Bug 46582 - FORMATTING: Description of Styles -> Border -> "Merge with next paragraph" could use clarification
Summary: FORMATTING: Description of Styles -> Border -> "Merge with next paragraph" co...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.5.0 release
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard: BSA
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Paragraph-Dialog
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Reported: 2012-02-24 09:47 UTC by Jon Grossart
Modified: 2017-06-08 22:49 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of how it looks with space between elements (6.97 KB, image/jpeg)
2012-02-24 09:47 UTC, Jon Grossart
Details
Screenshow of how it looks with no space between elements (5.34 KB, image/jpeg)
2012-02-24 09:48 UTC, Jon Grossart
Details
ODT example of styles with borders (8.65 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2013-10-20 13:11 UTC, Owen Genat (retired)
Details

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Description Jon Grossart 2012-02-24 09:47:33 UTC
Created attachment 57599 [details]
Screenshot of how it looks with space between elements

Problem description: If you apply border to consecutive headings, the lower border won't get drawn unless there is space between the two headings. Basically, the problem seems to be with lower border styling disappearing when styling the next element as well.

Steps to reproduce:
1. create new document
2. create a "Header 1" line
3. create a "header 2" line as the next section
4. modify Header 1 to have a top and bottom border
5. modify Header 2 to have a top and bottom border

Current behavior:
4. both borders show up on H1
5. only top border on H1 and lower border on H2 shows up

If you put a element between the two, then it will show up correctly. However, You very often have one header element following the next at the start of sections.

Expected behavior:
5. both borders show up

Platform (if different from the browser): 
              
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.2
Comment 1 Jon Grossart 2012-02-24 09:48:16 UTC
Created attachment 57600 [details]
Screenshow of how it looks with no space between elements
Comment 2 sasha.libreoffice 2012-05-23 09:37:58 UTC
Thanks for bugreport
Disable option "Merge with next paragraph" (in tab Borders, on bottom)
Comment 3 Jon Grossart 2012-05-23 15:55:23 UTC
Ah, thanks. user error. :)

Perhaps an enhancement would be to alter the language somehow. "Merge with next paragraph" isn't exactly descriptive of the behavior.

Perhaps:
"Merge borders for same styled paragraphs"
"Combine borders for same styled paragraphs"
"Combined border for same styled paragraphs"
"Single border for sequential same styled paragraphs"

I would also think a "more expected" default behavior would be for the option to be unchecked (although, other people may expect something different, I suppose, depending on the border type). For starting with an outline in a document, I would expect the borders to be there separately. For final formatting, perhaps not. Hmm...
Comment 4 Jon Grossart 2012-05-23 16:06:04 UTC
I'll switch it over to enhancement since it does work as expected.
Comment 5 sasha.libreoffice 2012-05-23 22:40:53 UTC
> "Merge borders for same styled paragraphs"
It merges different styles as well. So  "for same styled paragraphs" not applicable.
Comment 6 Jon Grossart 2012-05-24 09:19:48 UTC
(In reply to comment #5)
> > "Merge borders for same styled paragraphs"
> It merges different styles as well. So  "for same styled paragraphs" not
> applicable.

Well, if I have my "heading 1" and "heading 2" with both set to merge and border of underlined, if I set the merge with next paragraph, they are both still underlined. The borders are only combined if I have 2 heading 1's immediately next to each other.

If they are supposed to merge with whatever paragraph is next, then it isn't working. And in this case, the expected outcome is completely unintuitive as to what the end result would be.
Comment 7 Owen Genat (retired) 2013-10-20 13:11:54 UTC
Created attachment 87872 [details]
ODT example of styles with borders

Attached example shows:

- Heading 1 with 6pt border above/below
- Heading 2 with 4pt border above/below
- Text Body with 2pt border above/below

One triplet of lines are adjacent and the next is separated by a single blank line in Default Style. All styles have the "Merge with next paragraph" option checked.

As far the behaviour of changing the border thickness of these styles is concerned, they behave as expected under Ubuntu 10.04 running v4.1.2.2. Where two adjacent styles have the same thickness border, then the lines are merged. Only when separated by an intervening style or when the line thickness differs does a style retain both above and below borders.

In terms of improving the wording I think "Merge borders of identical style" would be clearer as the focus is on the /border/ and not the paragraph (as comment #5 indicated).
Comment 8 Owen Genat (retired) 2013-10-20 13:13:27 UTC
Setting status to NEW (for changing the phrase as indicated).