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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Master pages (was: A page-layout issue)
From:       Jaroslaw S <kexipl () gmail ! com>
Date:       2010-03-05 22:29:51
Message-ID: 56a746381003051429p43625f82ic1f6c8fb7d98b636 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On 5 March 2010 22:44, Thomas Zander <zander@kde.org> wrote:
> On Friday 5. March 2010 22.02.22 Jaroslaw S wrote:
>> As for the apparently broken concept, I don't know how do we explain
>> this to any user of KOffice, since clean design of slides (in
>> KPresenter?) means using master page(s). Also the workflow for
>> designing headers/footers is apparently a variation of using master
>> page's workflow: it's not rare that users know this concept.
>
> Master pages are a way to solve a problem. The problem is that you want a
> certain piece of content on all your pages, for instance.
> So the solution that early DTP applications introduced was that you don't add
> this manually to each page but instead to a master page and make all your
> pages follow that master page.   Anyone that used KPresenter knows this concept
> too.
> Later this got changed to have more than one master page, so you can have a
> left and a right alignment of that logo by having 2 master pages, for
> instance.
> And even later this got changed to allow master pages to inherit from each
> other. You end up with a hierarchy of master pages that then influence the way
> your document is shown.
> Framemaker is really the master in this area and its master pages specify a
> *lot* more than just positioned content. I won't go into it here, if only
> because its years since I seriously used it.
>
> Its a really powerful concept, anyone that understands object oriented
> programming understands the approach and the power it brings.
>
> Its also utterly confusing to most people that actually write documents. Which
> happens to be a group of people thats almost exclusively non-programmers.
> So, some 10 years ago, KWord guys said that the problem was *not* solved, the
> solution was not a proper one since actual users ended up copying that logo on
> each page instead of understanding the concept of master pages. #fail ;)
>
> KWord is frames based so it won't come as a surprise to anyone that the
> solution for what people use master pages would also be frames based.
> KWord introduced properties for frames like; "every page", "even/odd page".
> Which specifies that if a new page is appended the image frame would appear
> also on the new page. Using a copy-frame. This concept made it into ODF and
> KWord still uses this concept. Check the frameset dialog for all properties.
>
> In KWord1.5 we introduced pages. Before this KWord had one page size and all
> pages would have that page size. In KWord2 this is represented using
> KWPageStye. This contains various useful properties like size and number of
> columns.
> You could be excused to confuse page styles and master pages. But the
> fundamental difference is that this is about the page itself, it doesn't
> specify any content. Just the shape its being represented.
> But to stay consistent in not supporting master pages the question has risen
> on how to handle page styles. Which Jaroslaw correctly points out are not in
> use that much either.
>
> Here is what I did for KWord so far;
> If you use the 'insert page' dialog in KWord you can select the page style, so
> this concept is somewhat shown to the user.
> At the same time you will notice the absence of any "Page style manager" like
> dialog. (though I'd welcome a docker doing that) and the "page properties"
> dialog has a checkbox at the bottom that doesn't mention page styles but
> implicitly uses them.
> In other words; page styles and their management is hidden from the user too.
> If you know the concept you'll find it and you can use it. If you don't, its
> very likely you'll never even find out that KWord knows about this concept at
> all.
>
> Hope that explains better my thinking and long-term vision for master pages
> and page styles in KWord :)

Thanks for the long explanation, Thomas. Of course complex inheritance
could be overkill even for power users.

I hope one thing we have gained from this discussion is a common
knowledge that koreports use a variant of master pages: the results of
populating the page/sections design with data is not editable before
printing/saving. KWord's type of mailmerge is different kind of
reporting with editing capabilities enabled. Both are useful.

The question (regarding replacements for wordprocessing master pages)
is: maybe options like "Show this picture on every page" are
acceptable solution. At least this option follows user's way of
thinking a bit. Or even "insert logo/watermark" which could cover many
use cases....

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek
 Kexi & KOffice (http://www.kexi-project.org, http://www.koffice.org)
 KDE Software Development Platform on MS Windows (http://windows.kde.org)
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