Description: Writer does revert a paragraph to single column setup which has earlier been setup with more than a single columns Steps to Reproduce: 1. prepare a Writer sheet 2. hit carriage return several times to create several lines in a document 3. prepare a number of line by marking them as highlighted 4. go to menu > Format > Columns and select 2 or more columns 5. you may write something into the paragraph that consists of several columns 6. try to select a few of those lines within that Columns 7. try to revert that lines from a multiple column setup into a single one column setup Actual Results: a paragraph with multiple column setup won't revert back to single column. In fact, a highlighted paragraph that had already been selected containing multiple columns appears to have only 1 column in the dialog window that appears, when trying to alter the column setup of that paragraph. Expected Results: changing paragraphs with columns should be able to revert to one column setup Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: when trying to modify a paragraph that consists of several columns, the dialog window that opens for alternating the column setup should indicate the correct number of columns within that highlighted area (paragraph)
Created attachment 200767 [details] collection of columns in a writer document test yourself to select a paragraph trying to revert them down to a single column paragraph.
This is not a bug. Setting columns actually is a shortcut for creating a section (which properties define the limited columnar layout). The nesting nature of elements in Writer makes it possible to make nested sections for parts of text inside the section - so you can have part of text with additional columns. The idea is, that you may have a text like ===== text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text 2-col section start text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text section end text text text text text text text text text text text text ... ===== and you may want to decide to make part of text in it to have own columns, like ===== text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text 2-col section start text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text section 2 text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text end sect text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text section end text text text text text text text text text text text text ... ===== Note that *both* the outer section, and "section 2" have 2-column layout; never there is any kind of "3-column layout". For that to happen, when you select the text inside the outer section to define inner columns, you naturally see a *single* column; and you may increase it to two, to get the desired result. Having it 2, and increasing it to three, would be incorrect - that layout would be not like what I shown, but something like ===== text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text 2-col section start text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text section 2 text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text end sect text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text section end text text text text text text text text text text text text ... ===== The expected operation is that when you need to stop the effects of the current section, you simply continue outside of it. But likely, what we need is a way to split a section at the current cursor position ... Asking UX eval.
Oh wait, what a nonsense I wrote! I did that by memory, and that is the worst thing I do from time to time. I must hit myself on the face every time I don't test before writing. Our nested sections work differently. An inner section *actually split the outer one*. So - creating an inner section with two columns, and then changing it to a single column, could be a workaround.
Created attachment 200771 [details] Screencast I can easily change 2 columns into 1 and just remove the section afterwards.
Created attachment 200772 [details] A screencast how to do the wanted layout currently Heiko: this is what this issue is about. I did the layout that OP wanted; the problem here was, that when I selected part of the text inside the two-column section, and opened the columns tool, it showed "1 column"; and it was not possible to just click OK and have the new section. I start to think, that OP is right, and if the dialog opened with "2", then changing to 1 would just work, and not create any kind of a problem. I think it should be rare, that people open that dialog inside a 2-columnar layout, just to create the *same* 2-columnar layout without any modifications.
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #5) > the problem here was, that when I selected part of the text inside the > two-column section, and opened the columns tool, it showed "1 column"... Struggled myself in the screencast with the selection. Obviously you need to select all in the section, which is blocked by the inner part in your case. Since UX was summoned: does it make sense to change the number of columns if the section has children? If not, why don't we disable the controls in this case.
We discussed the topic in the design meeting. The confusion results from different paths with either Format > Column, which results in a wrong number of columns, or Edit Section > Columns... returning the correct number. It's an ordinary bug.