Subject: Re: Normal mode nitpick
From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Nov 01 2001 - 06:19:31 CST
--- Martin Sevior
<msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au> wrote: >
>
> On Wed, 31 Oct 2001, Hubert Figuiere wrote:
>
> > According to Andrew Dunbar
> <hippietrail@yahoo.com>:
> >
> > > Just check with Mac Word 2001:
> > > Normal mode has no pages so page height is
> infinite.
> >
> > Only thin lines to show page break
> >
> > > Columns are still there but seem to be
> bottomless,
> > > resulting in all text in the left column!
> >
> > Idem. No page no column, but text width is kept.
> >
>
> Why show page breaks then?
I guess it's useful even when you don't want the
pretty
pictures of pages and borders. I'm also guessing
there is an option in MSWord to turn them off.
Online mode doesn't show them at all.
> It would not be that hard to do this in abiword but
> I really don't see the
> point. If people who just want content don't care
> about columns they
> shouldn't put columns in their docs.
I think the MSWord behaviour (one bottomless, skinny
column) is a bug.
> To me by far the main benefit of "Normal Mode" is to
> give users more
> screen space. We should keep as much of WYSIWYG as
> possible. There are
> other applications deisgned for non-WYSIWYG, like
> Lyx. We're a WYSIWYG
> app. I think we should stick to that.
I think normal mode is for users who use documents on
screen a lot but don't print them out. It's what
people were used to for the many years before WYSIWYG
and it's still better if you don't care about
printing.
There are other ways of maximising screen space like
zooming or hitting the full-screen button.
It all seems a bit vague to me really but maybe this
stuff is more important to people who use
wordprocessors professionally? Personally, I like
Online mode and Normal mode when using MSWord and
don't
like layout mode at all. But I never print.
We should just decide whether to copy the defacto
standards or do what makes sense to us.
Andrew Dunbar.
> > > Online mode is also infinite height but columns
> goes
> > > back to one fullwidth column. If you set
> columns to
> > > another value in online mode, this puts you back
> into
> > > Page Layout mode.
> >
> > Weird. Really.
> >
>
> I agree.
>
> Martin
>
>
>
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