Bug 163123 - Trouble with similar styles from the template when cooperating with others who use different language versions
Summary: Trouble with similar styles from the template when cooperating with others wh...
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
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Reported: 2024-09-24 10:37 UTC by Adalbert Hanßen
Modified: 2024-10-14 13:20 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

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Description Adalbert Hanßen 2024-09-24 10:37:40 UTC
Description:
If several people are working on a shared document and they are using different language versions of LO Writer, then it is easy to accumulate several versions of the same template in a document. This is because the predefined template names are named in different language versions, e.g. “Preformatted Text”-"Vorformatiert", “Source Text”-"Quelltext" etc.

It is good advice to use as few different prototypes as possible. Therefore multiplying instances one and the same thing is counterproductive!

Unfortunately, you cannot rename the name of a style sheet element: The field responsible for this in the Edit Style > General > Name dialogs is unfortunately greyed out.

If this were not the case, a lot would have been gained.

Of course, it would be even better if there was something to edit style sheets on a large scale with the options:

* replace one style element with another anywhere in the document (this would allow you to merge several similar ones, currently one can achieve this with AltSearch.oxt, but it is very very slow and does not work in tables)

* If you could edit the template elements in table form: rows=template element, columns: their properties - perhaps even with an *.ott file. Maybe something like this already exists?

* lock existing template elements in a document (so that they are no longer offered for selection),

* determine the hierarchy of templates (e.g. if variants only differ in one or two aspects)

Steps to Reproduce:
Work on a document in an English and another language version.
Assign some standard templates in each of them.

Actual Results:
among applied styles, similar style names in different languages appear.

Expected Results:
That's natural, but is a nuisance, because you can't fix it in Edit Styles > General > Name: This field is greyed out!

I would be happy if it were not greyed out. But one also needs something to merge prototypes!


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 25.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: f9b5dad09dbdd56ff064096695a946b03e9e2914
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 6.8; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

But this enhancement request is not version specific!
Comment 1 Dieter 2024-10-11 08:08:39 UTC
Adalbert, thank you for reporting the problem. I'm not sure about the second step "Assign some standard templates in each of them." How do you do that? AFAIK every user has the standard (default) template.


If you use custom styles, you can change the style name. So you can't change name of styles that are part of the program and this makes sense to me.
Comment 2 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-10-11 09:23:15 UTC
(In reply to Dieter from comment #1)
> Adalbert, thank you for reporting the problem. I'm not sure about the second
> step "Assign some standard templates in each of them." How do you do that?
> AFAIK every user has the standard (default) template.
> ...


By "assign some standard templates to then" I meant for example: 

* make some paragraphs "Body text", 

* some others "Heading 1", 

* some others "Preformatted text"

and so on.

You are right, I can rename templates which I have created myself. But the names of "standard ones" are locked. If they were not locked, I could adapt them. But there is no merging operation.

Unfortunately the standard templates seem to be named differently in different language version:

* "Body text" - "Textkörper"

* "Heading 1" - "Überschrift 1"

and so on. In documents which have been worked on with different versions and language versions of LibreOffice and which have been merged before with predecessor documents with a similar history, it is easy to accumulate a lot of styles and therefore we need some means to mange them: e.g. if there are character styles named "Source text" and another one called "Source text 16" (e.g. to be used in headlines), if in one of the ancestor files this privately created one would be named "Source Text16", after pasting things with text formatted with them, the target file gets them both. The only way to merge them into one seems to be via AltSearch.oxt and find all occurrences of the to be changed one of the two, then use "Find All" (which takes very long) and while they are marked, assign the other style to them.

What you say about custom styles: Are their names always in English? I Think, I have seen their names in German too. Are are two names associated to each style, an English one plus a localized one of the installed package (which are equal in an English installation). Does the UI show the localized name then? But I have seen cases with similar styles with different language names in one document and sometimes I had to use AltSearch.oxt to merge them.

If the user would be offered a merging operation, i.e.

* assign target template to everything tagged as source template
* in the variants paragraph templates/character templates

this would also be solve the task of streamlining the use of styles in a document which has been worked upon by different versions of LibreOffice.
Comment 3 Dieter 2024-10-13 11:17:44 UTC
Adalbert, thank you for further explanation. First of all it should be clear, that bug report is about styles (Formatvorlagen) and not about templates (Dokumentvorlagen). So we shouldn't mix that two words.

I'm really not sure, if I've grasped the problem. Let's focus on styles provided by LO itself.

Steps:
1. Open a new document with English UI
2. Add some paragraphs and assign them to paragraph syles "Body Text", "Heading 1" and "Title"
3. Select "Applied Styles" from dropdown menu to make applied styles more visible: We have the three styles from step 2 and their parent style "Default Paragpraph Style" and "Heading"
4. Save document
5. Change UI to German (Tools -> Options -> Languages and Locales -> General -> Unser Interface and restart LO
6. Open document and see applied styles (Verwendete vorlagen)

Actual and expected reusult
Standard | Fließtext | Überschrift | Überschrift 1 | Titel

So I don't see a problem here. Do you agree?


The problems you describe does only happen with custom styles. Steps:
a) In German UI create a new style and name it "Beispiel 1". Save document, change to English UI
b) open document. Paragraph style is "Beispiel 1". 

Would you expect a translation here? I don't think that this is possible.

But problem you describe is not related to working in different languages. If you work in a group with several people and everybody is allowed to create his own styles it will become a mess in most cases. So for me solution is to have a good working plan.

If you haven't already had a look at the manual to learn more about working with styles, that's perhaps a good idea

Link to german manuals
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/1/1b/WriterKapitel8FormatvorlagenGrundlagenLO242.odt
and
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/2/27/WriterKapitel09FormatvorlagenErweitertLO242.odt
Comment 4 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-10-13 14:38:45 UTC
(In reply to Dieter from comment #3)
> ...
> Steps:
> 1. Open a new document with English UI
> 2. Add some paragraphs and assign them to paragraph syles "Body Text",
> "Heading 1" and "Title"
> 3. Select "Applied Styles" from dropdown menu to make applied styles more
> visible: We have the three styles from step 2 and their parent style
> "Default Paragpraph Style" and "Heading"
> 4. Save document
> 5. Change UI to German (Tools -> Options -> Languages and Locales -> General
> -> Unser Interface and restart LO
> ...

Dieter, thank you for your comment on the nomenclature "styles" vs. "template". I was more familiar with the term "style"s for components of a format template (German: Formatvorlage) from my work with Mathematica than "templates" and I thought "templates" appeared here more often for them and therefore I adapted myself to this term. From now on I will use the term “styles” when referring to style sheets/templates (Formatvorlagen).

Currently I use
Version: 25.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: f9b5dad09dbdd56ff064096695a946b03e9e2914
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 6.8; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

I did the first of your proposed steps. I observed that another style "Heading" was not used but it was listed in the template when it was set to only show applied styles. "Heading" was shown in addition to the applied style "Heading 1" after step 3 (as you expected, but why "Heading").

I can't slelect the  German UI. Probably I have to downlaod and install it. Where do I get the right package of the German UI in order to continue the test?
Comment 5 Dieter 2024-10-13 15:14:15 UTC
(In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #4)
> I can't slelect the  German UI. Probably I have to downlaod and install it.
> Where do I get the right package of the German UI in order to continue the
> test?

As far as I know, you just install actual master and choose the languages for UI during process of installation.
Comment 6 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-10-13 17:38:43 UTC
(In reply to Dieter from comment #5)
> (In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #4)
> > I can't slelect the  German UI. Probably I have to downlaod and install it.
> > Where do I get the right package of the German UI in order to continue the
> > test?
> 
> As far as I know, you just install actual master and choose the languages
> for UI during process of installation.

I just installed 

Version: 25.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: d649e297fde11efab2c681605e27e513a183e314
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 6.8; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (de_DE.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

which I had downloaded from 

https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/24.8.2/rpm/x86_64/LibreOffice_24.8.2_Linux_x86-64_rpm_langpack_de.tar.gz

I installed it in the usual way with the command sudo dpkg -i *.deb from the directory, to which I had unpacked the gz file.

This version only lets me switch the UI language between "Default English (USA)" and "English (USA)" - I have no idea what's the difference. Probably one still has to download the right package, but I don't know if the translated UI from this site works: https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/24.8.2/rpm/x86_64/LibreOffice_24.8.2_Linux_x86-64_rpm_langpack_de.tar.gz. It would be one from 24.8 - and before I take the effort installing that I first ask you, if such a hybrid version would help us in this test (if such a hybrid would be made by intalling that).
Comment 7 Dieter 2024-10-13 18:01:26 UTC
I don't use Linux version of LO, so I can't help. Perhaps you can ask at ask.libreoffice.org
Comment 8 Adalbert Hanßen 2024-10-14 13:20:05 UTC
(In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #6)
> (In reply to Dieter from comment #5)
> > (In reply to Adalbert Hanßen from comment #4)
> > > I can't slelect the  German UI. Probably I have to downlaod and install it.
> > > Where do I get the right package of the German UI in order to continue the
> > > test?
> > 
> > As far as I know, you just install actual master and choose the languages
> > for UI during process of installation.
> 
> I just installed 
> 
> Version: 25.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
> ...
> 
> which I had downloaded from 
> 
> https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/24.8.2/rpm/x86_64/
> LibreOffice_24.8.2_Linux_x86-64_rpm_langpack_de.tar.gz
> 
> I installed it in the usual way with the command sudo dpkg -i *.deb from the
> directory, to which I had unpacked the gz file.
> ...

The link above points to the langpack for the 24.8 version, but this is a 25.2 version. So this probably explains why switching to a German UI did not work.

At ask.libreoffice.org I was told to download the German UI for the 25.2 version from https://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/master/Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@tb99-TDF/current/.

I'll try Dieter's steps later.