Re: [office] "User-defined character and paragraph styles" updated

[Oliver-Rainer Wittmann - Software Engineer - Sun Microsystems<Oliver-Rainer.Wittmann@Sun.COM>]

Dear TC members,

David Faure wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I updated
> http://wiki.oasis-open.org/office/User-defined_character_and_paragraph_styles
> (some time ago). What do I need to do for it to be discussed during a
> phone call and voted upon?
> 

I have some comments/questions on this proposal.

(1) Allowing a character style at paragraph styles will in my opinion 
complicate the determination of a certain character property's value for 
a certain paragraph.
Currently we have one or more straight search paths, namely the 
paragraph's paragraph style hierarchy.
When we allow a character style at paragraph styles, these straight 
search paths are no longer straight. At each paragraph style on the 
paragraph style hierarchy the possible existing character style and its 
style hierarchy has to be searched additionally.

Illustration of the search paths for existing ODF:
paragraph
   |
   |
automatic paragraph style
   |
   |
paragraph style
   |
   |
parent paragraph style
   |
   |
granparent paragraph style
   |
   |
...

Illustration of the search paths when allowing a character style at a 
paragraph style:
paragraph
   |
   |
automatic paragraph style -- character style -- char. style -- ...
   |
   |
paragraph style -- character style -- parent char. style -- ...
   |
   |
parent paragraph style -- character style -- parent char. style -- ...
   |
   |
granparent paragraph style -- char. style -- parent char. style -- ...
   |
   |
...


(2) Question:
At the moment the proposal does not state which property value is the 
one which has to be applied, when e.g. the paragraph style of a 
paragraph has a character style with a value for a certain character 
property and the parent paragraph style has a value for the same 
character property.
Does the character style's value or the parent paragraph style's value 
is applied?


(3) There exists already a solution for the use case which is mentioned 
in the proposal. In this solution the properties "arial, 20, bold" have 
only been specified once.
The solution is to use property text:class-names.
For the proposal's use case the user has to specify a paragraph style 
"big" with character properties "arial, 20, bold". Then this paragraph 
style can be used as the value for property text:class-names. Paragraph 
style "big" will be applied after the paragraph's standard paragraph 
style and its style hierarchy has been applied.
Note: Depending on the answer to my question above this solution may be 
different to the one allowing a character style at paragraph styles. But 
I still think that the "text:class-names" solution is powerful enough to 
fulfill the user's needs.


My opinion for this proposal is that it is not necessarily needed to 
allow a character style at a paragraph style to fulfill the proposal's 
use case.



Best regards, Oliver.

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Oliver-Rainer Wittmann (od) - OpenOffice.org Writer
OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS