RE: [office-collab] MCT challenge #1 - some observations on Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

I confirm ORW's analysis of the behavior of AOO 3.4.1 with regard to MCT Challenge #1.  It is useful to know the pattern holds with some degree of generalization.  

I did not test the CT-off case of paragraph merge.  Funny.

 - Dennis

PS: I also agree that failure to retain the CT-tracked paragraph-styles (ones that cannot be expressed as character styles) of the decapitated paragraph appears to be a bug.  This suggests some resiliency tests that could be tried.  I've adding that to a few I have in mind.

PPS: Another case is: If <text:span> are introduced as part of the merge, there is no information that would have them be removed if the change is rejected.  That's not an error, as far as ODF is concerned.  I wonder if this can surprise users or if it will simply go unnoticed and be harmless.

-----Original Message-----
From: office-collab@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:office-collab@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Oliver-Rainer Wittmann
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 02:45
To: office-collab@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [office-collab] MCT challenge #1 - some observations on Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1


Hi,

regarding MCT challenge #1 and our discussion in the last SC call I did
some observations on Apache OpenOffice (AOO), version 3.4.1 on how it
behaves.
I think such observations on current applications will help us to figure
out what we need to specify for the Change Tracking action "Merge of two
paragraphs".
Thus the following behavior is what I observed in AOO 3.4.1 - you will see
that certain things might does not make sense or are implementated wrong:

Some words on the used "terms":
- "paragraph style" means a named style which is stored in ODF in
styles.xml
- "direct formatting" means a paragraph or character attribute which is set
directly at a paragraph resp. at all its characters. All direct formattings
are stored in ODF in an automatic paragraph style in content.xml

(A) Ways to merge two adjacent paragraphs:
(1) Make a text selection starting inside first paragraph and ending inside
the second paragraph and delete the selected text
(2) Place cursor at end of first paragraph and hit delete-key
(3) Place cursor at start of second paragraph and hit backspace-key
The intrinsic merge is in all ways the same. In way (1) before the
paragraphs are merged the selected text is deleted from each paragraph
--> My hint for MCT: Way (1) can be split into an CT "Delete" and an CT
"Merge of two paragraphs"

(B) When merging two paragraphs with CT enabled the resulting merged
paragraph will have applied the paragraph style of the first paragraph.
This differs from the behavior when CT is disabled. When CT is disabled and
the first paragraph does not contains any character content the merged
paragraph will have applied the paragraph style of the second paragraph.
This use case is in my opinion not a "Merge of two paragraphs" - it is a
"Deletion of a paragraph". But, AOO treats it as a "Merge of two
paragraphs" and thus, has no possibility to express the "losing of first
paragraph's style" in ODF.
--> My hint for AOO: Improved implementation needed in case that a merge
happens with an empty paragraph.
--> My hint for MCT: The MCT undo stack should keep the paragraph style
information of the second paragraph in order to be able to restore it when
rejecting the merge.

(C) The following happens when merging two paragraphs with CT enabled which
have direct formattings applied:
The resulting merged paragraph will have applied the direct formattings
which are paragraph attributes.
The direct formattings from the first and the second paragraph which are
character attributes are applied via text spans to the corresponding
character portions. The character attributes applied via direct formatting
are kept at the text portions as they are before the merge - no character
attributes applied via direct formatting at the characters of the first
paragraph will be applied to characters of the second paragraph after the
merge has finished.
It is possible that the resulting merged paragraph will not have any direct
formattings (resp. automatic paragraph style in ODF) applied, if the direct
formattings of the first paragraph only contain character attributes.
[AOO implementation detail: The deleted text portions are stored in ODF
with the correct former direct formattings resp. automatic paragraph style,
but AOO is not able to restore the direct formattings correctly when
rejecting the "Merge of two paragraphs".]
--> My hint for MCT: The MCT undo stack should keep the automatic paragraph
style information of the first and the second paragraph in order to be able
to restore it when rejecting the merge.
--> My hint for MCT: The MCT undo stack should contain information about
the applied direct formattings (text spans)  in order to be able to remove
them when rejecting the merge.

Testing the given example document of the MCT challenge #1 in AOO 3.4.1
results in an Change Tracking result as described in (C).


Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards
Oliver-Rainer Wittmann

--
Advisory Software Engineer
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