Open Document Behavior

OpenOffice.org 2.0.x, 0≤x≤2

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Matthias Müller-Prove	12/12/05	final /OOo 2.0
Conforms to	
Applies to	Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw
Task ID(s)	OOo 2.0.0 i20333 EaseOfUse-MMP-03 "save" cursor position i32536 (OOo 2.0) i39486 (Shortcuts for Writer /OOo3) Late breaking features i43146 Open Writer doc with respect to author. Compare doc.properties.modifiedby with OOo.userdata i50902 Impress documents open on first slide i50901 Shortcut for Impress OOo 2.0.1 i33307 Shift F5 to restore document view for Writer OOo 2.0.2 i53104
Category	feature

Abstract

OOo 2.0 Writer documents open on the position that makes most sense for the user. For authors this is the position where they left the document last time – for readers this is the first page. A new shortcut is introduced to jump to the last editing position anyhow.

OOo 2.0.x Impress documents always open on the first slide. (It depends on the engineering effort if this will be implemented for OOo 2.0 or OOo 2.0.1). The same shortcut as in Writer will be implemented for the next minor-release thereafter.

i-Team Members (The specification owner is part of the i-Team)

	Name	E-mail Address
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove /MMP	mprove@sun.com,
Development	Oliver Specht /OS	os@openoffice.org,
Quality Assurance	Eric Savary /ES	Eric.savary@sun.com,
Documentation	Uwe Fischer /UFI	uwe.fischer@sun.com
		mail to iTeam

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience	Matthias Müller-Prove	6/1/04 06/30/05
Development	Oliver Specht	6/1/04 06/27/05
Quality Assurance	Eric Savary	6/1/04 06/24/05
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	06/01/04 06/27/05
String Review	Elizabeth Matthis	06/27/05

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
	initial version	MMP	05/10/04
	second draft	MMP	06/01/04
1.0	final spec	MMP	06/01/04
	section 6.7 Keyboard Shortcuts will be done for OfficeLater. Therefore it moved to chapter 7.	MMP	07/30/04
	DL-1 small solution to address the requirements in at least a minimal fashion	MMP	08/05/04
	DL-1 is the valid solution for OOo 2.0. Other aspects of this spec will be done for OfficeLater	MMP	08/11/04
1.1	6.7 Keyboard shortcuts: Implement Shift-F5 to restore last saved editing view for OOo 2.0.1	MMP	06/08/05
	late breaking feature for OOo 2.0: i33307 Shift F5 to resore document view for Writer and Impress i43146 Open Writer doc with respect to author. Compare doc.properties.modifiedby with OOo.userdata string review requested: i51191	MMP	06/24/05
	ES-1 needs to be resolved		
	spec is final	MMP	06/30/05
	Impress opens on first slide, new shortcut -> retageted to OOo 2.0	MMP	07/04/05
	created task for Options dialog changes: i53104	MMP	08/09/05
	row 88. change to properly handle presentations saved in master mode.	MMP	08/19/05
	The option Tool>Option>OOo>View>Restore: Editing View is removed for OOo 2.0.2	MMP	12/12/05

Contents

Glossary	5

1	Motivation	5

2	User Scenarios	5

3	Goals	5

4	Requirements and Dependencies	5

4.1	Requirements	5

4.1.1	Customer Need/Problem	5

4.2	Technical Dependencies	6

5	Competitive Analysis	6

5.1	Keyboard Shortcuts	6

5.1.1	MSOffice Word 2002	6

5.2	StarOffice 7	6

5.2.1	Option: Restore Editing View	6

6	Detailed Specification	7

6.1	Document View Data	7

6.2	Opening Behavior Writer	7

6.2.1	XForms	7

6.2.2	Writer/Web	7

6.3	Opening Behavior Calc	7

6.4	Open Behavior Impress	7

6.5	Open Behavior for Draw	8

6.6	Options: Restore Editing View	8

6.7	Keyboard Shortcuts	8

6.8	G11n	9

6.9	Error Conditions	9

6.10	Migration	9

7	Future Tasks	9

8	Notes	9

8.0.1	Addressed Issues	9

9	References	10

Glossary

Term	Description
document view	the set of parameters of the current view of the document: i.e. cursor position, active sheet or slide, active mode in Impress, zoom factor, window size and position on screen
personal strategy	This opening strategy assumes that the document is familiar to the author and that the last modification took place less that a week ago.
foreign strategy	This opening strategy assumes that the document is unfamiliar to the user or – in case the user is the author of the document – that the last modification took place more that a week ago.
AutoRecovery	Is a function to recover the users work environment and documents. Microsoft Office also uses this term. [AutoRecovery]

Motivation

The default behavior of OOo opens documents for most users in unfavorable document views.

User Scenarios

Peter and Mary are exchanging documents fairly often by email. Mary rates it a lazy attitude of Peter that he does not send his documents in a cleaned up fashion. She always has to scroll to the top before she can start editing her part of the document.

Peter himself likes the property that a document remembers the position where he was last editing.

Goals

Recognizing unfamiliar documents should be supported by opening them on the first page (slide, sheet). This page contains with high probability identifying content like e.g. the title of the document.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

By default, a OOo document should open at the beginning, not (as currently) where the cursor was positioned when the document was last saved.

Customer Need/Problem

When the user opens a document it is not opened to the top position. Instead the view is scrolled to the last cursor position. This behavior is confusing for the user.

Technical Dependencies

<Are there any technical dependencies for this feature? Does the implementation of this feature create any technical dependencies to other program parts? Or very important any issues for automatedd GUI Testing?>

Competitive Analysis

Note, the table below is in draft status.

	cursor position	page	zoom factor	window size and position on screen	mode
MS Word 2002	top on page 1 Shift-F5 restores last cursor position	page 1	restored	restored	
StarOffice 7 Writer with Restore Editing View	restored	restored	restored	restored	
StarOffice 7 Writer without Restore Editing View	top on page 1	page 1	restored	restored	
MS Excel 2002	restored	restored sheet	restored	restored (MDI)	
StarOffice 7 Calc with Restore Editing View	restored	restored sheet	restored	restored	
StarOffice 7 Calc without Restore Editing View	A1 on 1st sheet	sheet 1	app setting	restored	
MS PowerPoint		slide 1		restored, but reuse of app window	restored
StarOffice 7 Impress with Restore Editing View					
StarOffice 7 Impress without Restore Editing View					

Keyboard Shortcuts

MSOffice Word 2002

Command: GoBack; shortcut: Shift-F5; description: Returns to the previous insertion point

StarOffice 7

By default StarOffice documents have a persistent document view. Information is stored in the document files in order to maintain the data between different sessions, users, platforms, and machines.

Option: Restore Editing View

The Options dialog – section OpenOffice.org, panel View – contains the option “Restore: Editing view”.

If this option is marked all parameters when the document was last saved will be restored on reopening the document. In text documents, this includes the cursor position; in spreadsheets the active sheet; and in presentations the selected slide or background mode.

The option is marked by default.

Detailed Specification

Document View Data

The set of parameters that define the document view remains unchanged between OOo 1.1 and OOo 2.0.

On save operations the document view data is always stored to the file (same as in OOo 1.1).

Opening Behavior Writer

OOo Writer documents open on the first page for users who are not last author of the document. If the user is the same then the view is restored. This means in pseudo code notation:

ON Opening a Writer doucment:

IF UserData.FirstName+LastName == “”

THEN

Open document on first page;

ELSE

IF document.propertiers.modified.user != “” THEN

RecentUser= (document.propertiers.modified.user)

ELSE

RecentUser= (document.propertiers.created.user)

IF RecentUser == UserData.FirstName+LastName

THEN

Open document on stored position;

ELSE

Open document on first page;

A keyboard shortcut provides the function to restore the saved document view. This shortcut can be called at any time, even if the document has been edited.

If the document is opened under AutoRecovery situation the document view is restored in order to restore as much as possible of the user's editing session [AutoRecovery].

XForms

Form documents can be opened with either the Form Use Mode or the Form Design Mode. Both modes open the document on the first page.

Writer/Web

HTML pages are opened on the top position anyway.

Opening Behavior Calc

OOo 2.0

OOo Impress documents conform to the setting Tools>Options>View>Restore Editing View.

OOo 2.0.x (x>0)

OOo Calc documents always make use of the stored document view data to restore the document view.

Open Behavior Impress

OOo 2.0

OOo Impress documents conform to the setting Tools>Options>View>Restor Editing View.

OOo Impress documents open on the first slide. The stored editing mode is preseved. If the presentation was saved while in master mode the document opens in the slide editing mode.

The same shortcut as in Writer is used to restore the saved document view.

Open Behavior for Draw

OOo 2.0.x (x>0)

OOo Draw documents open on the first page. No shortcut is provided to restore the saved document view.

Options: Restore Editing View

OOo 2.0.2, i53104

The option Editing view at Tools>Options>OOo>View>Restore of OOo 1.1 is no longer needed.

Illustration 6.1.: Option>OpenOffice.org>View for OOo 2.0.2 as defined in Optional Hardware Acceleration

Keyboard Shortcuts

OOo 2.0.1 / i33307

Writer (including XForms) uses Shift F5 to restore the stored document view.

The conflict with the OOo 1.1 Writer function “To Next Frame” is resolved by assigning Shift-F4 to this function.

OOo 2.0 / i50901

Impress uses Shift F5 to restore the stored document view. (The View Menu spec says that the Navigator opens with Ctrl-Shift-F5)

String list

Item	English	German	Comments
menu item	Restore Editing View	Bearbeitungsansicht wiederherstellen	Not already on a menu; only as optional menu item in Tools - Customize dialog

OOo 2.0.x, x>0 / i50902

Impress use Shift F5 to restore the stored document view.

G11n

n/a

Error Conditions

In Writer the user tries to restore the saved document view, although the document has been heavily edited. The function tries to restore the document view at best guess. If the original position in text can not be identified the view does not change.

Migration

n/a

Future Tasks

Removing the option “Editing views” is an open issue. > OOoLater

Open Impress on first slide.

Add shortcut shift F5 to Impress

Notes

BH-1: In OO.o 2.0 Impress will have the tri-pane view. It will be possible to close some parts of that tri-pane view. So the last Impress-view needs to be saved. That aspect needs to be considered within the implementation of this feature.

FL-1: What about zoom for Impress and Draw?

Addressed Issues

LHO-1 comment. My sense is that it takes some more research, on how competing applications actually handle this situation across all the three file types (spreadsheets, text documents, and presentations), e.g. I just found out that Word doesn't just set the cursor to the beginning of a doc, but saves the last editing position as well (use Shift-F5 to jump to that position). Also, I want to explore the aspect of interoperability on this matter. My intend is to invest into researching this stuff only once, specify it as completely as possible, even though we might decide to first implement just the basics. But researching their features in depth is a very costly task, that I only want to do once.

ES: LHO-1's idea of a "jump-to-the-last-time-shortcut" is cool. Unfortunately Shift+F5 won't do it:
Writer: jumps to the first Drawing/Frame
Calc: Trace Dependents

MMP: shortcut conflict resolved

MMP-1 issue: We have no statistical data if OOo's users properly enter the user data. This information is used to fill the author field of documents. As this field is used to distinguish between personal and foreign strategy an “unknown” for all users can cause an undesired behavior on open.

MMP: If both author and current user are unknown then the foreign strategy is used to open documents.

UFI-1. I personally strongly object to implement it.

it is another "magical" feature that no one understands

- it works for some users, for some others not (depends on User Name Data entered plus check box in File/Document properties set)

it worked yesterday, and today it doesn't (because it is day 9)

it really annoys me if I have to open a complicated doc at intervals to look up something and it is not there at first sight. May be always page 23 of a text doc, or sheet 3 halfway down of a spreadsheet. Why am I not allowed any more to keep that view? Must I really copy that part to the start of another doc and use that? Or enter a space, delete it, then save every week? Do we have an autostarting macro for that? Foolish behavior, if you ask me (and you did).

ES: I think an option to open a document on top of document/last position is a good thing.
But, like UFI-1, I doubt that a so smart and time related feature can be understood by the user.
I mean I doubt it is really intuitive. I already see bugs related to "sometimes document does not open the same..." Summed up: I'd advice to give up the time limitation and even the intelligence of a user related mechanism trying to guess who wants what.

MMP: ok, no “magical” feature

DL-1: a small solution for OOo 2.0: Writer documents open on the first page (no exceptions, no shortcuts), Options remain untouched, but they just affect Calc, Impress, Draw.

The decision has been changed due to 51 votes of the OOo community.

ES-1: Shift-F5 is taken for Select first Obejct in Writer. For Accessibility reasons we have to find another shortcut. Maybe Ctrl-Shift G/K

MMP: There is no reason why the specified alternative Shift-F4 should not be used to call the function “To Next Frame”.

References

OpenOffice.org CUI meeting minutes: http://ui.openoffice.org/protocols/protocol_2002-09-19.html

AutoRecovery	http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/recovery/Autorecovery.sxw

Optional Hardware Acceleration http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/options_settings/HardwareAcceleration.odt

10	Open Document Behavior

Open Document Behavior	10

http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/open_doc_behavior/OpenDocumentBehavior.sxw

Matthias Müller-Prove

2004-05-10T12:26:12