Re: [office] Spec: clarification of "restart numbering" feature.

[Daniel Vogelheim <Daniel.Vogelheim@sun.com>]

Hi David,

David Faure wrote:

>(Spec: 4.3.2)
>
>text:restart-numbering restarts the numbering of a list and "surrounding lists".
>This means a list level 4 can force a restart on all lists, from levels 1 to 10?
>  
>

That's how I interpret the wording. However, if I see this correctly, 
OOo restarts only the current levels and those below (i.e., numerically 
larger). E.g. if you have list items 1.2.3.1, 1.2.3.2, 1.2.3.3 and you 
would restart the second list item, then the list would be 1.2.3.1, 
1.2.3.1, 1.2.3.2. It would not be 1.2.3.1, 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, which is 
what the wording suggests.

>I fail to see the point - and I fail to find how to activate this in OOo.
>  
>
On the latter: There is a restarting option in the 'numbering' tab page 
in the paragraph format. So click into the paragraph, open context menu, 
choose paragraph, and open the numbering tag page. On the former... 
ermm... :-)

>>If the attribute is applied to a list item in an unordered list, it affects 
>>the numbering of all surrounding ordered lists and ordered lists that are contained within the item. 
>>    
>>
>This sentence gives more details for the case where it's applied to an unordered list,
>but details are missing for the case where it's applied to an ordered list.
>The terms ordered/unordered refer to the initial OOo tag names, and are a bit confusing
>to the reader not aware of that. This only applies to numbered paragraphs anyway,
>doesn't it? Restarting the numbering of a bullet makes no sense.
>  
>
Well, since we decided to remove the distinctions of ordered vs 
unordered lists, that indeed makes no sense. I suspect the sentence was 
added to explain that in the original OOo format the effect 
restart-numbering on an unordered list item would be the same as on an 
ordered list item, as far as other list levels were concerned. I think 
this distinction (and explanation) has become obsolete with the the 
unification of ordered and unordered lists.

My personal understanding of this is that all lists have inherent 
numbering (which you could restart), but the list formatting determines 
whether this inherent numbering is used for labels, or whether bullets 
are used, and whether a label is used at all. Of course, changing the 
numbering only has a visible effect in the first case.

>Now, for the text:start-value attribute, the spec says:
>  
>
>>Unlike the text:restart-numbering attribute, it restarts the numbering of the current list only.
>>only affect the current list level.
>>    
>>
>I initially thought this means that lists contained within the item are not restarted,
>especially since 1) the above paragraph about restart-numbering explicitely said they were
>2) initial testing in OOo seemed to indicate the contrary, but this is only because OOo
>doesn't renumber existing items when changing the "restart-numbering" attribute
>of a parent list item.... After redoing it properly I found that it indeed _does_
>affect the child lists. 
>
>I think this needs clarification.
>* the restart-numbering spec should be clarified, in particular wrt unordered vs ordered.
>* the start-value spec should explicitely say "and lists contained within the item"
>  
>

Agreed.


Sincerely,
Daniel