Currently it's not obvious to users which are the ranges of application of a page style: when user naively selects something and applies a page style (expecting the selection to become placed on the selected page style), the actually changed range is (unexpectedly for the uneducated user) greater, specifically from the previous page-break-with-page-style to the next page-break-with-page-style (in case when they are absent in the document, the whole document will be reformatted with the style). Even for a user who knows how the page styles work, it's not obvious where the page style application range starts and stops - because the page breaks all look identical, and unless currently applied page styles have obvious differences (and the different page style is actually selected in the break), one would have to check every break properties to find out, or apply-and-check. The proposal is to add some decorations to the blue dashed line that symbolizes the page breaks, that would show the page break's additional properties: specifically, that page style is selected here; and also (for completeness) that page number is set here.
+1 from my side for this idea.
A code pointer: SwPageBreakWin::Paint in sw/source/uibase/docvw/PageBreakWin.cxx. Possibly a page icon (something like small LO icon), and a "#" icon, could be inserted to the left part of the line, so that instead of - - - - - - - ... it would look like [] # - - - - ... (note that the left position of the [] (symbolizing the rectangular "page" icon) is the same as currently the left point of the dashed line, so that the icons are not extending outside of the page left edge)
There is the context menu that shows up when the cursor rests on the break for a few seconds. This menu gives access to Paragraph: Text flow. Not sure that we can do better with text at the blue line (and don't understand what exactly should be there).
Created attachment 155569 [details] Mockup for the icons in the page break dashed line Please note that the menu is absolutely unrelated thing, and doesn't help seeing the properties of the break without inspecting it - i.e., just by scrolling through the document and looking at the document content and formatting (with formatting marks enabled).
So the one icon (the first in your mockup) means a different page style is applied and the second shows up if the page number is set manually (or if there is a way to modify it automatically). And no icon means off. Left/right alternating documents have the icon between every page, for example. That requires very clear symbols - I wouldn't know the meaning without reading this topic for quite a while. The alternative is to grey out icons, which is less optimal since the new icons would always be there and rather confuse the Benjamin users who don't care. But at least a tooltip is needed.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #5) > So the one icon (the first in your mockup) means a different page style is > applied ... > Left/right alternating documents have the icon between every page, for > example. No. The first icon means "a page style (not necessarily different) is manually applied here". I.e., this page starts with an object (paragraph, table) with "page break with page style" checked in its Text Flow tab. It means that: 1. when the page style changes automatically, e.g. by following page styles' "Next Style" property (like in alternating left/right case), there's no such icon at each page; 2. when the style assigned to this page break is the same as was previously, i.e. the next page has the same style as the previous, but the break still has that "with page style" set, the icon will be there.
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #2) > A code pointer: SwPageBreakWin::Paint in > sw/source/uibase/docvw/PageBreakWin.cxx. Wrong code pointer: the correct one is SwDashedLine::Paint in sw/source/uibase/docvw/DashedLine.cxx
*** Bug 134395 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
+1 to this improvement.
Is it better to have text or symbols? Symbols must be explained by help and tooltips.
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #2) > A code pointer: SwPageBreakWin::Paint in > sw/source/uibase/docvw/PageBreakWin.cxx. > > Possibly a page icon (something like small LO icon), and a "#" icon, could > be inserted to the left part of the line, so that instead of > > - - - - - - - ... > > it would look like > > [] # - - - - ... > > (note that the left position of the [] (symbolizing the rectangular "page" > icon) is the same as currently the left point of the dashed line, so that > the icons are not extending outside of the page left edge) it would look like as dashed line with a useful text inside! -----------with a new page style------------ -----------with a new page number------------ -----------with a new page style and a new number------------
(In reply to Thomas Lendo from comment #10, to Roman Kuznetsov from comment #11) It's entirely up to design team to decide which specific kind of decoration to use; this used to have "needsUXEval" in keywords ;-) The idea is that *some* way to display this information right when seeing the break line is missing and *is* necessary. Please provide the definite answer on the kind of decoration as team sees the best, so that (potential, still missing :-)) easy-hacker could work on the implementation :-)
How's if the name of the page style before the page break and after the page break are displayed as text right on top and below the break line?
*** Bug 136490 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***