There is not currently a wiki article on using List styles, but there is a link to an external article on lists and list styles that I found on the Neowriter wiki page.
If you have questions after looking at these articles--or if something isn't clear in them--please be sure to post back and ask for further help.
Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 2051 Location: Midwest, USA
Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:49 pm Post subject:
Hmm... I just re-read your question. Were you wanting details on the settings for the default styles? I don't think I've seen that anywhere. You would probably need to check the settings in the related dialog window.
Open the Formatting and Styles Palette and right click on the style you want to check. Choose "Modify..." from the contextual menu. A dialog will open with several tabs, and you can check the settings there.
The first link above will explain how to edit those default styles.
I have yet to find anything that tells you what the various styles do (e.g. the Numbered styles are broken into 4 parts).
To see what settings a particular style has, select the Format :: Styles and Formatting menu. A floating window will appear that has lists of all the available styles. Control-click on one of the styles and select Modify from the popup menu that appears. This will display a dialog that has lots of settings. You can change any of these settings.
I have yet to find anything that tells you what the various styles do (e.g. the Numbered styles are broken into 4 parts).
To see what settings a particular style has, select the Format :: Styles and Formatting menu. A floating window will appear that has lists of all the available styles. Control-click on one of the styles and select Modify from the popup menu that appears. This will display a dialog that has lots of settings. You can change any of these settings.
Patrick
This I know how to do.
However, to understand the design of something like the four part Numbered style, this approach requires rebuilding the logic of the style design from the parametric settings of the style. With much in-depth knowledge of the parameters and the way that styles are processed by Neowriter, this could be possible. As an end-user, it is a very difficult task to regenerate behavior, particularly relative behavior between styles, from static data parameters.
I guess I'll have to read more in depth about style processing under Neowriter.
As a general observation (given that I do appreciate that NeoOffice is freeware and community supported), the default styles may be highly functional, but of little use to many users without descriptions as to how they are to be used. Given the four part harmony of a style like "Numbered", it is not enough to say "select text and apply style".
As a software professional, I can probably figure our how Neowriter processes styles (although, I might rather be doing other things). A non-technical person would probably prefer to define their own simple style catalog (deleting all the existing styles to avoid confusion).
I'm not trying to be argumentative. And it is possible I'm missing the obvious, but I have yet to see any explanation for Numbered 1, Numbered 1 Start, Numbered 1 Cont, Numbered 1 End. And their behavior, from a "select text and apply style" perspective, is not intuitively obvious.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. And it is possible I'm missing the obvious, but I have yet to see any explanation for Numbered 1, Numbered 1 Start, Numbered 1 Cont, Numbered 1 End. And their behavior, from a "select text and apply style" perspective, is not intuitively obvious.
I have not seen any such explanation of these either. The styles list is pulled in directly from NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code and I suspect that these styles probably may have duplication and untuitive names as they were slowly added bit by bit over the many years that OpenOffice.org and its predecessor StarOffice has existed in order to match the style changes with each new Microsoft Office release.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. And it is possible I'm missing the obvious, but I have yet to see any explanation for Numbered 1, Numbered 1 Start, Numbered 1 Cont, Numbered 1 End. And their behavior, from a "select text and apply style" perspective, is not intuitively obvious.
I have not seen any such explanation of these either. The styles list is pulled in directly from NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code and I suspect that these styles probably may have duplication and untuitive names as they were slowly added bit by bit over the many years that OpenOffice.org and its predecessor StarOffice has existed in order to match the style changes with each new Microsoft Office release.
Patrick
A reasonable evaluation. Which is why I also asked about deleting styles. I am perfectly willing to build my own style catalog - I usually do. It can be done without deleting the defaults (e.g. as custom styles), if one is to avoid confusion, the tools of the style catalog - such as Hierarchical view, cannot be used.
I've never seen a four part style like Numbered in Word. It doesn't exist in the version of MS Word I am using, nor in the MS Word document I am trying to edit when viewed in MS Word. And, to be critical, a 4 part style is a bit too sophisticated for MS .
I am a long time FrameMaker and MS Word user. You an guess which word processor I prefer. Ah, well, I will press on with what I have. Perhaps the answer lies with OpenOffice or even StarOffice. However, I cannot let style issues slow down this document.
Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 2051 Location: Midwest, USA
Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:26 pm Post subject:
I don't know of a way to delete the existing styles, unfortunately.
In the styles and formatting palette, you can specify that only Custom Styles are shown, using the drop-down near the bottom. This isn't exactly what you want, but it does let you ignore the existing styles. Unfortunately there is no way to set Custom Styles as the default setting of that drop-down; it has to be reset each time you open the palette.
Joined: Jun 21, 2003 Posts: 173 Location: Selmer, Tennessee
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject:
The four-part styles aren't hard to understand. Consider that a style can inherit from another style. Let's create another four-part style, just for this explanation. We'll call it Theoretical
The "base" style's name is "Theoretical"
Next is "Theoretical Start"
Next, "Theoretical middle"
and finaly, "Theoretical end."
You never assign the base style. (But you might modify it.) The base style sets the font, line spacing, margins, and indents for the whole set.
The "Theoretical Start" might have a drop-cap, indent, be numbererd, or space-above, and would inherit everything else from the base style. It would also link to "Theoretical Middle" as the next style. In this case, I want the list to be set off from the rest of the text with a 2.5 point blue-grey border at the top. So set up Theoretical Start to inherit from Theoretical, but throw in an upper 2.5 pt. border. Set the next style to Theoretical Middle.
The "Theoretical middle" style would be basically ordinary text, and it's next style would be itself.
The "Theoretical end" style would terminate this list. It's next style would be, maybe, Header2 or perhaps Body Text. In other words, everything after this paragraph goes back to whatever normal was. You have to set this style manually, because Neo has no way of knowing whether you're done. Set it up to have a bottom border of 2.5 point blue-grey., and a next style of Body Text.
Styles chain together nicely.
But unfortunately, Neo's not set up to chain them; you have to modify them. If you make up a sample document demonstrating all the list styles, they're pretty mundane. Their left margins creep across the page, starting with List 3 Start. They're set up with whatever you're using for a default font.
The "List" style sets features for every list in the document. Make up some test lists, using the List 3, 4, and 5 styles (Start, Cont., and End.) Now change the List style to Brush Sans MT Italic 12-point Bold. All lists change to that font.
Of course, if you set the font in one of the list styles to something other than the weird font I selected, that font face will govern that particular styles. But if you don't override it, it'll stay the same as the List style.
Go through your list styles and modify the List 1 through List 5 styles so that the Start style chains into the Cont. style. Modify the End variant to remove any space below; using that space-below option on anything but heading styles is asking for an extra page to be generated because there's not enough room for the End paragraph plus the space after.
Note that the "List" style governs ALL lists. The "List 1" style governs all three List 1 variants, i.e., Start, Cont., and End.
After you've finished modifying, erase all the text you used to set and adjust your styles. Save as a template, and set it as the default template. You cannot remove the preset styles, but you can darn sure modify them into styles you can use.
I hope this isn't too rambling. I've got a bad sinus infection, and I'm on Codeine-based medication, which plays hell with one's concentration. _________________ Jim Plante
MacOS X 10.6.34, MacBook 2GHz C2Duo, 2gb, Neo 3.1.1 p 1
I understood your explanation (maybe the medication helped ).
Basically, what you described is how I set up chains for lists in particular when I am generating styles for FrameMaker (I have avoided being too fancy with Word, because it seems bent on undoing whatever I try to do). I typically have a "first" and "next" style. Never used a "last" style.
Too bad Neo couldn't figure out when we intend to end a list (psychic software).
Two questions, if you are up to answering (no rush):
- how do I reset the parameters in a style to the inherited values?
- one behavior I find really annoying in Word and Neo: when I backspace (deleting characters) to the beginning of a line in a document, the format for the line changes completely; I believe it goes to the default style. How can I disable this? For me, the acceptable behavior would be to keep the formatting with a blank line, allowing me to type new text; if I backspace once more, the line should be lost and the cursor moved to the previous line (the equivalent of deleting the CR/LF); this is how Framemaker behaves.
Joined: Jun 21, 2003 Posts: 173 Location: Selmer, Tennessee
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject:
Quote:
- how do I reset the parameters in a style to the inherited values?
- one behavior I find really annoying in Word and Neo: when I backspace (deleting characters) to the beginning of a line in a document, the format for the line changes completely; I believe it goes to the default style. How can I disable this?
If you've changed the font, say, on List 3 cont. and you want to revert to the factory setting, just right-click the style name, choose Modify, and click the "Standard" button at the bottom of the dialog. That'll take you back to the initial setup. (Which may kill the "Next Style" setting, too, but I haven't checked it.) But remember, unless you define that page to be the default template, the next new document you open will revert right back to the old behavior anyway.
As to your second question, Neo 3 doesn't do that. When I delete the last character on the line, it retains whatever style I have set. If, however, I hit delete again, the cursor moves to the previous line and takes on the attributes of that text/paragraph. _________________ Jim Plante
MacOS X 10.6.34, MacBook 2GHz C2Duo, 2gb, Neo 3.1.1 p 1
As to your second question, Neo 3 doesn't do that. When I delete the last character on the line, it retains whatever style I have set. If, however, I hit delete again, the cursor moves to the previous line and takes on the attributes of that text/paragraph.
Thanks, I shall wait with heightened anticipation for the release of Neo 3.[/quote][/b]
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