your proposal at "#desc52" is similar to mine, except that you "glue" the cursor to the character that precedes it, while I propose "gluing" the cursor to the character that follows it. Both have a certain logic and make sense. In your method when a typist sticks a string of spaces at the end of the line, the cursor (and presumably the pilcrow that follows it) gets pushed into the margin, possibly quite far into the margin. From a user interface point-of-view this will probably work best if you allow the window to scroll sideways so the typist can always see the cursor in its correct position, relative to the spaces typed. In my method I wanted to snap the cursor down to the next line at the first practical moment, in effect saying to the typist, "Put your text here." If he continues to tap the space bar the cursor does not advance on the new line, but spaces pile up in the margin of the previous line. Another message I wanted to give the typist by this action is, "No matter how many spaces you stick in here, they are not gonna go at the beginning of the new line." Another thing I was trying to do with my method is to have a behavior that works without scrolling sideways to see all those spaces. That is, the user knows there are bunches of spaces (perhaps they can see only a dozen), but they don't always know exactly how many. When the typist has "show nonprinting characters" turned off, your method is better. When the typist has "show nonprinting characters" turned on, both methods are equally good. Not quite, "six of one, half-dozen of the other," because the two methods provide a different user experience. Perhaps a comparison. The setup: the user has typed a word and the end of the word is right up against the margin. The next character the user will type is a space. In all three methods, before the user types the space the cursor is at the edge of the margin and the pilcrow is in the margin. Present method: After typing the space there is no visual change. The user must type the first character of the next word to see any change. If the user types another space, still no visible change (although both spaces are there). Your proposed method: After typing the space, a visible space is in the margin followed by the pilcrow with the cursor planted between them. To snap the cursor down to the next line the user must type the first character of the next word. If the user types another space a second space appears in the margin and pushes the cursor and pilcrow deeper into the margin. My proposed method: After typing the space, a visible space is in the margin (but only visible if "show nonprinting characters" is on) and the cursor has snapped down to the next line along with the pilcrow, waiting for the user to type the first letter of the next word. If the user types another space a second space appears behind the first in the margin of the previous line, and neither cursor nor pilcrow moves. I was trying to create a spec where horizontal scrolling was not necessary if the user puts a zillion spaces on a line. However, with "show nonprinting characters" turned off, my method has a distinct disadvantage for those who are in the archaic habit of putting two spaces between sentences. Personally, I could live with either technique. It would probably be best to include the tab character along with the space character when determining word-wrap. After all, a tab is basically a variable width space. @ barryii For your new proposal of showing subsequent spaces on the new line (after two spaces), I say, "Let's not." We're talking about automatic word-wrap behavior here. To let someone diddle formatting by dumping in a bunch of spaces in the middle of paragraphs is pure trouble. Change the font, font size, margins, paper size, or just edit the previous line, and all that manual formatting ends up as junk. Then what do you do about the complication where the two spaces at then end of the line are well within the text zone (not the margin). As you add spaces do they pop down to the next line, or do they stay on the first line until you get two in the margin? The only time I can think of someone wanting to do something like this is if they are trying to fake a block-quote by squeezing the margins of a paragraph. What they *should* do is use an existing block-quote paragraph style or create a custom paragraph style. Of course some people don't do styles (they haven't figured them out yet). Most inexpert users can probably figure out how to select a paragraph, grab the little margin handles, then slide the margins for that one paragraph inward to squeeze it. For people who are too dumb for even that, they could insert a soft-return at the end of each line, then insert their spaces or tabs or whatever on the fresh line. If someone wants to stick six spaces between two words in the middle of a paragraph, let them. If those spaces happen to fall on the line such that automatic word-wrap gets involved, then shove all those extra spaces in the margin and start the next line with the first character of the next word. Let's not mess around second-guessing what the user wants. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please do not reply to this automatically generated notification from Issue Tracker. Please log onto the website and enter your comments. http://qa.openoffice.org/issue_handling/project_issues.html#notification --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
