[duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

  • From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:19:44 -0000

Peter

> For simple document edits that delete a half a style tag
pair, we do
> automatically clean up the other half.  Several people had
asked us to do
> that.  Now we've been asked to undo it. 

Not exactly, Peter.  Utopia would be an option to delete
just the one, or the pair.

If you have 20 minutes to spare, talk to Pat Larkin.  Aside
from Undo/Redo, manipulating Codes in Word imported files is
his next biggest gripe.

George.

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter
Sullivan
Sent: 25 March 2006 22:01
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

Joanie,

Thanks.  With regard to this:

> Although this raises another issue -- one I've wondered
about before 
> this cycle.  If you delete a style tag within the
document, the other 
> half of the pair gets automatically deleted.  But if you
cause a style 
> tag to become deleted by replacing it with nothing or a
code, what, if 
> anything, should happen to the other half of the pair?
> Personally, leaving it as is with the above functionality
works very 
> nicely for me.  And I'm not suggesting a change; merely
wondering
> out-loud:  Would the average user expect something else to
occur?

I don't know what the average user would expect.

For simple document edits that delete a half a style tag
pair, we do automatically clean up the other half.  Several
people had asked us to do that.  Now we've been asked to
undo it.

I'm inclined to leave everything as-is.  Editing will try to
maintain pairs of style tags.  However, you can break the
pairing by inserting style tags directly (using F5 to choose
the es or ee code, or by using Control-[ or Control-< to
type a style tag code or style name directly).  You can also
break the pairing through search and replace.  Of course,
you can use these same methods to fix the pairing.

- Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joanmarie
Diggs
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 4:09 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

Right.

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter
Sullivan
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 4:06 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

Joanie,

In other words, ignore the checkmark on "Replace stylename",
right?

- Peter 

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joanmarie
Diggs
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 4:00 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

I was thinking it would be pretty literal.  If the item to
be found, is <para.> then replace <para.>; if the item to be
found is instead </para.> then replace </para.>

So in the case I mentioned, what I would do is a two-step
find and replace:

1. Replace all instances of the ending style tag </para.>
with [l] 2.
Replace all instances of the starting style tag with nothing
(thus deleting
them)

Although this raises another issue -- one I've wondered
about before this cycle.  If you delete a style tag within
the document, the other half of the pair gets automatically
deleted.  But if you cause a style tag to become deleted by
replacing it with nothing or a code, what, if anything,
should happen to the other half of the pair?  Personally,
leaving it as is with the above functionality works very
nicely for me.  And I'm not suggesting a change; merely
wondering out-loud:  Would the average user expect something
else to occur?

--Joanie

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter
Sullivan
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 3:43 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

Joanie,

Let's consider the case you mention.  To do what the user
intends, would we replace the style start tags with the
code, the style end tags with the code, or both?

- Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joanmarie
Diggs
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 2:08 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

Hmmmm.... Now I'm pondering. :)

The case you mention is not quite what I had in mind.  If a
user knows how to enter the style to find as a style tag,
what is the likelihood that he/she will then turn around
enter the replacement style as plain text?
Granted, I've seen stranger user behavior, but my gut is
telling me that this scenario isn't going to happen all that
often.  So **for this
scenario** I'd say clean up the error message.

The scenario I'm envisioning is  a bit different.  What if
you imported a document from Word and, due to the default
formatting in Word, wound up with text in Duxbury that was
formatted with the paragraph style, but really should be
formatted as text separated by a new line?  In that
instance, you could replace the paragraph style with the
code [l] or [<].  So the user gets into the find/replace
dialog, manually enters the style tag, manually enters the
code, and then sees the replace stylename checkbox and has
to decide whether or not to check it.  A reasonable thing, I
think, for the user to conclude is that he/she is indeed
replacing a stylename:  The stylename <para.> is being
replaced with the code [l].  That might not be what the
intent of that checkbox is, but the user will check it all
the same. :)  Even if you clean up the error message, our
hypothetical user is not going to understand what the
problem is.  So in this case I'd vote for either option 1
(just do the replace) or option 2 (are you sure you want to
replace your style with this code).

--Joanie

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter
Sullivan
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 1:19 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Re: Finding and replacing styles

Joanie,

I've been pondering this a bit.

The behavior that you're now seeing -- apart from the
ugliness of the error message -- is at least somewhat
intentional.

What I wonder is, when a user types in a "style name to
find" as a style tag, and a "style name with which to
replace it" as plain text, then checks "replace stylename",
just what is the intent?  Is the user intending to replace
style tags in the document with plain text?  With "replace
stylename" checked, that's never what DBT will do.

So we deliberately stopped short of handling the "mixed
entry method" case that you cite, for fear that we'd
otherwise be doing something that the user wasn't expecting.
Perhaps with Undo available, that's not such a big deal.

Anyhow, I have some choices for you (and others who may care
to express an opinion).  Shall we:
  1. Just go ahead and replace the one style with the other,
despite the odd data entry,
  2. Warn the user about the apparent inconsistency, and go
ahead with the replacement if the user confirms it, or
  3. Just clean up the error message?

- Peter 

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joanmarie
Diggs
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 3:23 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Finding and replacing styles

Hi all.  With respect to this fix:
---
DBT's Find and Replace dialogs are more flexible about
understanding a user's intent to search for or replace
styles. It is now possible to use Control-< to enter the
style as a tag and check the "Find/Replace style"
checkbox.
---
If you: 
1. manually insert a style with Control-< 2. put a non-style
in the replace with edit box 3. check the replace stylename
checkbox
 
You still get the error dialog.  The error message isn't
very pretty either.
Here is the screen shot of the dialog that appeared when I
tried to replace the para style with the linefeed code --
both of which were manually entered.
 

 
And for the benefit of screen reader users, here is the text
(which I would read with all punctuation turned on -- also
note the non-printing character that appears after each open
quotation -- JAWS says it's "character 28")
 
There is no style defined with the name "es~para..  Are you
sure you want to replace all occurrences of the style
"es~para. with "l? 
 
Take care.
Joanie
 


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