Feature Requests - Style Sheets & Printing Controls...

[Doug Brightwell]

On 4/24/03 5:16 PM, "ibn Ezra" <ibnezra at mac.com> wrote:

> While OO inherits a bit of typographic finesse from OSX itself,  more
> control over vertical spacing (leading, leading & trailing spacing, and
> control over widows & orphans) and page geometry (margins, baseline or
> leading grid, etc.) would go a long way toward creating more attractive
> documents.
> 
> An 'orphan' in typographic lingo is where a paragraph begins on the
> last line of one page and is brought to completion on the next. A
> 'widow' is where a paragraph concludes on on the first line of a page,
> leaving a single line at the top of that page. Bookmakers and designers
> have traditionally resolved this visual problem by forcing an 'orphan'
> to the top of the next page, or bringing forward a second line of text
> from one page to next in the case of a 'widow.'
> 
> When presenting an outline it is probably even more important to ensure
> that a header is not separated from its children... or to avoid having
> a single line in an outline cast adrift from the remainder of its
> parents and siblings on the previous page.



I totally agree.

The whole point of an outline is to organize your thoughts and get your
brain wrapped around difficult or complex content. It's an inherently visual
way of working with information. The meaning and organization is not just in
the words, it's in the visual relationships between lines and blocks of
text.

Spacing and position on the pages conveys meaning.

I think OO need to make good on this with more robust formatting and style
tools. Outlines need a variety of methods for making the hierarchy of the
the content pop-out visually. Indents alone is not a sufficient spacing clue
and does not insure that the outline hierarchy really reads at a glance. You
also need line and paragraph spacing and the other features mentioned in the
previous post.

Right now, despite their level and degree of indent, all lines appear equal
because line spacing is equal. And degree of indent is unfortunately not
user definable.

The amount of visual clutter needs to be user definable as well. Sometimes
one might want maximum information with lot's of icons, triangles, bullets,
check boxes, etc. But, they can make it harder to grasp the visual spacing
that conveys hierarchical meaning. I think all that visual clutter should be
able to be shown or hidden by the user, or made a different color or size.

For example, my eyes have to work too hard to look beyond the triangles to
see the organization of my outline. I'd like to grey them out, or make them
smaller, or have the option of selecting from a variety of symbols, etc. in
order to tune how much visual attention they require.

In my mind, an outliner is only secondarily about words and reading. First
and foremost, it's about visual clues and managing visual attention.

FWIW,
Doug

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Doug Brightwell
doug at dougbrightwell.com
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