hi, looking at the types of uses of Libreoffice Writer, it seems adequate to distinguish book writing, editing, publishing as one special "branch" of activities... it is clear that the majority of people on earth are Chinese and Indian, it is also clear that most people, "users" of Libreoffice use it for office work... So, if Libreoffice was a commercial program (application), the owner corporation could say we don't consider this as a marketable feature whatsoever... BUT... this is not the case, Libreoffice has a mission... which hopefully contains providing a tool for writers, creative projects, artists, projects of humanities, etc... In any case, Libreoffice Writer has evolved to be a very powerful • book writing, • editing, • publishing tool ... And perhaps it is now that a dedicated publisher version of Writer could be forked off Writer... It could be called LibrePublisher... and its mission could be to become the #2 book publishing tool.. in the Western World :) It could be based on the Master Document.. I mean, right now (v7.4) when only LIbreoffice's main window "exists", we can create several types of documents, one of which is a Writer document... but there is not master document for Writer :) AND.. in accordance with this perhaps unspoken underlying concept, when we open (from Writer) a Master Document, a totally different application layout is there... even the toolbars are independent from Writer's (it seems) So, this 'running instance' of Libreoffice could easily be called LibrePublisher... it could be freed from lots of "modules" of office work... and given a new dashboard for controlling styles on a new level... including a Firefox "inspect element" type of hierarchical style view, too, among others.. showing when one style overrides another, or more... and also where exactly that style is defined... and showing which "default" styles are defined... and making it possible to manually select a style from an imported document to override the Master Document's version of the same style, or overwrite it... etc, etc.. until styles cannot be controlled as beautifully as in HTML, there's room for development :) BUT the point for now is only that LibrePublisher could be a large achievement... and in order for you to do that, everything already exist... the benefit would not only be using what's already available in the form of a new instance of the application, but also to be able to focus on its development as a separate thread... right now it would be just the same as opening a master document... but tomorrow a very-very sophisticated development could start, with a clean focus on book and e-book publishing... and the day after tomorrow people will be crazy to get into book editing and typography :) :) Just one persona note: a software capable of adjusting lines to GRID... not only on opposing pages but also in columns, and the reference could be selected too, like "text body", is REALLY an extremely sophisticated tool... with immense depths... something to give free way to evolve on its own way, as it demands :) --- thank you for developing Writer! ----
See no real benefit, the existing ODF Text documents with sections and otherwise the ODF Master Document "sub-document" work flow are suitable to task. See the Writer Guide (chpt 16 of the 7.3 release) [1], or Bruce Byfield's still excellent "Designing with LibreOffice" book (pgs. 334 - 342). A spinoff, presumably under TDF, offers little appeal and considerable effort. Better to focus on improving documentation, and enhancing any any functional deficiencies in either Section based Writer documents, or of the Master Document styling framework. IMHO => WF =-ref-= []1 https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/writer/ [2] https://designingwithlibreoffice.com/download-buy/
Think we take the opposite view and make LibreOffice a publishing tool. As you state, everything is available - with some room to improve (eg. in regards to Draw's DTP capabilities, see bug 99525). Spinning out another application makes no sense. I concur with Stuart's verdict to resolve the ideas as WF.