Tab Key - No Contextual Behavior?

English
,
#11

Efficient use of Writer requires accepting its founding principles.

Every other text editor & code editor lets you indent or un-indent full paragraphs by using Tab or Shift+Tab. It’s as simple as that. You may think there’s a better way to do it, and that’s fine, you’re entitled to that opinion. But from a usability standpoint, you’re never going to convince me that it makes sense to have one software behave differently than literally every other text & code editor on every OS I’ve ever used. I go back & forth between Google Docs, VS Code, KWrite, & MSO frequently. All let you indent+un-indent this way. Only LO does not, which makes it cumbersome to switch back & forth.

You repeat all you want that LO’s way is right and every other application in existence is wrong, but even if that’s the case, norms matter, user experience matters, & your desired user experience is not the same as everyone’s, and it’s not what the vast majority of PC users are used to.

#12

When you go to UK, do you insist on driving on the right side of the road because the vast majority of other countries drive right?

Text editors don’t indent with Tab. They insert the Tab. You indent only if you press Tab when full lines are selected and this is only a shortcut to insert Tabs into the selection. Formally there is no notion of “indent” in a text editor.

I don’t say that Writer way of doing things is superior to other ways. I only say it is different. Either you accept this difference as a challenge or you avoid it completely and keep on with your present apps.

When you’re used to nails and switch to screws, do you use your hammer to drive screws because this is the tool you always used and don’t want to learn screwdriver?

Note this is my last comment. Everybody is entitles his/her own opinions and apparently we can’t meet.

#13

When you go to UK, do you insist on driving on the right side of the road because the vast majority of other countries drive right?

This is not a valid analogy. When you live day to day in the UK, you only drive in the UK. When you work on a computer day to day, you use many different applications, often from minute to minute. A better analogy would be i.e. “when you’re in a given country, do you insist on all the streets driving on the same side as all the others?” Obviously, yes. It would make no sense for one street to be right-sided, and then a random street in the midst of all the others to be left-sided.

Text editors don’t indent with Tab. They insert the Tab. You indent only if you press Tab when full lines are selected and this is only a shortcut to insert Tabs into the selection.

False. Try kwrite.

#14

When you’re used to nails and switch to screws, do you use your hammer to drive screws because this is the tool you always used and don’t want to learn screwdriver?

Again, not even a remotely applicable analogy. If you want to talk about screws & nails, a more relevant analogy would be i.e. mounting a frame by using nails on 3 sides, and screws on just the 4th side. It’s inconsistent. Either you use screws all the way or nails all the way. All apps behave one way, so switching back to one app that doesn’t behave like all the others is a needless hassle, in my opinion & clearly the opinion of others.

I don’t say that Writer way of doing things is superior to other ways. I only say it is different.

I also didn’t state that my way is superior - I stated multiple times that each user should be entitled to their preference. I only suggested that LO could support the current way (aka your way), in addition to the standard way, as an option. Your response: no, it’s this way or nothing

#15

File an enhancement request. That’s the only way to get that implemented. No amount of whining here will have that effect. Please read https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Ask/Getting_Started for how this board works.

#16

All those were valid analogies. LibreOffice is built around styles, and it is designed that way because it is believed that other similar applications do it wrong, they emphasize direct formatting, and that made billions of word processors users to generate trillions of “documents” that lack any structure, leading to uncountable person-hours wasted later to reformatting, restructuring, etc - all that without even understanding by those billions of users that they waste time. They believe they are “efficient” when they create the documents, and the following work is perceived “normal” - because they don’t know there could be an alternative.

LibreOffice tries to make it easy to work with styles, and any of its direct formatting tools must not make it easy to break working with styles. Making Tab do DF would directly contradict the paradigm.

#17

For any software, it is perfectly reasonable to follow well-established practices in the area - as long as this does not contradict its core ideas. And LibreOffice does its job there, trying to not introduce unneeded obstacles to users coming from other softwares - but this is exactly the case where adopting other softwares’ behavior would be destructive to the core ideas of the program: the central thing that is believed in LO to be the most important when working with documents. Hence this difference; and you happen to insist on “your idea is wrong, since every software does it the other way” - which could be extended to “every software must do every bit identically”, since for any bit, you would find that most do it some way, and only few do it differently, according to their vision.

#18

Implementing this behavior would mean that any user, including those using the main intended workflow (styles), must be mindful to not introduce direct formatting inadvertently, when they use the button that inserts the perfectly normal character -Tab. Well - everywhere, except some special cases, that some other softwares decided worth that exception - because those other softwares don’t emphasize styles over DF, and so of course LibreOffice should make its style-using users suffer.

Every feature in LO must be designed to not make its main intended workflow more difficult.

#19

@anon87010807: So you close it saying it’s too argumentative, but then stick your own condescending & obnoxious last word. Real nice.

It’s not “whining.” It was initially a question, to which he keeps explaining why it’s wrong to prefer any other way. When a point is made, I respond. That’s how discussions work. Just because you happen to agree with his view doesn’t make my explanations of my view “whining.”

Anyway, I asked this a year ago & as mentioned, am using WPS now, which works properly. I merely responded because others did.

#20

you happen to insist on “your idea is wrong, since every software does it the other way” - which could be extended to “every software must do every bit identically”,

Not sure how many times I need to keep saying this, as it seems no matter how many times I say it, it’s ignored. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with providing an alternative/better way of doing it. The issue is that there is no option, for those who prefer the common/standard way. If LO had a better way to do things, but you could simply enable the tab key to work the standard way, that would make everyone happy. Even if you think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by preferring consistency across all platforms, it should be the user’s perogative how they choose to interact with their software.

#21

and so of course LibreOffice should make its style-using users suffer.

No. If there were an option in the preferences, i.e. “Use MSO Tabs Behavior,” or “Use LO Styles Only,” which is not enbled by default, it would not make anyone “suffer,” as you insist, unless they explicitly choose it is what they prefer, seek out the option, & enable it.

Not everyone on the planet thinks the same. You have decided that LO’s approach, whereby TAB cannot be used as in all other software, is better. That’s great, more power to you. You have a better approach. But to continue to insist that every other software in the world is wrong and therefore everyone must learn your way of doing it honestly just comes off as arrogant. Your way may well be better. I’m not arguing that, which is what you guys seem not to get. But since every other software doesn’t do it that way, there may still be of millions of people who simply prefer consistency of behavior over your “better way” of doing it.

#22

Any option has a cost. A cost of labor of volunteers implementing that, and then of volunteers supporting that. A feature to make someone happy, on the expense of someone who should “simply enable” something. But when you talk about optional behavior - no problem if someone wants to jump in and implement it - but obviously that someone should be the one who needs that. I myself will not. But also will not block your (or anyone else’s) contribution if it comes optional.

#23

“In LO Writer, Tab never increases indent.”
This is beyond brilliant, in a Monty Python way.
While the entire world has used TAB in only one way, as the OP has described, some dull and bored developer(s) decided to do away with it. Why? because it makes for a more frustrating experience.
I just stumbled upon this problem myself, and the way it is implemented is mind-boggling: at first the TAB works, but as soon as the newline (Enter) is pressed, the indent is removed.
Using styles when all I am trying to do is type up a quick shopping list or a reminder, is beyond dumb. It would be akin to taking a jumbo jet to your local 7-11 store.
I will not be using M$ office, but Libre Office has unfortunately fallen into wrong hands it seems. Instead of its creators thinking “How do we do better job than all others in making this the most powerful AND user-friendly text editor?” they are trying to compete with M$ in how dumb their program is.
OK, I will try a little more, but I have barely started (again) using LO Writer and already hate the philosophy of their developers which this example perfectly illustrates: “To hell with user experience!”.
I have to say that in decades of writing software and using other people’s software (much more complex than LO), I have never seen anything this dumb.
I am tempted to believe that M$ has their people working on making LO user-unfriendly. is that possible? I t seems to be the only logical explanation.
All in all, Lo is for masochists who don’t mind having to re-learn how to type. Unbelievable.
Why not make LO Writer use DVORAK keyboard layout? That should confuse even more users… (Just an idea)

#24

On this board, answers are reserved for solutions, not for rants or debate or even discussion. For that kind of thing, go to a real forum.

#25

There are those people who try to seem as if they know something, but then can’t describe their problems sufficiently (mentioning the “at first the TAB works, but as soon as the newline (Enter) is pressed, the indent is removed”, it would be obvious to any reasonable person that that is something different from what was discussed here, and needs describing), nor do they know how people usually behave…

#26

While this rant is obviously not the ideal way to encourage change, for what it’s worth, I do agree with the premise. To me it seems like such a simple thing to at least have the option, so that users of literally any other editor out there can more easily & seamlessly take advantage of LO (whether that means migrating fully from other editors, or going back and forth between them). After leaving Windows for Linux I thought it was going to be given that LO would be my Office replacement, but I ended up using WPS Office (which I don’t think is as good of a product) solely because of this behavior. I too have difficulty understanding why there’s such an insistence of “we frown upon doing it the way that hundreds of millions, if not billions, of PC users are familiar - you must re-learn a different way just for this software.” Sure, having an alternative approach is great. But when everyone else does it a different way…no option at least?

#27

While the entire world has used TAB in
only one way, as the OP has described,
some dull and bored developer(s)
decided to do away with it. Why?

The TAB (Tabulator) and the Indent was two basicly different tools in the in printing technology, on the typewriters, and they are different things in the modern editor softwares too.

The most efficient way to format a document in the LibreOffice: the usage of the styles - instead of the manual (direct) formatting methods. ((The manual formatting is for the ex-MSO users, because they are not familiar with the Styles.))

#28

Per the OP, it’s not just MSO - it’s the behavior of virtually every other text editor. MSO, Google Docs, WPS Office, SoftMaker Office, VS Code, even basic Linux text editors like KWrite. It’s one way for LO, another way for every other editor out there, which makes it needlessly cumbersome when moving back & forth. It’s far more seamless to just use the same approach for everything, rather than have one single outlier.

#29

VS Code

Could you elaborate please? Also the mention of “nano” (by another person) looks hilarious in this context.

#30

Per the OP. If you select a bunch of text in VS and press tab, it moves all the selected text to the right (and to the left if you press shift+tab). If I select text in LO and press Tab, it deletes it all & replaces it with a tab character.

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.