Feature Request: Lack of Outliner Functionality a Deal Breaker for Me

users
#1

When I was a full-time journalist in the 1980s, I became very successful
using a dedicated outliner called PCOutline. When all the major Word
Processers came along--MS Word, Word Perfect, etc, the lack of outliner
functionality kept me with my archaic outliner until MS Word beat the
functionality of PCOutline.

I used outlining as my main method of work when a full-time technical writer
in the 90s (e.g., Fujitsu Software in San Jose). While working for a java
house, I was so influenced by the negative developer reactions to MS, that
I've been wishing to move to OpenOffice or LibraOffice ever since they came
along. But you don't have the functionality that I need, and furthermore,
the discussions of outlining on this forum seem to miss the whole point,

I'm a very motivated wannabe LibraOffice user who currently can't make the
switch, because although I'm retired and writing fiction, the power of an
outliner for writing in all genres is something I can't live without.

So my reasons are complex--sorry about that--but tl:dr will not allow you to
understand them. Please take the time. I really want to quit Microsoft
Office forever and ever and ever. Thanx.

The first functionality I need might seem mickey mouse, but it's the
foundation for everything else. This is that in Word's outliner view,
there's a button in front of every paragraph that I can drag and drop up and
down. It's like cut and paste, but a lot faster. Combined with other
features, it's extremely powerful.

The second functionality I need is to be able to collapse things. In an
article of 25 paragraphs, I can hide every line except the first line of the
paragraph, thus allowing me to see the entire article of 25 paragraphs on
the screen at the same time. This allows me to completely rearrange the
entire article by drop and drag.

For editing a single sentence or paragraph, I insert a return between
sentences, phrases, and even words, drop and drag these elements into a new
order, and delete the returns. Voila! A much better constructed paragraph or
sentence in a snap.

The third functionality is to collapse things within headers. For instance,
if I've interviewed a dozen people for an article or if I've brainstormed 5
pages of random ideas for a blog or a chapter in a novel, I create headers
for different topics and then drag and drop paragraphs, quotes, ideas, etc
into the headers or buckets I've created. When one header becomes too full
and fills too much of the screen, I collapse it, so that it hides all the
paragraphs already there, which cleans up the screen. When I'm done with
this step, I have half a dozen headers, under which are many different
ideas, all of which are completely hidden.

So I drag and drop my half a dozen headers into the correct order. Then I
open the first main header and create a bunch of subheaders. Once this is
done, I reorganize all of the points in this first section into subsections
or sub-buckets, collapsing them all as needed until everything is organized
into a number of different subheaders. At this point, I can rearrange all of
these subheaders into the best order that they belong in. I can even drag a
subheader into a different main heading if I choose, where it will remain as
a separate section.

I can repeat this process as many levels as I wish. This feature in MS Word
is fractal to nine levels. From a chaotic mixture of confusion emerges
order, insight, and wisdom--in one single step.

As a technical writer, I used to sit in a brainstorming meetings, write down
every developer idea as fast as I could (including those I didn't understand
at all), type it all sequentially, and then very quickly organize all of the
ideas into a coherent whole. The developers thought I actually knew how to
program. (Mwah-hah-hah!)

I could never have done that with LibreOffice as it's now configured or
OpenOffice, either. Without my Word outliner, I would have been a shitty
technical writer, and I would never have been able to write the developer
guides I wrote.

As a creative writer today, I currently have a dozen projects that are
percolating, as well as one major project that I'm focusing on. I just
brainstorm for anything that comes up, drag the ideas into the proper
buckets, and I never lose anything of value. (Yes, the word "never" is
absolutely accurate.)

It's like having a Super Power that's available to everyone, but no one
knows how to get it. Currently, this Super Power is only available in MS
Word. Please make it possible for me to migrate to LibreOffice without
losing my Super Powers. And please make these Super Powers available to the
world. Doing so could cause the entire planet to evolve into better writers.
You can help eliminate crappy writing!

Until you do this, LibreOffice is like Kryptonite to me. I can't come near
it, even though I truly want to.

I beg of you: Please help poor little Cougar quit his addiction to
Micro$oft! (Yeah, I know. Outliners do not eliminate the scourge of mixed
metaphors.)

For those of you who made it this far, thanx for listening.
Cougar

#2

I am not a Macro person, but I wonder how much of this can be done with
Macros.

I know one book writer that does a great deal of his work through macros
he created over the years. He could not find any word processor package
that did what he wanted so he learned to write macros. First with Star
Office, then OOo, and now using LO on his Linux system. I do not
remember all of the things he wrote about in his "author's notes" before
he got into his e-newsletter, but one time he did talk about all of the
things he needed to be done and went out to find a package that could do
it through the macros. The last "author's notes" was about getting OOo
running on a new Linux system. That was when it was in the late 1.x
stage or early 2.x one. Just about 2 years ago, I found out he switched
to LO. He no longer writes/co-writes 4 to 6 books a year, but he still
does a few, now that he is in his late 70's.

So
Those who are really good at writing Macros, how much of the info below
can be taken care of through some type of macros?

#3

I've been using opml editor (on Windows, unfortunately) which seems to
do all these things. Once stuff is in place it can be copied and pasted
into a LO document, I believe. I've even been able to do a bit in Text
Pad with indents and then copying it into the opml editor creates a good
outline. I think Scrivener is based on opml and has all of the
functionality you mention. There seems to be a beta version of Scrivener
for Linux; it's well established for Windows and Mac; and I think once
the outlining is done the finished document exports to LO or M$ Word.

#4

Just a friendly reminder that devs rarely track this mailing list. If you have a feature request it belongs on our bug tracker (bugs.freedesktop.org) else it will never get implemented.

Best,
Joel

#5

Without being a writer myself, I somehow understand your needs.

What I do presently is using a mind mapping software (I use freemind[1]
for that) for arranging and rearranging stuff. This works quite to my
satisfaction but when finished, the whole composition has to be
transferred to LibreOffice: this also works quite well but then it
remains static from this point on. So if I want to re-arrange it, I have
to do it again in freemind.

It's a workaround.

Nino
[1] http://freemind.sourceforge.net

#6

I Know that the DEVs do not have much time to read these posts, but I
hoped that some poeple on this list might know enough about the Macros
to know if it was possible.

Since I am not on the DEVs list, maybe someone can forward the original
posting to their list???

I did not know a feature request was to go onto the BUGS tracking
system. I thought it was just for posting bugs that crop up in a version.

#7

There are many outliner tools out there, why use a word-processor when
a text editor such as Leo or Jedit can achieve outline functionality?

Alternatively, use LO writer styles and the navigator toolbar.

#8

I took a look at Leo, Jedit, and OPML, and frankly, none of them are as
convenient as M$ Word. I'm using Word as both a word processor and an
outliner, and it's extremely convenient to be working on a document as an
outline, then move over to a word processing mode without losing the
outline structure, and work with formatting and other elements that are
convenient in that view, and then move back to outlining without losing my
formatting and other tools that are available in Word. When I'm writing in
outline format, I even want to just experience my novel as it will be read
on the page, and then go back to using the outliner.

In Eric B's first post, he recommended OPML but stated that once the
document was moved over to LO or OO, it was no longer in outline format and
could no longer be manipulated as an outline. This is what I found in
looking at every option that anyone here has recommended.

In http://cribsheet.opml.org, there are a lot of comments by people who
also want to have their outliner also act as a word processor. There's no
export facility in OPML that preserves the outline structure once you cut
and paste the text into your word processor, and the users include many
old-time outliner users who think that OPML is the best of the options.

The reason I'm currently sticking with Word is I need a tool that is both a
word processor and an excellent outliner, such that I don't have to cut and
paste, thereby losing the outline structure. I need to be able to
constantly go back and forth between the two views--which is how Word
handles it--as two views.

That's why I am not willing to give up my current use of Word. On the
cripsheet page for OPML, you'll find ample evidence that I'm not alone is
request this feature.

#9

This is where it would have been extremely useful to have access to
source code for OOo extensions.

Everything requested was not only doable, but done by people using OOo
2.x, and the appropriate extensions. Those extensions were, naturally
enough, broken in OOo 3.x.

Use Running Headers, configure Outline Numbering appropriately, and use
Navigator to move the paragraphs around, will take care of the first
request.

I've forgotten what the name of the extension that provided the
functionality described in the second and third request. :frowning:
Adroit use of Navigator almost suffices for that functionality.

Navigator does have its annoyances, chief of which is collapsing when
switching between different objects within the document.

jonathon

#10

Macros are not the answer. Even with the best, most focused macros, I would
not be able to reduce the amount of time and the number of clicks
sufficiently to equal the efficiency of the Word outliner. That's dreaming.
Here's a case in point, and in the PS after my signature, I'm providing a
second case.

I just got an email from someone who took notes at the same meeting as me.
However, she brainstormed an entirely new direction, which was our
agreement. Combining the two emails and breaking up every paragraph into
separate points yielded 35 paragraphs of between 1 and 4 lines, totaling 78
lines, which is too much to display on a single page, especially with
spaces between paragraphs. However with Word, with one click, I collapsed
all the paragraphs into single lines--which is like code folding.

I created five heading buttons, which required five returns and one
ctrl-arrow. (Plus typing the titles.) Then I began dragging the points up
into the headers. This required one click to capture the paragraph and a
mouse move and release to drop. Periodically, I had to collapse the five
headers so that all of the points under each one were hidden. Doing this
literally took two clicks and no scrolling. I did this three times.

The first edit was done after 41 clicks (35 paragraphs + 6 clicks to
collapse header sections). However, once all of the points were distributed
in the five headers, I had to repeat the process with a header that had
eighteen points in it. By the time I was done, I had clicked 22 more times,
for a total of 63 clicks, and no delay between them. It was extremely fast
and efficient, though I wasn't timing it and can't tell you how long it
took.

Using the native methods in LibraOffice, I would have to click three times
to highlight each paragraph and then I could have sometimes dragged and
dropped it. I suspect that most of the time, I would have had to right
click and left click to cut it, navigate with one more click using the
Navigator, click to establish an insertion point, and right click and left
click to paste it, and then navigate to the raw notes with one more click.
This would take 4 to 10 clicks, depending whether or not navigation was
necessary or whether it could be dragged and dropped. If two thirds of the
moves required navigation (420 clicks), which is reasonable for this
project, the entire thing would would have required approximately 492
clicks to accomplish what I accomplished with 63 clicks. In addition, it
would have taken considerably longer, since my method doesn't require any
navigation at all. (If only half the moves required navigation, it would
still cost me 441 clicks.)

LibreOffice would quickly give me carpal tunnel syndrome, because I do this
kind of work constantly. It would also literally cut my efficiency in half,
and because I would be spending so much more time and energy on the
mechanics, I would be tired sooner and less clear in my delivery.

This is why I can't switch from Word to LibreOffice. Since I prefer to get
away from M$, an integrated outliner in LO is vital to what I want. But I
won't make the switch when it will hurt my health, my time, my projects,
and my goals.

Cougar

PS. I told you in my original post that I used to take notes as a senior
technical writer in developer brainstorm meetings. It was not uncommon for
my shorthand notes to fill many pages, and when I typed them, a regular
length brainstorming meeting probably created 500 to 700 lines of notes.

With a document of that size, literally all of it would require using the
Navigator to move around the different points to distribute the notes into
their correct buckets. With my method, the organization of these points
into categories would probably have taken at least 1000 clicks, counting
the subcategorization. However, using LO would require at least 10,000
clicks (probably many more) and would extend the time required to organize
the notes into something coherent by a huge amount of time.

#11

As a partial workaround, did you try the menu File > Send > Create
AutoAbstract... ?

Best regards
JBF

#12

As I stated earlier in the thread, I have a working solution, right now,
but I would prefer to stop using M$ for ideological reasons. I'm not
looking for a work around, but a replacement. That's why I created this
thread and that's why I also filed a feature request in Bugzilla for the
same thing. And by the way, this single issue also is a deal breaker for
using Linux, so this one issue influences everything.

I had a Linux partition on my last computer, but I found that I had to
duplicate resources by having them on both partitions. When I ran out of
space and had to replace the partition, I resented Linux, because I was
only using it for ideological reasons, and I could not leave Windows behind
until I had a fully functioning Office suite, with an integrated outliner.
So in reality, the lack of outliner functionality is a deal breaker for me
for everything, including whether or not I use Linux.

#13

Without using m$, it would seem that the outliner feature may be one
reason for document instability; how does moving of nodes cope with
internal cross-references and bibliographic references for example?
How stable is outliner functionality with images?

The options to proceed:

Change your behaviour and adapt to use LO writer styles

Carry out benefit-cost analysis of you using m$ compared to learning
programming to implement outline behaviour in LO, perhaps as an LO
extension. In this case you should contact the LO programmers and
others for further help to build such an extension.

Use a text editor, then import to LO writer and apply styles
accordingly (could use find & replace function)

#14

As suggested by someone, freemind can achieve nice node collapse/expansion

#15

Hi :) 
I often make the Gnu&Linux partitions quite small and keep the majority of my files on the Windows side.

Ironically my network file-shares are all on Debian so i kinda go from my Gnu&Linux system into the Windows side to hunt around and then use links from there into the Debian.  (Unless i knew it was on the server right from the start and was able to dodge hunting through Windows folders.

As we have probably said many times before on this list there is often 1 or 2 things that you don't know how to do on the newer system and that often means going back to Windows to do those 1 or 2 things.  As you become more familiar the number of things you have to go back for drops quite a bit but it does usually leave 1 or 2 things that linger on for ages after.

Obviously when you first start it's all new to you so you probably spend most time in Windows and only occasionally bounce over to the other but one day you find you have tipped the other way.  For me it was when i found Wesnoth and the same weekend my neighbour fixed multimedia.  Nowadays multimedia seems to work straight out of the box and 0AD looks better.

Generally if i have to use Windows it's an older version of Windows or older software.  I don't really need to keep things so up-to-date anymore.  At the moment it is hilarious to watch people 'having to' shell out loads of money to replace their 'old' versions of MSO 2010 which are now out-dated compared to what people are buying on newer home machines.  One chap has bought 3 different versions of MS Office within the last year and still has problems with people not being able to open his files because they are on a different version.

Incidentally i am sorry we couldn't find a suitable replacement but i'm glad to hear you have at least found a work-around.  It sounds like you are nearing your tipping point. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

As I stated earlier in the thread, I have a working solution, right now,
but I would prefer to stop using M$ for ideological reasons. I'm not
looking for a work around, but a replacement. That's why I created this
thread and that's why I also filed a feature request in Bugzilla for the
same thing. And by the way, this single issue also is a deal breaker for
using Linux, so this one issue influences everything.

I had a Linux partition on my last computer, but I found that I had to
duplicate resources by having them on both partitions. When I ran out of
space and had to replace the partition, I resented Linux, because I was
only using it for ideological reasons, and I could not leave Windows behind
until I had a fully functioning Office suite, with an integrated outliner.
So in reality, the lack of outliner functionality is a deal breaker for me
for everything, including whether or not I use Linux.

#16

None of the work-arounds have the value of going back and forth constantly
between outliner and word processor functions. It's not costing me tonnes
of money--when I had to buy a new computer, since it had to be Windows
because of the fact that nothing yet replaces Word, that's what I bought.
Then I installed all my old software on it. My Adobe is out of date, so I
used other stuff. My M$ Office 2003 works just fine, so I don't have to
replace any software for my new computer. The Linux partition was the only
reason I had to buy another computer at that time, but I would have run out
of space sooner or later, anyway, so rather than eliminate the Linux
computer, I just bought another one.

But I only use Windows today for one reason--the outliner in Word. Nothing
else is essential. And none of the workarounds suggested hold a candle to
what I need. Maybe Scrivener, which has enough features that I like that I
can see potentially using that as my means of dumping Windows.

I have some PHP code that I haven't uploaded yet on the Linux partition of
the old computer, so I had to keep that computer & partition so that I
wouldn't lose my work, mainly because I'm too lazy to deal with a low
priority upload at this moment. My current IDE is ShiftEdit which runs on
any OS, because I'm not going to let myself get trapped in one OS or the
other until I'm ready to dump Windows all together, which depends on
finding a full-featured word processor that allows seamless switching back
and forth between outliner and print/normal modes. Literally everything
about that switch depends on finding a Linux office suite that does
everything I want regarding the outliner. Otherwise, I'm stuck with Windows
forever.

My new laptop has a 17-inch screen, which is better for the kind of work
I'm constantly doing, but I'm annoyed at Windows 8, and it just makes me
wish with more desire for LO to actually be able to replace what I do now.

I do have one small fear, which is probably groundless. I have a document
in Word which is almost 1.5 million words long, and which has around 15,000
cross references. In an early version of OO, I couldn't pull in an earlier
version of this document without breaking OO. I'm a little nervous about my
doc in LO, but I haven't tried it, and since what I have isn't broken, I'm
not taking a whole lot of time to investigate. In addition, I've taken most
of the cross references and imported them into the PHP and database, which
is the ultimate destination of the entire 1.5 million-word project, thereby
producing a prototype with 720 dynamic pages on the web. (This prototype
only contains a small portion of the 1.5 million words, but it covers the
entire set of cross-references.) So theoretically, the need to maintain all
of those cross-references in a doc is no longer so important.

This is a project I dreamed up when computers weighed twenty tonnes and ate
punch cards, and when hypertext hadn't been invented yet. I've been
collecting/inventing/writing the content ever since. I'm now actualizing it
exactly as dreamed, including the UI. Where the hell did that dream come
from, eh?

Cougar

PS. And by the way, I had the entire project visualized as some sort of
open-source back in 1976, which is interesting, given that open-source was
a rare concept back then. I don't yet have enough of the infrastructure
built, yet, to begin to actualize that part of the vision, but then, I've
at least started with the basic plugins that will form the infrastructure
for opening up the content to allow multiple authors, and I've got plans.
I'm used to thinking long-term. I'm a beginner in both PHP and JavaScript
programming, so it will take a while. But then 1.5 million words already
took a while. It'll take the time it takes.

Working without a fully integrated outliner/word processor would slow me
down.

#17

Hi, Tony,

I understand that you're getting great value from the navigator in LO. There
are features, however, in Word that are hard to live without for me in what
I do all the time. As I described in my original post, I currently drag and
drop paragraphs which do not have headers, and I don't like the idea of
having to put a header on every paragraph I want to use the process for.

In addition, I can use a single click of the button to disappear all but the
first line of the text, which can be very long on a wide screen computer
with no word wrap. To accomplish the efficiencies of this way of organizing
with LO takes much longer and more key strokes and mouse clicks.

Someone else made a suggestion that was different than yours, and since I
had just used my method, I was able to give an exact comparison between his
method and mine. I don't have a similarly short project to do the same with
your method, but his method would have taken around 450 mouse clicks to
accomplish what I did with 63 clicks and much less time.

I apologize if this is comparing apples with oranges, but I also do
understand that I'm comparing fruit with fruit, and there is some validity
to doing so. No one has suggested anything that comes close to my methods of
work. Someone suggested Scrivener, and when I was checking out the site, I
discovered their Scapple mind-mapping software, which was so much better
than anything that I've tried so far that I immediately got distracted,
bought it, and have been using it for a massive project I'm now very focused
on. But I never got around to actually checking out Scrivener, so I have no
comment on it, other than I'm predisposed to liking their software now.

At the moment, I'm mostly overwhelmed with my current massive project,
working late into the night, every single night, and I'm not giving much
attention to this discussion any more. Even romance has trouble breaking
through my focus, right now--and believe me, romance has an upper hand in
any battle between her and this discussion.

Thanks for your suggestion.

#18

As a technical writer I understand the need for an Outliner.
Well LibreOffice has Outliner built in!!!
If you use styles on your paragraphs and then use the Navigator (F5) you can
move headings up and down.
You can move the heading and all the text below the heading or just the
heading.
So just create headings of different levels.
Works just like I remember Word 2003 working.
Haven't used Word since 2003 so am not sure if the outliner features have
changed.

Try the LibreOffice Navigator and you will be surprised at what can be done.

Hope this helps

Tony