Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
NeoOffice is a marvelous tool which I use on a daily basis. However, it needs a true "Page Setup..." feature, found in all standard Mac applications under the "File" menu. It would also be advantageous to normalize the "Print..." dialog, eliminating the "Print Options" window, which does not conform to normal interface rules and whose functionality is best duplicated in "Pate Setup..." and in items of the third pull-down menu in the main "Print..." dialog.
With these two changes, the resulting application would have a completely transparent GUI familiar to any seasoned Mac user. I am confident that this would increase the popularity of the NeoOffice suite by eliminating the last of the major unfamiliar features which may tend to alienate users wedded to the conventional interface.
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:04 am Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
kofoid wrote:
NeoOffice is a marvelous tool which I use on a daily basis. However, it needs a true "Page Setup..." feature, found in all standard Mac applications under the "File" menu. It would also be advantageous to normalize the "Print..." dialog, eliminating the "Print Options" window, which does not conform to normal interface rules and whose functionality is best duplicated in "Pate Setup..." and in items of the third pull-down menu in the main "Print..." dialog.
How does this differ from the native Page Setup dialog that already exists under File :: Printer Settings? We sue the native Page Setup dialog there and changing the paper size and/or orientation in that dialog will change the document's current page size just any other Mac app.
Also, where would the Print Options dialog go? You may not need to change those print options, but many people do and since it is a documented feature, just yanking it out of the application is not really an option. You suggest putting it in the Page Setup dialog. However, neither the Mac OS X native Page Setup nor the native Print dialog is not editable so that dialog would have to popup somewhere. Where would that be?
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:30 am Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
pluby wrote:
Also, where would the Print Options dialog go? You may not need to change those print options, but many people do and since it is a documented feature, just yanking it out of the application is not really an option. You suggest putting it in the Page Setup dialog. However, neither the Mac OS X native Page Setup nor the native Print dialog is not editable so that dialog would have to popup somewhere. Where would that be?
FYI. I just looked at the latest OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta build and they have moved the Print Options dialog so that it is accessed under the File :: Printer Settings menu instead of the File :: Print menu. So, when we upgrade to using the OpenOffice.org 3.0 code in our NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access release later this year, by default the display of the Print Options dialog would occur after display of the native Page Setup dialog when you select the File :: Printer Settings menu.
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
pluby wrote:
How does this differ from the native Page Setup dialog that already exists under File :: Printer Settings? We sue the native Page Setup dialog there and changing the paper size and/or orientation in that dialog will change the document's current page size just any other Mac app.
Patrick
forgive me, i thought it best to stay on topic rather than start another.
funny enough, i used this feature last night. first i agree, i spent way too long looking for it, cursing more than once "i started the damn neowiki and i can change my page size??!!!"
but, i found it, changed it to a small non-standard size, and while the page changed, i couldn't get the margins to change. they stayed the normal one inch (err, or so) from the sides, even after i had set them much smaller.
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:56 am Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
jakeOSX wrote:
but, i found it, changed it to a small non-standard size, and while the page changed, i couldn't get the margins to change. they stayed the normal one inch (err, or so) from the sides, even after i had set them much smaller.
as designed? did i miss something?
The native Page Setup dialog does not have any way to change margins. I guess Apple assumes applications will have an alternate custom dialog to do that (I still have not found any way to set margins in the TextEdit application). As a result, margins can only be set by selecting the Page :: Format menu.
Joined: Jul 05, 2005 Posts: 685 Location: North West England
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:58 am Post subject:
Maybe this is just me, but I think there is an oddity in the way the two dialogs relate to each other. This is noticeable in prining brochures from A5 pages onto A4 paper. I think what one has to do is choose A4 page size (and landscape?) in the OS X native Printer Settings dialog and then choose A5 in the Page>Format pane. If you haven't begun by selecting A4 in Printer Settings then it will not be possible IIRC to get the brochure to print properly.
ISTM that Printer Settings tells the printer what size of paper to expect whereas Format>Page tells NO how to lay out the page.
I would like to check this out again, but I'm truanting from packing for vacation and I don't want to get into trouble.
Maybe this is just me, but I think there is an oddity in the way the two dialogs relate to each other. This is noticeable in prining brochures from A5 pages onto A4 paper. I think what one has to do is choose A4 page size (and landscape?) in the OS X native Printer Settings dialog and then choose A5 in the Page>Format pane. If you haven't begun by selecting A4 in Printer Settings then it will not be possible IIRC to get the brochure to print properly.
I don't think brochure printing is a typical case as NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code has some very unintuitive steps to get brochure printing to work correcting. Specifically, as you found you have to set the page size to half the size of your paper when brochure printing is checked in the Print Options dialog.
I have no idea why Sun Microsystems' OpenOffice.org engineers designed it this way, but it appears to still work this way in OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta.
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:21 am Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
pluby wrote:
FYI. I just looked at the latest OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta build and they have moved the Print Options dialog so that it is accessed under the File :: Printer Settings menu instead of the File :: Print menu.
That seems backwards, given that those settings are things that you often want to change per-print job, whereas Page Setup is something you access once per document, if ever. What would have made much more sense is for them to have turned the Print Options window into a PDE that shows up in the print dialogue, just like every other app that adds its own settings to printing. Of course, that's asking OOo development to *make sense*, and I've long ago given up hope of that ever happening
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:29 am Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
sardisson wrote:
That seems backwards, given that those settings are things that you often want to change per-print job, whereas Page Setup is something you access once per document, if ever. What would have made much more sense is for them to have turned the Print Options window into a PDE that shows up in the print dialogue, just like every other app that adds its own settings to printing. Of course, that's asking OOo development to *make sense*, and I've long ago given up hope of that ever happening
It is theoretically possible that I can hack into Mac OS X's native print dialog and add a button for the Print Options dialog instead of forcefully displaying it.
If anyone thinks this is a reasonable solution, we can add this to the New Features Program and then we can figure out how to disable it displaying in the File :: Printer Settings menu in NeoOffice 3.0 Early Access.
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:09 pm Post subject: Re: A true "Page Setup..." dialog
kofoid wrote:
It would also be advantageous to normalize the "Print..." dialog, eliminating the "Print Options" window, which does not conform to normal interface rules
I heartily agree. I hate the Printer Options dialog that appears after you click the "Print" button. It really messes me up, because no other application on the Mac platform (or in the whole history of the Mac platform, for that matter) has a dialog box that appears after you click "Print".
This has messed me up countless times, as it is often my habit to click "Print" and then go get a cup of coffee. When I come back to NeoOffice, I discover that nothing has printed at all, because the Printer Options dialog is open, waiting me to complete the superfluous extra step of clicking "OK" before the document goes to the printer.
Printing is an important function and I don't think NeoOffice should behave differently from every other Mac application in the execution of this function.
I know that Printer Options is there because it's an integral part of Oo.o and always has been, but isn't there some way the NeoOffice staff can work around this? _________________ Wheat Williams
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Joined: Sep 18, 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject:
Aha. I just realized that OpenOffice.org 3 for Mac OS X does away with the Printer Options dialog altogether. Press "Print" and your document prints, with no intermediary dialog.
Apparently they have finally realized that it's an unreasonable barrier to Mac users.
So I hope you will be integrating this change into NeoOffice when you switch to the Oo.o 3 code base. _________________ Wheat Williams
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
So I hope you will be integrating this change into NeoOffice when you switch to the Oo.o 3 code base.
We have no plans to copy OpenOffice.org in this respect. While I understand that you may like that feature, all of Apple's Mac OS X applications always display the print dialog as that is the only means to select a printer and printer options.
Jamming something down to printer and assuming that the printer and printer options are OK is a very Windows style which is probably why OpenOffice.org did it that way. However, switching away from how Apple does it just because OpenOffice.org thinks it is a neat idea really does not make sense.
If we are talking about the OpenOffice.org Print Options dialog, that is a different thing and we might be able to move it to the File :: Page Setup menu as that is where OpenOffice.org 3.0 moved it. I just have to figure out how they moved it as the code in OOo 3.0 looks no different than in OOo 2.2.1.
I somehow accidentally hit the "Edit" button instead of the "Quote" button when I went to reply to Patrick's last post, and I ended up overwriting it all I didn't notice until I had already submitted the post, at which point everything he had written was lost (except for what I quoted). Sorry for the mistake.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
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Oops 
I didn't notice until I had already submitted the post, at which point everything he had written was lost (except for what I quoted).