Bug 118355 - Menu Styles miss "Body Text" entry in Writer
Summary: Menu Styles miss "Body Text" entry in Writer
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.1.0.0.beta2+
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Olivier Hallot
URL:
Whiteboard: target:6.1.0.1 target:6.2.0
Keywords: difficultyBeginner, easyHack, skillDesign
Depends on:
Blocks: Styles-Menu
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2018-06-24 20:15 UTC by Olivier Hallot
Modified: 2018-07-18 13:56 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Olivier Hallot 2018-06-24 20:15:56 UTC
On using the Styles menu of Writer.

The default paragraph style "Heading 1" has "Next style" attribute as "Body Text".

But "Body Text" is not in the list of styles offered by the Styles menu.

To fix it: Add "Body Text" style in menu Style of Writer, probably just below "Default paragraph" style.
Comment 1 Dieter 2018-06-24 20:35:48 UTC
In LO 6.1 next style is "Text Body", which is in the list of styles.
Comment 2 Jean-Baptiste Faure 2018-06-25 07:07:25 UTC
No text body style in the Style menu in LO 6.1.0.0.beta2+ too.
I agree with Olivier, this style should be added to this menu.

I even think it should be added in place of Default Paragraph which should never been used as is. It should only be used as the ancestor of paragraph style to define common attributes.

Status set to NEW.

Best regards. JBF
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2018-06-25 08:03:19 UTC
Don't think it's needed as text body is set automatically. In other words, there is no use case beyond "completeness" which would be solved by this menu entry. 

Remember that we have several ways to apply a style and the menu is now another but limited way.

Leaving the ticket open for more opinions.
Comment 4 Jean-Baptiste Faure 2018-06-25 08:46:57 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #3)
> Don't think it's needed as text body is set automatically. In other words,
> there is no use case beyond "completeness" which would be solved by this
> menu entry. 

I disagree: the main use case I see is replacing a wrong "Default paragraph" style by "Text body". You can't do that with the current menu.

If you start typing before setting an heading paragraph, then you will have a Default paragraph style, not a Text body style.

> 
> Remember that we have several ways to apply a style and the menu is now
> another but limited way.

Yes of course. That said, this menu should promote good practices and I think that the use of Default paragraph as default style is not a good practice.

Best regards. JBF
Comment 5 Regina Henschel 2018-06-25 10:08:12 UTC
I too think, that it should be in the menu. The menu is a quick access tool for those, who cannot use the mouse. Therefore the often needed styles should be there.
Getting "Text body" from "Next style" of a heading does not help if you are editing an existing text or if you need to switch back from "Quotations" or "Preformatted Text".
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2018-06-25 13:50:44 UTC
(In reply to Jean-Baptiste Faure from comment #4)
> I disagree: the main use case I see is replacing a wrong "Default paragraph"
> style by "Text body". You can't do that with the current menu.

Which is bug 47295

(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #5)
> The menu is a quick access tool for those, who cannot use the mouse.

The main menu is not the primary a11y method. There are many ways to change the style and most are more flexible than the main menu.


Actually I'm not fighting against this particular item but the idea to enhance the main menu for no good reason. If someone has a work flow that includes signatures, will another entry be added then?
Comment 7 Kenneth Hanson 2018-06-26 00:32:14 UTC
I think the biggest reason to have both Text Body and Default Paragraph in the menu is as a hint for users that are not familiar with styles. It makes it clear that these are different, and shows their keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+1/2/3 for headings, Ctrl+0 for body text, Ctrl+Shift+0 for Default Paragraph. Such users can easily use the menu until they learn the shortcuts.

Text Body is the primary paragraph style, the level below all headings. Default Paragraph is occasionally comes in handy when you need to get rid of spacing/indentation on a one-time basis (and there is no logical name or urgent need for a new style that changes nothing from the default).

The paradigm is easy to understand when presented like this. The extra keyboard modifier for Default Paragraph makes it obvious that this is not the "normal" style. That being said, bug 47295 really does need to be fixed. I've made this change in my default template long ago, so I didn't realize it hadn't been fixed yet.

The fact that Text Body is also for all practical purposes a "reset" switch for paragraph style is yet another reason to include it, but it's not the main reason.

I contrast, I would oppose adding most other styles because they don't match the above reasoning. They are not part of the heading paradigm, don't (?) have default keyboard shortcuts, and are not critical for all documents.
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2018-06-28 08:28:53 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting and recommend to _exchange_ "Default paragraph" by "Text body". 

In https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/Writer_for_Students/Text_Body a clear warning is given to not use Default, and we must not make it easy to have a bad layout.
Comment 9 Commit Notification 2018-07-02 06:17:40 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "libreoffice-6-1":

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=20a5653e76f4a96f126d52d933e30fa5410a8a09&h=libreoffice-6-1

tdf#118355 Repl Default / Text Body in Style menu

It will be available in 6.1.0.1.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 10 Heiko Tietze 2018-07-02 06:21:31 UTC
Thanks, Olivier!
Comment 11 Commit Notification 2018-07-18 13:56:29 UTC
Olivier Hallot committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=7877296d355da050e9866bccc9ecf631e0633be0

tdf#118355 Repl Default / Text Body in Style menu

It will be available in 6.2.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.