Re: [users] Strange "feature"/Travers/Barker
bg wrote: At 21:37 30/04/2009 -0700, Brewster Gillett wrote: Space bar is on strike. In both Calc and Writer, it will give me one space, and one only, then no response from the space bar to subsequent requests. Am I caught in some kind of Template Warp? Should I ask Scotty to beam me up? Brian Barker wrote: What could cause such a thing is that you've discovered the office suite of the future! Multiple spaces are a typewriter artifice, of course, and totally out of place in a word processor, where formatting should be achieved with tabs, margins, table cells, justification, paragraph and character spacing, and so on. Any number of consecutive presses of the space bar should indicate a word break and nothing more. The amount of space this creates - if any - should depend on the context. Allowing multiple spaces is a sop to the typewriter brigade. Brewster replies: Good one! You got me pegged, as a member of the typewriter brigade. I will only observe that there is no way this typewriter brigadier will ever fully adapt to ceding control to that extent to the software until his word processor has the most useful feature of the old Word Perfect; "REVEAL CODES". I really despise flying blind, and trusting to some programmer's concept of how word processing should work. Give me "REVEAL CODES" and I will eventually adapt, yea, even unto (gasp!) the dreaded templates - because a properly implemented "REVEAL CODES" provides us with a safety net, and abolishes guesswork almost entirely. I am not especially enamored of an office of the future where I have to painstakingly create a set of option decisions to format my work, then trust entirely to the finished appearance to inform me whether my formatting decisions are functioning as intended. That works fine up until some element of it *doesn't*, and which point the lucky user gets to fish around in endless optioning submenus trying to remember which obscure one is causing his text to resemble a corn maze Thanks for the tip, BTW. I don't know how that option got changed, but I have a suspicion, as I have had a couple of guests use the software just recently :-) Brewster Brewster, I'm curious as to what you currently use multiple spaces for, that you couldn't use things like tabs for, without the requirement of the "reveal code" functionality? For tab stops, as an example, it's quite easy to see what they're doing (where they are located, etc.) with no reveal code. Also, if what you're doing would lend itself to tables instead of tabs, same thing -- I'm not sure why this reveal code option would be needed. But I don't have any understanding of what you're trying to do when you use multiple spaces, so maybe you could explain that.
Re: [users] Strange "feature"/Travers/Barker
On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 10:46, bg wrote: >as a member of the typewriter brigade. Treating word processors as typewriters is an abuse of both typewriters, and word processors. > Give me "REVEAL CODES" and I will eventually adapt, yea, even unto (gasp!) > the dreaded templates There is an OOo 1.1.5 macro that provides reveal codes for calc, and a different one that provides reveal codes for Writer. With some tweaking, they can be changed for OOo 3.x. Somehow, I doubt that even if you were to use it, you'd be happy with what it provides. > because a properly implemented "REVEAL CODES" provides us with a safety net, > and abolishes guesswork almost entirely. For stream editors, that is theoretically possible. However, OOo is not a stream editor. > then trust entirely to the finished appearance to inform me whether my > formatting decisions are functioning as intended. That occurs only when somebody uses a mixture of styles, and manual formatting. FWIW, if you dock stylist, set it to applied styles, for character formatting, and configure the formatting toolbar to show the name of the style, and the attributes of the style, you'll duplicate the functionality of reveal codes --- if you never do any manual formatting. jonathon - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [users] Strange "feature"/Travers/Barker
Gene Young wrote: bg wrote: At 21:37 30/04/2009 -0700, Brewster Gillett wrote: Space bar is on strike. In both Calc and Writer, it will give me one space, and one only, then no response from the space bar to subsequent requests. Am I caught in some kind of Template Warp? Should I ask Scotty to beam me up? Brian Barker wrote: What could cause such a thing is that you've discovered the office suite of the future! Multiple spaces are a typewriter artifice, of course, and totally out of place in a word processor, where formatting should be achieved with tabs, margins, table cells, justification, paragraph and character spacing, and so on. Any number of consecutive presses of the space bar should indicate a word break and nothing more. The amount of space this creates - if any - should depend on the context. Allowing multiple spaces is a sop to the typewriter brigade. Oh, and if you really want to return to the past, just go to Tools | AutoCorrect... | Options and remove the tick from "Ignore double spaces". I trust this helps. Brian Barker (donning his flame-proof clothing) Brewster replies: Good one! You got me pegged, as a member of the typewriter brigade. I will only observe that there is no way this typewriter brigadier will ever fully adapt to ceding control to that extent to the software until his word processor has the most useful feature of the old Word Perfect; "REVEAL CODES". I really despise flying blind, and trusting to some programmer's concept of how word processing should work. Give me "REVEAL CODES" and I will eventually adapt, yea, even unto (gasp!) the dreaded templates - because a properly implemented "REVEAL CODES" provides us with a safety net, and abolishes guesswork almost entirely. Brewster VIEW > Nonprinting Characters (Ctrl F10) - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [users] Strange "feature"/Travers/Barker
bg wrote: At 21:37 30/04/2009 -0700, Brewster Gillett wrote: Space bar is on strike. In both Calc and Writer, it will give me one space, and one only, then no response from the space bar to subsequent requests. Am I caught in some kind of Template Warp? Should I ask Scotty to beam me up? Brian Barker wrote: What could cause such a thing is that you've discovered the office suite of the future! Multiple spaces are a typewriter artifice, of course, and totally out of place in a word processor, where formatting should be achieved with tabs, margins, table cells, justification, paragraph and character spacing, and so on. Any number of consecutive presses of the space bar should indicate a word break and nothing more. The amount of space this creates - if any - should depend on the context. Allowing multiple spaces is a sop to the typewriter brigade. Oh, and if you really want to return to the past, just go to Tools | AutoCorrect... | Options and remove the tick from "Ignore double spaces". I trust this helps. Brian Barker (donning his flame-proof clothing) Brewster replies: Good one! You got me pegged, as a member of the typewriter brigade. I will only observe that there is no way this typewriter brigadier will ever fully adapt to ceding control to that extent to the software until his word processor has the most useful feature of the old Word Perfect; "REVEAL CODES". I really despise flying blind, and trusting to some programmer's concept of how word processing should work. Give me "REVEAL CODES" and I will eventually adapt, yea, even unto (gasp!) the dreaded templates - because a properly implemented "REVEAL CODES" provides us with a safety net, and abolishes guesswork almost entirely. Brewster VIEW > Nonprinting Characters (Ctrl 10) -- Gene Y. - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
Re: [users] Strange "feature"/Travers/Barker
> At 21:37 30/04/2009 -0700, Brewster Gillett wrote: > >Space bar is on strike. In both Calc and Writer, it will give me one > >space, and one only, then no response from the space bar to > >subsequent requests. Am I caught in some kind of Template Warp? > >Should I ask Scotty to beam me up? Brian Barker wrote: > What could cause such a thing is that you've discovered the office > suite of the future! Multiple spaces are a typewriter artifice, of > course, and totally out of place in a word processor, where > formatting should be achieved with tabs, margins, table cells, > justification, paragraph and character spacing, and so on. Any > number of consecutive presses of the space bar should indicate a word > break and nothing more. The amount of space this creates - if any - > should depend on the context. Allowing multiple spaces is a sop to > the typewriter brigade. > > Oh, and if you really want to return to the past, just go to Tools | > AutoCorrect... | Options and remove the tick from "Ignore double spaces". > > I trust this helps. > > Brian Barker (donning his flame-proof clothing) Brewster replies: Good one! You got me pegged, as a member of the typewriter brigade. I will only observe that there is no way this typewriter brigadier will ever fully adapt to ceding control to that extent to the software until his word processor has the most useful feature of the old Word Perfect; "REVEAL CODES". I really despise flying blind, and trusting to some programmer's concept of how word processing should work. Give me "REVEAL CODES" and I will eventually adapt, yea, even unto (gasp!) the dreaded templates - because a properly implemented "REVEAL CODES" provides us with a safety net, and abolishes guesswork almost entirely. I am not especially enamored of an office of the future where I have to painstakingly create a set of option decisions to format my work, then trust entirely to the finished appearance to inform me whether my formatting decisions are functioning as intended. That works fine up until some element of it *doesn't*, and which point the lucky user gets to fish around in endless optioning submenus trying to remember which obscure one is causing his text to resemble a corn maze Thanks for the tip, BTW. I don't know how that option got changed, but I have a suspicion, as I have had a couple of guests use the software just recently :-) Brewster -- ** W. Brewster Gillett b...@fdi.usPortland, OR USA ** Simply because you don't like to hear it, that doesn't make it untrue. ** - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
