Bug 153735 - [UI] Paragraph Heading levels & Text Body
Summary: [UI] Paragraph Heading levels & Text Body
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Heiko Tietze
URL:
Whiteboard: target:7.6.0
Keywords: difficultyBeginner, easyHack, skillDesign, topicUI
Depends on: Clarify-Chapter-Heading-Outline-Level
Blocks: Paragraph
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2023-02-19 13:06 UTC by Olivier Hallot
Modified: 2023-04-21 06:50 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 2023-02-19 13:06:52 UTC
From the discussion in the documentation forum [1]:

Outline/Heading levels 1 to 10 are not ambiguous.

In Writer user interface, the Outline & List tab of the paragraph style shows one outline level entry as “Text Body”.

    * What is the level of “Text Body”?

    * Why this entry is named Text Body and not any other style name (such as Default Paragraph Style).

    * Why it is not “no level”

    * Why it is not Level 0


Comment by Regina in [1]
“Text Body” is simple wrong. It should be “body text” or “no heading”. It is not about a special paragraph style but means “body text” in the sense of typesetter, see Body text - Wikipedia 2.
Word uses “Body Text”, “Level 1”, “Level 2”, …, “Level 9” in its ‘Outline level’ drop-down list.


[1]https://community.documentfoundation.org/t/heading-level-zero-question/7231
Comment 1 Heiko Tietze 2023-02-23 09:00:46 UTC
Outline level 0 is named Text Body being a source of confusion as we name a paragraph style identically. 

"Body text" sounds bulky but since according to Wikipedia it is a common term this could be an improvement.

"No heading" bears the danger to mix level up with heading. But is easier to understand, IMO.
Comment 2 sdc.blanco 2023-02-23 13:59:29 UTC
About "Text Body"

1. My hypothesis is that the label comes from direct translation of: "der Textkörper"

2. The Danish interface translator ignored the word order and gave the meaningful (and commonly used in Danish): "brødtekst"

3. Changing to "Body Text" will probably not affect the current Spanish interface: "Cuerpo de texto"

4. In short, it appears (from this random sample) that translators find a term that is appropriate for their tradition. Iow changing the label will require a retranslation that may not make any difference (for many languages).

5. Beyond repairing the slight mismatch with standard terminology, what other advantage or improvement would be gained with "Body text"?

In relation to American/British English, my impression is that the expression is not used commonly. 

Some academic style manuals (e.g., Chicago, Oxford) refer to "body text", but a major (social science/education) academic style manual (American Psychological Association) does not.  If a user knows "Body Text", and sees "Text Body" , then it is easy enough to guess its meaning/purpose.

6. In terms of help, a change will require about 13 pages/files to be changed. 

7. NB. this labelling question does not address the "level" question, which seems to be the main focus of the OP.

8. Perhaps more essential than the label is the relation between Default PS and Text Body (see bug 47295). MS Word has the same issue as discussed here: 
https://office-watch.com/2022/why-choose-body-text-vs-normal-word/
Comment 3 sdc.blanco 2023-02-23 14:05:24 UTC
What is problem or situation that motivates the OP?
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2023-02-24 08:33:24 UTC
(In reply to sdc.blanco from comment #2)
> About "Text Body"

It's not about the name of a paragraph style but the outline level "Text Body" being totally wrong. Level 0 should become something like "Body Text" or "No heading" - and to pick up your argument I think the localization of Text Body vs. Body Text will be a challenge for translators. "No Heading" is my favorite.
Comment 5 sdc.blanco 2023-02-24 11:37:58 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4)
> It's not about the name of a paragraph style but the outline level "Text
> Body" being totally wrong. 
If the issue is the label shown in the dropdown box for "Outline Level" in the Outline & List tab (a focus in the OP), then I agree that it could be meaningful to change the label "Text Body" in the assigning an outline level. 
Propose "[None]" as the first option in dropdown box.
(i.e., "Text Body" -> "[None]")

Then Text Body PS and Default PS would have outline level "[None]" 

The definition of "Heading" would become:

   Any paragraph with an outline level different than "None" is a heading.

Should not give any comprehension or translation problems.

- "[None]" would also be consistent with "Promote Outline Level" command (i.e., cannot Promote 1 to None);
- "None" is used in many other places in the UI when nothing is applied (e.g., character style, numbering).
- "None" would appropriately break the association between the document (outline) structure and a PS with outline level [None].  
- Would explain why "None" does not appear as a "level" in the Heading Numbering dialog. 

About "no heading"

Maybe "no heading" was proposed to be parallel to "No List" (in Outline & List)?
But "no heading" inverts the semantic relation between "outline level" and "heading".  Outline level is a paragraph attribute, used for different purposes (e.g., to assign index levels), not only to define "heading".
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2023-03-09 16:58:23 UTC
We discussed the topic in the design meeting.

The proposed label "[None]" seems to be the best solution. 

The label is defined as an entry of comboLB_OUTLINE_LEVEL in  sw/uiconfig/swriter/ui/numparapage.ui
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2023-03-09 17:06:27 UTC
https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/148562
Comment 8 Commit Notification 2023-03-10 09:11:20 UTC
Heiko Tietze committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/dc238d75ba2ed49d76c1782043817f57f0a560b3

Resolves tdf#153735 - No outline level should not be called Text Body

It will be available in 7.6.0.

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

Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.
Comment 9 Commit Notification 2023-03-10 09:22:24 UTC
Seth Chaiklin committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/help/commit/f9538fa1e908f7a8ecbd5f0d27c4ff72a53ad294

tdf#153735 changes because outline level Text Body -> "None"
Comment 10 Commit Notification 2023-03-10 11:18:49 UTC
Seth Chaiklin committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

https://git.libreoffice.org/core/commit/8ceb85cafb0af066c5b8466da61a46eef2779dc6

tdf#153735 update tooltip because outline level "Text Body" -> "None"

It will be available in 7.6.0.

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

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