Page Setup usability problem

[Derek Motonaga]

This is some bug you're encountering here. It should say "All Pages"  
as soon as you select to not customize the first page. And as you've  
seen, it behaves correctly with new files for you. I'm going to email  
off the list so we try to figure out what's going on.

-- 
Derek M.
Support Ninja
The Omni Group



On Mar 27, 2007, at 5:40 PM, Rachel Cobleigh wrote:

> In the attached document, my current menu looks like this:
>
> All Except First Page (selected)
> Customize First Page
> Customize Odd and Even Pages
>
> Goal: I want to make all the page headers the same.
>
> How do I get to the "Don't Customize First Page" option you mentioned?
> I clicked around to see. From the point described above, I clicked on
> "Customize First Page". (Remember: I want to make all page headers the
> same, so clicking on this "Customize First Page" is COMPLETELY
> counter-intuitive.) The menu now looks like this:
>
> First Page (selected)
> All Except First Page
> Don't Customize First Page
> Customize Odd and Even Pages
>
> Ah! There's the "Don't Customize First Page" option now! I click on it
> and I get a dialog box that tells me:
>
> "Remove Custom Headers and Footers?
> This will remove the custom headers and footers for the first page.
> [Cancel] [Remove]"
>
> In previous versions of OO, clicking [Remove] has been known to blow
> away the headers that I had created. Note the continued apparently
> inability to put the same header on all the pages, which was my
> original goal. Given my previous experiences with my headers getting
> blown away, I reluctantly click on [Remove]...and the menu now looks
> like:
>
> All Except First Page (selected)
> Customize First Page
> Customize Odd and Even Pages
>
> Wow, the headers weren't blown away. ::whew:: But I'm back at the
> original menu, still not sure that my headers are going to apply to
> all the pages. In fact, it looks like they're only going to apply to
> pages 2..n. It looks like the First Page is still "customized", in
> that it's different than the rest of the pages. ::sigh::
>
> Now, I'm HAPPY that the behavior of OO is to put the same header on
> all the pages, despite this frustrating menu item that describes
> behavior to the contrary. So I give up trying to make sense of the
> menus and I move on with my life.
>
> The usability frustration for me is that this menu seems to try to
> "intelligently" change and I can't get back to all the menu items that
> I might have been able to reach before. A menu should be static so
> users are not playing this guessing game, trying to figure out how to
> change the menu so that the right menu item will reappear. (Does
> anybody remember those horrid "smart" menus in Word and Windows with
> the disappearing menu items?) There needs to be an "All Pages" menu
> item that is ALWAYS available in the menu, in case you want to escape
> from any inadvertent customization hole you've managed to fall into.
>
> It also looks like that menu is trying to do double duty: define when
> the headers/footers are used and at the same time define the space of
> choices available to the user. Perhaps these two orthogonal functions
> need to be split up somehow, so you don't have this
> continually-changing menu confusion going on. Not that I'm a big fan
> of Microsoft, but you might want to check out alternative
> implementations of this kind of functionality, such as what is
> available in MS Word.
>
> Of additional interest is the fact that when I create a new document
> from the default template and not from one of my pre-defined
> templates, which originated in earlier versions of OO, I can get the
> menu to show an "All Pages" setting. Is this menu expressibility issue
> related to a versioning problem?
>
> Thanks, by the way! I'm otherwise loving OO. :)
>
> Rachel
>
> On 3/26/07, Derek Motonaga <dmo at omnigroup.com> wrote:
>> Hi Rachel-
>>
>> Did you possibly cancel out of the 'Don't Customize First Page'  
>> option? When
>> you select it, you should get a dialog box that asks if you're  
>> sure you want
>> to remove the custom header/footer for the first page. If you push  
>> remove,
>> the list will now say "All Pages" and in place of "Don't Customize  
>> First
>> Page" it will say "Customize First Page".
>>
>> --
>> Derek M.
>> Support Ninja
>> The Omni Group
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 25, 2007, at 6:59 PM, Rachel Cobleigh wrote:
>>
>> In the Page Setup -> OmniOutliner Pro  dialog, on the Headers &
>> Footers tab, the only way to get the same header and footer to  
>> show up
>> on all the pages is to select "Don't Customize First Page", but then
>> when you go back to that tab later, the combo box contains "All  
>> Except
>> First Page", which seems to contradict the actual behavior. It would
>> be much nicer if (a) the choices in that combo boxes never changed  
>> and
>> (b) there was a choice that basically said, "All Pages", or something
>> to that effect.
>>
>> Rachel
>> _______________________________________________
>> OmniOutliner-Users mailing list
>> OmniOutliner-Users at omnigroup.com
>> http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/omnioutliner-users
>>
>> <2007-03-27 qualitative_outline.oo3.zip>