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List:       koffice
Subject:    global (style-)template for multiple documents - maybe a feature
From:       Raphael Langerhorst <raphael-langerhorst () gmx ! at>
Date:       2003-12-12 12:06:25
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Hello!

this probably concerns KWord, but maybe it is usable in other parts as well.

A nice feature would be to have a global source for styles. Say, I have 10 
documents that should have the same style. After I have written 4 of them I 
choose to change one of the used textstyles. Now if I don't change the 
already written documents to the new style (manually as the case is atm.) 
then the documents 5 to 10 would have a different style. And of course, if I 
want to change some style after I have written all, I have to change every 
single document manually.

Now, what about having a global source of styles (maybe simply an empty 
document containing the various style definitions)? This "style document" is 
always checked when a document that uses these styles is opened. The opened 
document then automatically updates it's styles by looking at the "style 
document". The used style document could just be some document-specific 
attribute.

Back to the case from above: if I now want to change a text style for all 10 
documents I would only need to adapt the "global style document" which these 
documents use.


As far as I know when you import styles from an other document, the imported 
styles get renamed if a style with the same name exists already in the 
current document.
I think it would not be too much work to provide an option to "override" the 
document-specific styles if a style with the same name is imported. This 
could then be automated if the document uses a "global style document".


problematic/special cases:

1) the global style document is not available
solution: just don't update own styles

2) ... ? currently can't think of any other special cases (the above solution 
also solves the problem is you just send the document to someone who does not 
have this global style document)

various possible issues:

As the case is I currently have to at least open and save all 10 documents if 
I want to update the styles. A solution to this would maybe be to store the 
concerned documents (the documents that use the "global style document") in 
the "global style document" itself, so all other documents would get updated 
when I edit the global style document ... and, what if a document that is 
being updated is being edited at the moment? KWord internally knows what 
documents are open so it could request the user to SAVE the documents, then 
the style document is saved and updates all other documents and the open 
documents get reloaded automatically (or just the styles get "imported" with 
the override option).
... any other issues open?


Questions:

a) is something like this possible with CVS HEAD?

b) is something like this planned / wanted / on the wishlist or does anyone on 
the list want such a feature?


greetings,
Raphael

PS: I think discussion about implementation suggestions/... should go to the 
dev list - that's why I send a copy to it right away. I'm reading both lists. 
Suggestions about features could well stay on the general koffice list. But I 
HOPE the discussion doesn't get too much fragmented between the lists.
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