Disabling file opening and saving in print preview mode

Hi there,

While looking into this bug
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48348

I noticed that we actually allow saving and loading of document in print
preview mode.  But to me that feels very odd.  Allowing to print from
the preview mode makes sense, but saving the document makes little
sense, and loading another document while in print preview mode even
less so.

What do you think about disabling these operations while in print
preview mode?  That would make the above bug a non-issue as an added
bonus.  Disabling them would also make the implementation much saner
since it's not easy to support and maintain these functionalities in
preview mode, since, technically, the print preview is an entirely
different "application" that happens to use the same document model.
Limiting the functionality of the preview mode to just allow previewing
and printing would ease the maintenance burden substantially.

Views and opinions appreciated.

Kohei

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→ reply to list, too

Hi Kohei,

> I noticed that we actually allow saving and loading of document in print
> preview mode.  But to me that feels very odd.

What sticks out as most odd to me is that our print preview is so
incredibly cluttered (menu bar + 2 toolbars), whereas e.g. in Firefox
it is very focused (just a toolbar).
So, yes, I do agree with this, in general, just the Print Preview
toolbar should be enough.

However [crazy idea], since we now have a Print dialogue that already
contains a preview, might it be worth thinking about just removing the
separate print preview feature and making the print preview inside the
dialogue a little bigger?
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On 05/31/2012 10:48 AM, Kohei Yoshida wrote:
> I noticed that we actually allow saving and loading of document in print
> preview mode.  But to me that feels very odd.  Allowing to print from
> the preview mode makes sense, but saving the document makes little
> sense, and loading another document while in print preview mode even
> less so.

I personally can't ever remember having the desire to load or save a
document while in print preview nor can I fathom a reason to do so.

Respectfully,
Daniel Bankston
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Kohei Yoshida schrieb:

> What do you think about disabling these operations while in print
> preview mode?


Hi,
My POV: I would LIKE a "save (or better: close) and reopen in PP mode"
for some  WRITER  documents. Those are data sheets and small catalogs,
what mostly are opened to print some pages of the document as attachment
for a delivery of goods or similar. So my suggestion would have been
"let WRITER documents open documents in PP mode if they have been saved
from PP mode", in some cases that saves some mouse clicks.

But that is a very low-value desire.

Currently Writer always will open in normal view mode (or Web view),
even if the document has been saved from PP mode.

So we should eliminate that inconsistence by always opening documents in
Normal View (or Page break preview mode, if selected), even if document
has been saved from PP view. But I do not recommend to disable "save" as
long as PP is active. That would be inconsistent compared to writer and
might be worrying. Simply ignore "was in PP mode when has been saved".

Best regards

Rainer
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On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 11:48 -0400, Kohei Yoshida wrote:
I think it entirely reasonable not to offer Save from preview mode.
(I am the reporter of bug 48348, and I only realized that preview mode
was involved when I came back to my saved file with a fresh build and
then *accidentally* came out of preview mode.  That just about proves
that I did not need to save from preview mode, doesn't it? <grin />)

There remains a question about what the program should do when the
user (or system?) closes the application while a changed document is
in preview mode.  I think the Save/Discard dialog at this point is
still highly desirable.  If it is easiest to go back to the editing
program and let the editing program handle it, I think that would be
fine.

I think that the option to close a single unchanged document from
preview mode sounds useful but not essential.

All this, of course, comes from my way of working with LO.  YMMV.

HTH,
Terry.


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Hi,

Stefan Knorr (Astron) schrieb:
> → reply to list, too

Thanks for reminder ;)

Yes, but you have to add some icons, e.g. "page preview", "help", "print
directly" "pdf directly".

BTW: In the UI the name is "Page Preview" not "Print Preview", although
the command is ".uno:PrintPreview". And I think 'Page Preview' is the
correct term, because it is not a print preview, see below.

>
> However [crazy idea], since we now have a Print dialogue that already
> contains a preview, might it be worth thinking about just removing the
> separate print preview feature and making the print preview inside the
> dialogue a little bigger?

No. Reasons:
1. The 'Page Preview' mode shows the content on the page size set in the
page style. The preview in printing dialog considers real paper size and
settings of the 'Page Layout' tab of that dialog. It also considers
selections.
2. The 'Page Preview' mode has a zoom and a full screen mode.
3. The 'Page Preview' mode allows changing of margins and column width
by dragging with the mouse. Especially altering the margins here is very
important, because the 'Page Preview' shows header and footer and
considers repeat rows/columns and shows the table position.

Kind regards
Regina




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On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 11:48 -0400, Kohei Yoshida wrote:

> Views and opinions appreciated.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Given all the feedbacks, my conclusion is that we should keep the
current behavior of allowing the save action from the preview mode.  The
main issue is that we *do* allow editing of the document in the preview
mode (as Regina pointed out), in which case having the ability to save
the document there does make sense.

That also means that I'll just have to go back and figure out what's
going wrong when saving the document from the preview mode (as reported
in the bug report). :-/

Kohei

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On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 16:07 -0400, Kohei Yoshida wrote:

> That also means that I'll just have to go back and figure out what's
> going wrong when saving the document from the preview mode (as reported
> in the bug report). :-/

Ok.  There is a major issue when saving a document from the preview mode
I just discovered.  None of the view properties that normally get saved
when saved from the normal mode get saved when saved from the preview
mode.  The reason is, as I mentioned earlier, the preview mode is an
entirely separate application from the normal Calc app, and it doesn't
have access to all the view properties that the normal Calc app has.

This is a major setback...  I'd still like to offer a save from the
preview, but fixing this will not be without technical challenges...

Here, the term "view properties" refers to the data that get saved in
the settings.xml stream in the ods archive.  You can unzip a test ods
and compare this xml file with one saved from the normal mode, and one
saved from the preview mode.  The latter is missing quite a bit of
information which probably contributes to the odd behavior reported in
the bug.

Scratching my head...

Kohei

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On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 08:06:12PM +0200, Regina Henschel wrote:
*cough* I dont know if that is a feature. I would assume 99% of our user base
to be confused by 'Page Preview' and 'Print Preview' showing different things
rather than considering it a feature.

> 2. The 'Page Preview' mode has a zoom and a full screen mode.

Well, couldnt those be added in the Print Preview too?

> 3. The 'Page Preview' mode allows changing of margins and column
> width by dragging with the mouse. Especially altering the margins
> here is very important, because the 'Page Preview' shows header and
> footer and considers repeat rows/columns and shows the table
> position.

As Kohei suggest further down this is actually implemented in a
buggy/incomplete way and I find "I will go in the page preview to change
margins (even though it does not use the real paper size, but the one from the
page style)" not really a usecase justifying a whole different view.

So in total, I still like Astrons crazy idea.

Just my 2 cents.

Best,

Bjoern
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On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 19:04 +0200, Stefan Knorr (Astron) wrote:
Actually (thinking about this again), given the way our current preview
window is implemented, this (i.e. remove the menu bar and the top tool
bar, and only leave the preview toolbar and disable a bunch of other
things) is probably the best we can offer.  Anything else we try to do
would end up causing lots of odd behaviors in many corners, such as bug
fdo#48348.

> However [crazy idea], since we now have a Print dialogue that already
> contains a preview, might it be worth thinking about just removing the
> separate print preview feature and making the print preview inside the
> dialogue a little bigger?

This is a certainly possibility too.  We should keep this idea as a
long-term solution.  In the short-term though, doing the above would be
the solution I'd choose.

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On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 19:26 +0200, Rainer Bielefeld wrote:
Well, unfortunately we will probably have to adopt the Writer way (of
never opening in PP mode) in Calc too, due to the limitation I already
outlined in my other mails.  The preview window needs parts of the view
properties transferred from the main Calc window when it launches, and
if we launch the preview window first before we initialize the view
properties in the main Calc window first, we'd lose that opportunity.
This may have worked okay in the past when we didn't do any clever
pagination in the preview mode.  But now we do more sophisticated
pagination based on selected sheets, losing the proper initialization in
the main Calc window would be detrimental...

> But that is a very low-value desire.

And hopefully you'll be okay with it.

> Currently Writer always will open in normal view mode (or Web view),
> even if the document has been saved from PP mode.
>
> So we should eliminate that inconsistence by always opening documents in
> Normal View (or Page break preview mode, if selected), even if document
> has been saved from PP view. But I do not recommend to disable "save" as
> long as PP is active. That would be inconsistent compared to writer and
> might be worrying. Simply ignore "was in PP mode when has been saved".

Then I would propose disabling save in Writer too.  I have enough
reasons to believe that, in Calc at least, saving the document from the
preview mode would never work to everyone's satisfaction.  It would
always leave some weird corner cases even if we fix this particular bug
that Terrence reported.

Kohei

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On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 13:36 -0400, Terrence Enger wrote:
> There remains a question about what the program should do when the
> user (or system?) closes the application while a changed document is
> in preview mode.  I think the Save/Discard dialog at this point is
> still highly desirable.  If it is easiest to go back to the editing
> program and let the editing program handle it, I think that would be
> fine.

Yup.  I think we'll need to pass that on to the main Calc window and
have the main window handle it, instead of having the preview window
handle it in-situ.  Good point.

Kohei

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On 31-05-2012 21:06, Regina Henschel wrote:
> Yes, but you have to add some icons, e.g. "page preview", "help", "print
> directly" "pdf directly".
>
> BTW: In the UI the name is "Page Preview" not "Print Preview", although
> the command is ".uno:PrintPreview". And I think 'Page Preview' is the
> correct term, because it is not a print preview, see below.

By the way; in Oxygen, Tango and Crystal icon themes, the toolbar icon
of the "Page Preview" button is a **printer** with a magnifying glass,
while Galaxy and High Contrast themes have an **empty page** icon with a
magnifying glass.

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Hi,

Le 31/05/2012 17:48, Kohei Yoshida a écrit : +1
Considering the number of users asking for help when they are facing
this bug, I can't disagree.

Best regards.
JBF

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Hi,

Le 31/05/2012 17:48, Kohei Yoshida a écrit :
>
> Views and opinions appreciated.
>

As Regina has already pointed out: *page* preview <> print preview. Page
preview doesn't imply printing. Eg; exporting to PDF is usefully
previewed with Page preview.

BTW, I share the comment that the print preview is cluttered. To me, it
is too much integrated with the modules. A modal window would less
disturb the user, making things clear about what is what (eg: the page
preview in Calc displays two zoom rulers... why so? Which is the right one?)

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Hello again,

so, one thing is always sure, when Regina writes here: lots of the
misunderstandings I have about the inner workings of the product are
resolved. Thanks!

But still...

> As Regina has already pointed out: *page* preview <> print preview. Page
> preview doesn't imply printing. Eg; exporting to PDF is usefully previewed
> with Page preview.

Sure, you can preview a PDF before you export and actually it would be
a useful feature for the PDF export dialogue... but look at what's at
stake: Creating a PDF should take no longer than half a minute (and
that would be for a very long PDF) and no tree is harmed in the
process. So, if you're unhappy with the result you can just go back
and create a new PDF without wasting too many resources (i. e. paper).

As for the paper size/page size difference, I would just want to +1
Björn in that it's a misfeature. Another +1 to Björn for suggesting
that a fullscreen preview mode be added to the Print window.

The most useful thing about the Page Preview indeed seems to be
modifying margins. But that is only useful for Calc users, since in
every other application it is trivial to turn on rulers in the main
view/rulers are by default turned on in the main view. For the
uninitiated, it might also be somewhat counterintuitive to set the
page margins in the Page/Print Preview.

As for 3.6, I do agree with Kohei that it probably would be best to
just hide the menu and Standard toolbar looking at how expensive
adding a fullscreen mode to Print would be.

Regards,
Astron.
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Le 03/06/2012 15:23, Stefan Knorr (Astron) a écrit :
> Hello again,
>
> so, one thing is always sure, when Regina writes here: lots of the
> misunderstandings I have about the inner workings of the product are
> resolved. Thanks!

;)

>
> But still...
>
> it would be
> a useful feature for the PDF export dialogue

I didn't ask for that. I just noted that the page preview is not limited
to printing and may have other uses.

Anyway, if it is easy to export a PDF over and over again, I think it is
better to handle the dirty details before.

> The most useful thing about the Page Preview indeed seems to be
> modifying margins. But that is only useful for Calc users, since in
> every other application it is trivial to turn on rulers in the main
> view/rulers are by default turned on in the main view. For the
> uninitiated, it might also be somewhat counterintuitive to set the
> page margins in the Page/Print Preview.

It is not only counter-intuitive (BTW, there's not such thing as
intuition when it comes to IT), it is *difficult* and highly imprecise.
I have trained 5 groups to Calc (entry-level, 35 people in all) during
the last two weeks and all agreed that setting margins is more precise
with the Format/Page dialog and that the page preview is quite
unpracticable to this regard.

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Hi all,

Stefan Knorr (Astron) schrieb:
[..]
> As for the paper size/page size difference, I would just want to +1
> Björn in that it's a misfeature.

No, I thing not. With the new printer dialog we have n-up and brochure
printing not only for Writer but for Calc, Draw and Impress too.

The page preview should show, what you have designed on your page and
the print preview should show, what will be really printed with the
specific print settings, on a specific printer.

  Another +1 to Björn for suggesting
> that a fullscreen preview mode be added to the Print window.

An enlargeable print preview would be helpful. I think not, that a
fullscreen mode is useful.

>
> The most useful thing about the Page Preview indeed seems to be
> modifying margins.

And the fact, that repeating rows and columns are shown. They are
neither shown in normal view nor in page break view.

  But that is only useful for Calc users,

What is useful in the page preview, depends on the module. But the page
view in Writer needs some rework. Former it contained the n-up printing.
But that is moved to printer dialog. And the page view had been adapted
only roughly. You should compare the old Writer page view before
printerpullpages with its design now.

  since in
> every other application it is trivial to turn on rulers in the main
> view/rulers are by default turned on in the main view.

?? I have not thought, that showing/heading rulers is the purpose of
page preview. One of the purpose of page view in Writer had been the
n-up printing. Now it still gives a quick view without setting back each
of the view settings like 'Field shading', 'Hidden paragraphs', or
'Non-printing characters' individually.

  For the
> uninitiated, it might also be somewhat counterintuitive to set the
> page margins in the Page/Print Preview.

That feature is only in Calc and it is very useful there. It allows very
quickly adjusting the margins and columns width, so that you get a
column onto the page, which missed it by a small amount. And you can see
immediately the effects of scaling, which is not possible in normal or
page break view and not in the page format dialog.

@Jean-Francois: The slider in Calc page view toolbar is not a zoom, but
the same scale that can be set in page format. The + and - icons control
the zoom. They can indeed be removed, because we have them now in the
status bar.

>
> As for 3.6, I do agree with Kohei that it probably would be best to
> just hide the menu and Standard toolbar looking at how expensive
> adding a fullscreen mode to Print would be.

A fullscreen mode in printer dialog is not a compensation of the page view.

I agree, that printing and saving in page view is not necessary. Falling
back into normal view when the user tries to print or save would be ok
for me. The special case n-up printing from Writer page view had been
removed with implementing printerpullpages.

Kind regards
Regina

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Le 03/06/2012 16:51, Regina Henschel a écrit :
>
> And the fact, that repeating rows and columns are shown. They are
> neither shown in normal view nor in page break view.

Yes, but I'd think that the page break preview takes these into account,
even if indeed they are not displayed.

>
> That feature is only in Calc and it is very useful there. It allows very
> quickly adjusting the margins and columns width, so that you get a
> column onto the page, which missed it by a small amount. And you can see
> immediately the effects of scaling, which is not possible in normal or
> page break view and not in the page format dialog.

This can be much more easily achieved using the View / Page break
preview menu.

>
> @Jean-Francois: The slider in Calc page view toolbar is not a zoom, but
> the same scale that can be set in page format. The + and - icons control
> the zoom. They can indeed be removed, because we have them now in the
> status bar.

I wanted to point that the close appearance of both items (top slider in
the Preview toolbar and bottom slider in the status bar) confuse the
user. This is why I'd prefer a modal window for page previewing.

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On 05/31/2012 10:13 PM, Kohei Yoshida wrote:
Some updates.

For 3.6, I will just disable a bunch of commands including the file open
and save, intercept the window close event so that clicking the 'x'
button on the title bar ends the preview and moves back to the main Calc
window, and disable the close command to avoid closing the window via
File - Close and Ctrl-W.  The reason for disabling the close commands
rather than intercepting them and translating them to just end the
preview mode is because it's technically very difficult to do so because
of the way we end the preview shell.  I won't go into the detail here.

Also, for 3.6, I'll leave the menu bar and the tool bars alone, because
(again), it won't be easy to change this without doing massive rework.

Now, I'm almost done, except for the disabling of the close commands.
Normally, we can disable commands by simply handling their respective
state handler callbacks, but for the close commands (i.e.
".uno:CloseDoc" and ".uno:CloseWin") it's not that simple.  This is
because we need to show the start center pane when the last app window
closes.  The framework code handles these commands in a special way.
And currently, the Close commands are always enabled no matter what, and
there is no systematic way to disable them (that I know of).

I'm still trying to figure out how to optionally disable them in a clean
way, but I may not be able to do this before I leave for my vacation.
So, I might just push what I've done so far, and tackle the issue of
disabling the Close commands later.

Kohei

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