Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 19291
Split Windows for single document
Last modified: 2014-11-04 17:09:54 UTC
A feature I have found useful in other word processors is the ability to have a split window so I could look at one part of a document and edit in another part. It enables me to make sure I am describing things accurately.
reassigned to bh@openoffice.org
Will close this as a duplicate of Issue 4508. If you find your problem not being resolved please ask for reopen Issue 4508. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 4508 ***
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SBA: I reopen THIS one in order to close issue 4508. Reason: Clear and short description here, confusion and "too-much-junk-to-read" in the other one.
*** Issue 4508 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I thought the « Split screen feature? » post (http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1704) might interest some of you. To sum things up : the « Windows > New Window » feature doesn't allow users to split a document view, it just opens a new window (menu, toolbars, navigator, stylist... and a document view). A « View > Split Document View » feature should allow us to split the view horizontally or vertically (like tiling windows). Some word processors allow us to split a view simply by dragging the border of the view (the mouse cursor changes to a split icon) or pressing and dragging a split button.
Paul Kuckein wrote: > I am not quite certain what you and Jeff mean by "splitting" a window. > (Do you mean being able to scroll independently in tow portions of the > same document in the same window?) Yes, that's what I (jdhodges) mean. (x)emacs (http://www.xemacs.org/) & NEdit (http://www.nedit.org/) do this, for example. So does MS Word, but one can only have one "split" active at a time, and if you ask it to also show document "comments" at the same time, it takes over the split in order to render the doc comments (which sux royally imho). > If so, you can get some of that functionality in StarWriter by using > "Window - New" to get a copy of the current document in a new window in > which you can scroll independently. Yes, I realize that, thanks. But opening another entire, seperate "tool window" (I'm not sure what the correct terminology, nor parlence, is here; "tool window" is the proper Xerox XDE term ;) doesn't meet my requirements. I want/need "n" number of independently scrollable, resizeable, dynamically instantiated/removed "subwindows" within the same tool window, all giving a view of the same doc. and as long as we're on the topic.. I note that with (x)emacs, one can have a diff doc in each subwindow, and that's ok, tho I personally don't require it. However, if that were impl'd, I'd want the UI for alloc'g a split, and for changing "buffers" (emacs parlance) to work "better" -- I find it easy to inadvertantly load docs into subwindows I didn't intend them to be loaded into.
The ability to split a window into two panes that can be scrolled independently is a feature I use almost daily in MS Word. It is extremely useful in developing long complex documents. The absence of this feature in OOo is a signifcant shortcoming for my work.
I am surprised that at the very least there is not even a target milestone for this feature. As others have reported, editing large documents in the absence of this feature is a major inconvenience. Even a single vertical split, as provided by Word, is vastly better than nothing. To do the job properly, of course, one would like to have every window be splittable vertically and horizontally (recursively). That's probably asking for too much, though :-) Opening a second document window is a terribly poor substitute: it takes too long and takes up so much real estate on the screen that one ends up with precious little of the document that one can see. I guess I'm not really adding anything to prior posts, except to say "me too", in the hope that maybe at least the feature will get scheduled for a target milestone in the near future.
note: Staroffice 5.2 had a split screen feature and can still be found at some freeware directories. see also issue 19292: Split Windows for Multiple Files
Please set target: 2.0 or Later ?
keywords, owner according to new RFE-eval process.
I would like to throw my support behind this also. Especially since you can do it in Calc, but not writer? 22+ votes & no milestone? Are there things with more public interest? This is a key feature! Thanks, Peter
I guess they mean windows MDI mode as opposed to SDI mode (I don't know if MS still uses these terms or not) where each doc gets its entire seperate soffice window. It looks like the ui.xcu file has a "split" function but Im not so sure it works here and if so how its set through the UI anyway.
sorry, not ui.xcu - views.xcu
*** Issue 31350 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Shift+Ctrl+F6 is the shortkey combo for the splitting in everything but writer. It's actually not clear from the help text that writer is excluded. I spent about 1/2 hour trying to work out why Shift+Ctrl+F6 wasn't working in Linux until I re-read the text and realised that it wasn't implemented in writer. At the very least the text in HELP should be upgraded to add a "NOTE: Writer does not (yet) support split screen mode". It's very seriously annoying not having this in writer. It's a feature I need quite desperately.
Each writer window is its own window. If you tile windows on your screen, can you accomplish the same result?
No, not even close. For a start it involves a windows swap. The editing is independant, for example if I am wanting to align a paragraph on page 5 to be the same as that on page 3, split screen allow this very easily, whereas the two windows approach... no chance.
Try this for me: 1) Open the document you need the split windows for 2) Select *Window > New Window* (Note that a second window opens. 3) (This step works in Windows, I don't know how other desktops handle it.) Hold down Control and select both windows in question on the task bar. 4) Right click and select /Tile Horizontally/. Did that work? Now you have two editable windows with the same document. See attached screen shot. (I have dual monitors, so the screen shot looks big, but Writer is only on one of my screens. Let me know if this works.
Created attachment 27431 [details] PIcture of two open Writer windows tiled
peschtra wrote: > 2) Select *Window > New Window* (Note that a second window opens. > 3) [...] Hold down Control and select both windows in question on the task bar. > 4) Right click and select /Tile Horizontally/. This is no solution. First of all, as acknowledged in peschtra's comment, it is not guaranteed that the user's desktop will provide such a tiling function in a simple way. But the most annoyable thing is that this "hack" wastes much space on the screen. In the peschtra's screenshot, one can see that almost 20% of the screen is wasted by duplicating toolbars, menu bar, horizontal speedbar and window title bar. This shows that a split function, as exists in other OOo modules, is definitely needed.
It seems there is still no split screen facility in Oo 2.0 Writer! A workaround is to save the document in doc form, and then use the split screen facility in Word.
Created attachment 31449 [details] Efficient split screen layout
Although I agree that a split screen option would be useful occasionally, I think the existing option to create a New Window is sufficient for occasional use. It is easy to arrange the windows efficiently. 1. Press Windows key + D to minimize all windows 2. Maximize the Open Office Document that you wish to split 3. Select "New Window" from the Window menu 4. Hide the status bar in both windows 5. Hide the toolbar(s) in the lower window.
Yes, I think we all understand how to get two windows on the screen at once, but I think that we all also think that this is no substitute for a real split screen feature. To me, there are three principal drawbacks to this method: 1. It takes a lot of work (although I suppose that someone could write a nifty macro do to everything, but in the absence of such a macro it's simply painful to "pseudo-split" the screen in this way); 2. It takes up too much screen real estate. 3. Resizing the windows is painful. When editing long documents (which I often do for several hours per day) I resize the split window several times an hour. I confess that almost always I now edit such documents in Word. This is not to suggest that Word's split-screen feature is perfect, far from it, but it's much better than anything we can do right now in OOo. OOo2 has made great strides and is now for many purposes a realistic alternative to Word, because it actually handles quite complicated .doc documents rather well; maybe by OOo3 we'll actually have something that does all the Word stuff as well or better than Word. Looking in the bugzilla archives, I see that essentially every feature I've noticed where OOo is weaker than Word has been requested for enhancement, so I'm hoping that the development team is going to take those requests to heart for OOo 3. As others have noted, it would certainly be nice to have a target milestone for this feature. The lack of good split-screen editing is the principal reason I can't recommend OOo to other people in my company.
very usefull feature when you have a lot of translations to do 1 open the original document 2 open the new document where to put the translation 3 "split" and then you could work with both versions with only one eye > The lack of good split-screen editing is the principal reason I can't recommend OOo to other people in my company. for me too, same reason
The lack of good split-screen editing is one of the 2 reasons why I use Word rather than Oo Writer for writing scientific articles (the other reason is the lack of an efficient integrated bibliography manager such as Endnote).
*** Issue 56981 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 63788 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 57250 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Also adding my support that this gets prioritized as a new feature in the next milestone. It would be great to see this one added in the near future. This is an issue that goas back four years now and has been supported by me and 50 more individuals, not to mention those that haven't spoken up on it yet, or are using their 5 votes to support other issues, but are watching this one. It's been the suject of at least five other bug reports/feature requests, all of which are consolidated here. The separate window thing just doesn't cut it. More windows means the use of more system resources. It means reduced screen space, it means more user interaction to switch from one window to the next. Not only that, but the "solutiuon" has been clearly labeled as a workaround, implying that develoeprs recognize the need to fix the issue. I for one would like to see this sooner than OOo3. It's already implemented in the rest of the OOo suite, and it took developers well over a year to even realize what users are requesting.
Dear developers, please consider introducing this feature into all (or at least Calc and Writer) of OOo applications. This is very usefull and highly used with competing products feature.
add my votes
Please add the split window/split view feature to OO as soon as practical. thank you
Hi all, Since this issue is kinda similar to 19292, I'll repeat some arguments from there: Using multiple windows gets cumbersome when: 1.I have to resize windows 2.I switch to other applications 3.Documents get numerous (in fact, I can get nuts trying that with 3 of them) Also, the multiple buttons in the taskbar also make it too polluted (this is a problem in Windoze, dunno if other OSs also suffer from this). I'd also ask that "Component" and "Version" be set to "all", since this is useful for many components and happens in different versions (mine is 2.0.3). Thanks,
*** Issue 75223 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
As I see there are many people that need to split up windows in Writer. In my (dup) Issue (75223) I have a screenshot between the way to split document in 2 windows, and the way MSOffice do it with split screen. The space that the duplicated bars take, is a negative (-specially if you have 2 toolbards in the top part - i have the second one in column left) of using 2 windows. And I see that this usefull for many users (that use OOWriter for proffesional and not only reasons) feature hasnt been set to created since OOo 1.1 RC4 to 2.1 version. Anyway.. Split Window is a good feature that we need it :)
Issue 76126 suggests to allow horizontal as well as vertical splitting and also the idea to have more than one part.
*** Issue 76126 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Why is this feature available in Calc but not in writer?
I too would like to see this implemented sooner than version 3.0, yet it's not even marked for that milestone, let alone a sooner release. This is in fact a very important feature, and users who need this feature are not served by the workaround of two separate edit windows... especially when working on multiple documents, as others have noted here. That becomes a nightmare. Please assign this issue a target milestone.
*** Issue 71654 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I can't believe that a four-and-half years old issue with so many requests (see the number of posts, votes and duplicated issues) hasn't even a milestone set. Or at least an answer. Makes me feel that developers don't care about users opinion.
I to am perplexed by the lack of commitment pertaining to this request. This is a feature that I use almost daily in all office program. It is proposed earlier in this post that the same result can be achieved by tiling the document windows. If so, why was it decided that this feature had value in Calc and Impress/Draw but not Writer? Your hard work is appreciated but I am not sure how to escalate this request given all the other remarkable work that is happening concerning OO.org. Maybe I should give this issue all my votes.
Yes, pls vote here if you agree this issue is crucial. I read somewhere that OOo wants to beat M$O in version 3.0. So they probably are considering the issue, because it'll never beat M$O otherwise. BTW, I'll leave a suggestion here: to merge this with issue 19292, since that one would hopefully solve this one. Best regards all.
For the record: The first public beta of OOo 3.0 still has no sign of this feature. Of course I agree that a Word processor without split windows cannot compete with anything. The worst thing is: The feature has always been there in OOo's predecessor StarOffice.
You must be dreaming. :-) StarOffice never had that function. In StarOffice you could open two windows for the same document and you still can do this in OpenOffice.org. The only additional functionality in StarOffice was that it could rearrange the windows to be in the same task window. But as this was possible only at a cost (lost system integration) that was removed in OpenOffice.org. For OpenOffice.org this needs to be done in another way. With the given resources we can implement such features only one by one. For 3.0 we chose two features we considered to be more important: improved "notes" and multiple page view.
>The only additional functionality in StarOffice was that it could rearrange the windows to be in the same task window. That's all we ask. >But as this was possible only at a cost (lost system integration) that was removed in OpenOffice.org. I never detected any "lost system integretation", and I persume none of us would care. >For 3.0 we chose two features we considered to be more important: improved "notes" and multiple page view. I admit those would be features, but on what grounds did you consider those more important than repairing the damage you have done by removing split document view? Do those features have more votes? Btw., there are rumours Sun's OOo team has a tradition of rejecting any major patches from other people or companies (like IBM, Novell, ...). If those rumours are true it's clear why there is a lack of resources. No offences, I'm just forwarding street talk. And yes, I know, I shall feel free to (re)implement the demanded feature myself ;-))
You shouldn't believe all the rumours you hear especially if they are spread by the same people that hold back a lot of patches. Fact is that we gratefully accept all patches we get. But sometimes this takes even more time than doing it ourselves. :-) About the importance: my own assessment is that a multiple page view will give more users a greater benefit than a split view. This is based on more than 10 years of experience. I may be wrong (nobody is perfect ;-)), but that's life. Until now I still think I'm right. :-)
I know that this is getting a bit off topic, but can you give some rough guidelines as to when a patch will be less effort to do it yourself? If this issue isn't addresses in the next month or two, I will probably have some free time coming up and could do the fix myself. However, it's no use doing the patch is it's not going to be accepted.
From what I could understand of multiple page view, it's the ability of seeing adjacent pages of a single document in the same window. Though I agree it's useful, I fully disagree it's more important than the split window feature. While the adjacent page view is an improvement (and, as such, welcome) of what we already have - Writer has a continuous flow view and OOo print preview can show multiple pages - and is aimed mostly at Writer (Impress at most), split windows is a full feature with a great impact on usability for all OOo applications. Also, given OOo application integration, if it's done as proposed in issue 19292 (which can substitute this one, IMHO), will permit simultaneous view and editing of different types of documents, such as text and presentations, for example. This completely beats what I had in my previous suite (M$O 97), while the multiple page view comes quite short of that. It seems the decision is already made, but I just want to make devs aware of my user point-of-view. In fact, this is the only feature I miss since I switched from M$O. Many thanks.
Please give us more information around computing environment such as resolution of display like 800 x 600, the number of colors like 1 million, and what mainly office suite software is used for, etc. This issue opened in 2003 and now we live in 2008. I guess that computer environment has been dramatically changed compared to 2003. This is my opinion. I do not currently need an idea of split-window, but will need much more other features. So I would like developers to spend time for enhancing and introducing other features. Why do I think so? I currently use 2560 x 1600 of LCD displays. With this environment, the area of window title, menu bar, tool bars, and status bars occupies less than 10% of height of display. I do not need to take care of the occupancy. I hate to use Window's like desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE, not to mention, Windows. I prefer a window manager fvwm2 that allows users have multiple virtual displays. Individual virtual displays lie side by side and thus a window of software can spread all over the displays. That means I have a 12800 x 8000 of virtual display with a setting of 5 x 5 virtual displays. Additionally, I apply focus-follow-mouse policy and auto-rise-window. I do not need to click some area of a window to change focus of window, just move cursor pointer on the desired window. The window, even it is behind the other windows, automatically rises up to the top. A window manager fvwm, predecessor of fvwm2, was available in the time of Windows 95. Windows-like desktop environment, however, has been dominating the PC markets for years, but I think such kind of poor environment leads much loss of productivity lasting for some decades. Sorry, those are somewhat off the topic. What I wanted to mention were: - Larger display, less demands of split-window. - Times goes, technology enhances, becoming easier to have a larger display. - Within a few years, most people would not take care of this issue. Actually, from a technical point of view, implementation of split-window in an application takes much efforts than leaving a control of two windows to the window system provided by OS such as Windows, Mac OS, and UNIX. Demands of this issue would be diminishing. But there would be something that i have not noticed.
Oh the need for a split window is not just about screen size. It's about proper editing of documents where one section refers to another or is related to it. It affects many things, from cutting and pasting to proper formatting. Two windows are nowhere near the same as a split window mode. And although your solution works for you, others, including me, would hate it. For me auto-focus is one of the worst features ever added to X. I don't want to get into an auto-focus debate here, so won't list my reasons but believe me, there are many people like me who simply hate it. And the other issue is that yes, you may use X. As it happens, so do I. But most people use Windows and OO competes with Office, so that's the target market. That's where nearly all the potential users are right now. Split window usage cannot be worked around successfully on M$ no matter what we may think of M$ Windows as a platform. Neither can it be worked around successfully on the Mac. There's 99% of the world's desktops immediately at a disadvantage to Office in the OO v.s. Office competition.
Having two windows open does consume very much time for window arranging, and still does not solve anything. It even endangers the data, because alternately editing the document in 2 or even 3 windows totally confuses OOo and one never knows which window is for real (I just re-tested with OOo 2.4). Besides operating two distant but related parts of a document there are other nice applications for multiple _synchronized_ (!!!) views on the very same part of a document: Having one non-print-layout view (better for typing and editing) and one _synchronized_ WYSIWYG view (to see what's being printed). As of screen sizes: You cannot assume large displays. I love my 24" 1920x1200 screen in the office, and I know of developers with e.g. 3200x1200 dual screen desktops, but far over 50% of people work on laptops or cheap desktop PCs with 1024x768 usally, 1400x900 tops. During the last say 12 years, the average office PC resolution hasn't even completed the step from 1024x768 (17" CRT, 15" LCD) to around 1280x1024 (19" LCD) or 1400x900 (some 15" widescreen laptops).
Thank you for the valued comments. Needs: 1) To refer to a different part of a document 2) To refer to a beginning and ending part of an area Measures: a) split-window b) two windows We are not required to choose one of them. We could incorporate both of them and leave users a chance to choose it. Specifications: = How to split a window = In horizontal writing, a window should be split horizontally into upper part and lower part. In vertical writing, a window should be split vertically into left part and right part. Word 2003 splits a window horizontally in vertical writing. It is really mess. Imagine that you are working on an English document, what do you feel if the window gets split vertically and both parts of window has a horizontal scroll bar. You should move it back and forth to see an entire line. If we try to introduce split-window, we should consider vertical writing, too. = Selection = To select a region, locate a cursor somewhere in the split-window A and then locate a cursor somewhere in the split-window B with holding a Shift key. Word 2003 does not work in such a way. An attempt of locating a cursor fails, but simply makes a focus changed to the target window. If we try to incorporate split-window, it would be better to take care of selection. = Short cut key = To switch window, somewhat better short cut key or key sequence might be needed. With Word 2003, an attempt of switching between split-windows by Alt-TAB fails. That short cut key brings us to other application's window. Is there any convenience short cut key already incorporated on Word 2003 or 2007? If we want to proceed this issue, we would need more user scenarios and discuss them and devise their solutions. We could refer to other software, but would not need to exactly mimic other software. For instance, specs of split-window of Word might be defined under the circumstances of small (800 x 600) screen in the 8 or 16 bit era. In comparison, we are currently living in 64 bit era with more than 1000 dot resolution screen, We do not need to follow such traditional, conventional, outdated, ... specifications. In addition, we should concentrate on what users and customers desire. User means those who use a software on a daily basis while customer means those who decide what software is chosen and give an approval of plan and/or budget.
tora, I understand your view as a high-end user, but unfortunately this situation changes a lot among users: The vast majority of computer users I know of have 15" or 17" monitors with resolutions either 1024x768 or 800x600. Greater than that is pretty rare. Very little people use a good window manager. In fact, the vast majority have Windows installed. OTOH, few would have patience to do the managing themselves. I'd never use focus-follow-mouse for reasons beyond our discussion here. This could be taken care of by OSs in a few years, but we don't know how many (let alone the majority of users get the solution). We will have in the near future a solution which is not as good as what the competition brought over 10 years ago. I know split windows is not a simple solution and apologize for the 'me too' flooding. But what I really want is to have the reasons clear. For people like me, which I believe to be many, split windows is still the feature of choice. Best regards
If horizontal and vertical splitting are possible, I'd offer both at any time. With large wide screens vertical splitting absolutely can make sense even with horizontal writing. See gvim (aka vim-gtk) and xemacs. Selecting text the way you described would be nice, but not a necessary part of a new split window view. The split window implementation of M$ Word 2000 would satisfy most of us, despite the imperfections you mentioned. That's a general remark: Sometimes a feature is better in than out, even if it is incomplete, experimental, looks awful, ... As of example applications, I can name some apps aside MSO: Word processors: + KWord (split windows and multiple windows, synchronized) + AbiWord (synchronized multiple windows) + StarOffice in late 1990ies ;-)) Text editors (unfair to compare with them, but still): + vi in all variants + emacs in all variants + nedit Top list of apps not providing real split windows: - OOo - KDevelop 3.x (Feature scheduled for KDevelop 4.x) - Eclipse 3.x (Eclipse Bug 8009, Feature has chances for 4.x; same painful discussion there)
grillon wrote: >We will have in the near future a solution which is not as good as what the competition brought over 10 years ago. Did you mean "We want to have" supporting our demands or did you really mean "We will have" promising us something beeing in progress?
(Bah, forget my last message, I only saw tora's reply after submitting it) Selection: I dunno what's exactly the hard part here, but IMHO it should be independent window-wise. Also, selecting a display area and a cursor position should be retained indefinitely as the window goes out of focus. No shift-click is necessary as far as simple editing is concerned. But, since you use an advanced window manager and I don't, you are probably aware of more tricks than I do. Pls share them so we can sync our thoughts. Shortcut key: what about Ctrl-Tab? This is the common shortcut used in most Windoze apps. On the issue of splitting horizontally or vertically and horizontal or vertical writing: well, the customer can decide whether to split vertically or horizontally depending on his needs. I don't think this is a real problem. Many thanks.
ibcl, I understood we will indeed have multiple page view in OOo 3.0, based on both mba's comments and information on the Web. Of course, I cannot promise anything at all, even whether if there will be 3.0 at all...
This is my own understandings - just one idea -. Split window of Writer It is for different views of one document. - Two or more split windows share one cursor mark and current positions. - Directly inserting or deleting letters in one split window reflects inserting or deleting letters in other split window(s) at the same time if viewed area is close to each other. - Typing Asian characters through input method works at the current position in one split window. No need to show candidates in other split window while a user is choosing one of the candidates proposed by the input method. - An action of selecting texts in one split window is shared in another split window or other split windows. - Current cursor position will be stored in a file and retained upon loading the file. New window of Writer It is for sharing one document with other users (normally one user) - Each window has own cursor mark and current positions. - Directly inserting or deleting letters in one individual window reflects inserting or deleting letters in other individual window(s) at the same time if viewed area is close to each other. - Typing Asian characters through input method works at the current position in one individual window. No need to show candidates in other individual windows while a user is choosing one of the candidates proposed by the input method. - An action of selecting texts in one individual window is NOT shared with other individual windows. - File owner's current cursor position will be stored in a file and retained upon loading the file. Cursor mark position is the location where you pressed a left mouse button and cursor current position is the location where cursor pointer currently is after you moved your mouse pointer. A new window could be displayed in the same display or other display, even or someone else's display if a remote window system allows the connection through such as a remote desktop connectivity.
I forgot to mention this. Each new window is capable of having one of more split windows. Thanks.
@kieser: > I know that this is getting a bit off topic, but can you give some rough > guidelines as to when a patch will be less effort to do it yourself? OOo is a very complex application. Sometimes a patch does not address all facets and problems and either omitted important details, creates new bugs etc. Don't misunderstand me: we will try to do our very best to get all patches integrated we get (see e.g. http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/patch_integration). I just wanted to point out that getting patches does not mean that you always save a lot of time. Especially bigger features (like this one) usually aren't done in patches and if they are done we still need several weeks of work to get them integrated. A good example is issue 33737 where we already have invested 3-4 weeks of work for the integration and still are not done yet. > If this issue isn't addresses in the next month or two, I will probably have > some free time coming up and could do the fix myself. However, it's no use > doing the patch is it's not going to be accepted. Of course if anybody wanted to work on this issue we will try to help. Working on something is the "easiest" way to make us shift our priorities. :-) See http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/why_all_issues_are_equal
tora, great starting point. Let me dispute a couple ideas: "Two or more split windows share one cursor mark and current positions" When I need to edit a document seeing different parts of it simultaneously, I want to be able to copy/paste and drag/drop portions of the text from both panes (if we can call it this way). So there's the need of cursor mark and positions to be independent among views. "An action of selecting texts in one split window is shared in another split window or other split windows." By the reason above, I think selections in one split window shouldn't be echoed in other(s). "Current cursor position will be stored in a file and retained upon loading the file." I don't have much of an idea on how to deal with the file storing the positions, but I guess there's two possibilities: a)Electing one view (probably the first opened) as the main one and storing only the "main view" cursor position b)Storing positions and splittings in the file (this could get quite messy) In short, it would be split windows with the specs you wrote for new windows. "It is for different views of one document" What's your thought on merging this discussion with the quite similar issue 19292? Many thanks for getting it moving (also for kieser) and best regards, Emerson
Forgot to mention: despite we're starting the discussion on Writer, it's a good idea to have in mind a future stretch to the other apps, at least Calc and Impress.
We do not need to include calc, because this app has horizontal and vertical splitting capability. I am not sure about a multi-window view, but split view is perfectly there in calc.
grillon: I can agree with you. Could you try "Window | Split" and "Window | Freeze panes" on Excel? What you mention is somewhat similar to "Freeze panes" of Excel while my prior proposal is somewhat similar to "Split" of Excel. Maybe we can introduce both ideas in Writer as Excel does. 1. Start Excel. 2. Select a cell in the middle, center of window and choose "Window | Split." Now you have 4 panes, split horizontally and vertically. 3. Select a cell in the right bottom pane and press Ctrl-right arrow and Ctrl-down arrow to move to cell IV:65536, most far from A1. 4. Now you can select a big area by selecting C3 in the left top pane and then selecting IT:65533 with holding a Shift key. That is an example of selection. A staring point of an area is displayed in one pane and ending point is shown in another pane. Freeze panes of Excel does not have a horizontal or vertical scroll bar for upper and left panes. When we try to introduce the similar feature in Writer, we can add scroll bars for them.
Er... I don't have M$O... I moved to a better suite a couple years ago ;) But anyway, Calc also has "Split" and "Freeze". I did what you suggested, and it's a great thing indeed. Freeze is also great (I use it several times). But what we're discussing here is two distinct, fully functional panes. By allowing the user to have independent cursor positions and eventual area selections, this feature becomes distinct of the current split and freeze. As I said, I guess the proposal here is to have the functions you mentioned for multiple windows, but viewed simultaneously in a single window. That is: one window shows multiple instances of a file (and/or multiple files, as in issue 19292), with independent full editing capabilities for each one. So I end up puzzled with 3 different ways of splitting data: 1.Freeze as in Calc. We cause a section to bond to the page limits, while the other scrolls freely. We have a single cursor and, therefore, only one selection. 2.Split as in Calc. We divide the data so the different portions scroll independently. Still a single cursor and selection. 3.Split as in M$O. We divide the window in more than one view, each one showing a different part of one or more files. Each pane has its own cursor and selection. I see both splits can be used in Writer. The Calc split would work this way: the user selects a point in the text, hits the funcion, then an horizontal or vertical (depending on the writing) divides the screen (or maybe only the text page), allowing each side to scroll and the cursor and selections to be shared between views. This would be quite useful and less space-hungry than the multiple page view. The M$O split would be like: the user opens the same file twice (or two different files) and asks OOo to divide the window, and voilá - you have two panes. Each one with fully independent cursors and selections and full editing capabilities. So one could drag and drop, compare, etc., between two different areas of the document or different documents. This is the killer feature requested, and can be done for all apps. One could, this way, copy from a spreadsheet to a text to a presentation, etc. What do you think? Best regards
I need this. Writing long academic papers opening a new window is not quite the answer, I used to be able to do this years ago with MS office etc and having just bought a very large wide screen monitor for this purpose I'm somewhat stunned to find I can't easily do it.
Tora, which are your thoughts on this? Do you think we can get this moving? Many thanks,
Excuse me, but after some other people claiming for this very needed feature, couldn't be used some sort of coding workaround that, instead of a clipart window, there would be a similar button to do this job? Just a comment. Thanks
I for one would like to be able to utilize both the New Window feature and Split Window, as implemented in MS Word. The type of documents I work in are organized into three sections, all of which are edited simultaneously. The main section, the actual work itself, would take up the right half of my screen. The other two sections, both used for writing and keeping track of two or more different threads of notes, would be take up the left half of my screen and be split into two panes. Presently I have to muddle around with three separate windows, which is not very elegant. So I've added my vote for this issue. Hope it at least gets a milestone.
I work for a public school district with a 1:1 laptop program for our students. We use MS Word on those machines because Word has the split screen feature, which has serious pedagogical benefits in the classroom. If OO had this feature, we could save ourselves close to $20,000 per YEAR in licensing costs for M$ Orifice. This is the ONLY feature that is keeping us from switching to Open Office on all our Macintosh laptops, but it's a serious one. All of our teachers who use the laptops for their literacy improvement program have been trained by the experts to use the split screen as a literacy aid for students. Especially when working on 12" screens like our iBooks have, you cannot have two windows open- there's simply not enough real estate. Furthermore, it adds complexity to the task, and when you're working with Grade 4 students, that's the last thing you want! I assume that there's folks from Sun watching this thread: if you're out there, contact me, please. We are willing to contribute some serious financial support to get this implemented- as I said, we spend an astronomical amount of money on MS every year, and we'd just love to give some of it to you if you'll help us out here! I can guarantee you we're not the only ones in this situation as well- I went to a conference in the summer with over a thousand teachers and administrators from schools all over North America and the UK, many of them having the same kind of programs in their schools. A lot of them would love to switch to F/OSS, but they're kneecapped by lack of features that Microsoft has played up on. All we need is a simple horizontal split; when dragged downwards, both panes show the same document, but are independently scrollable. We don't need two edit points, or two cursors, or dual selection capabilities; just make it work exactly like Word 2004 for Mac and you've got a winner in the schools.
What is wrong here? After having 149 votes and since v. 1.0, there is still not a milestone set! It is a shame to the developers and a big let down to all the supporters of OOo. Please, developers, set the milestone as 3.1 and get it done yesterday. Don't tell us it is difficult to do because I was using this feature in Perfectwork 2.1, by Novell in the Windows 3.11 platform. It is a yesteryear technology.
If there's a reason this cannot be implemented, the Developers sould comment. It would be much appreciated (as is all their other hard work). Unfortunately, I don't see the point in making further good-faith donations until It's implemented because the app isn't all that practically useful to me until it has split windows. Hopefully we'll see it in the near future.
I have to agree with bluloo. I frown over the fact that I can't split my windows each and every time I bring up an Open Doc.
It seems like there is no developer reading this issue as it is "assigned to : requirements". So is there any way that we can bring it to their attention?
I am not an Ooof programmer, but in my copious free time I will try to see how to stop this from languishing. From my quick partial scan of the architectural todo's, http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To-Dos , it seems that there could be a problem regarding the spreadsheet not giving its functionality to the writer and vice versa.
@kissedsmiley: yes and no. Calc has its own, specific implementation of the "split" feature. And I think instead of implementing a second, specific solution we should aim for a "generic" one. Meanwhile I think we should do it in a similar way as in StarOffice 5.2 (IIRC this was mentioned here in an earlier comment) and this means: have TABS(!) in OOo and allow to have more than one view to one or several documents inside of one tab. IMHO this will be the most versatile, elegant and useful implementation. This is my final goal, and any in-between solution should be in line with it. Here's a small summary how that should be done: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Architecture/To-Dos#Framework_Improvements
@mba - That would result in the most versatile solution and make OO unique. I have no idea how it should be implemented from a programming perspective but the outcome solves more than a few problems. While some many not care for the tab metaphor, it is where many productivity app GUIs are currently heading. As long as we don't lose the split view within the same document feature, it adds benefits and solves the original issue as well.
The tabs are not a necessary part of the feature - they are optional. But for me it's important to have a solution that is generic and that fits into the current UI (tabs only in the desktop's task bar) as well into a possible future UI with tabs in OOo. Whether we will have some very much depends on the "project rennaissance" (search for it at http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS in case you don't know it).
Yes, split view is the most important request, but I guess the tabs can conflict with Issue 19292 which, IMHO, is even better (more complete) than this one.
No, there is no contradiction. We can solve this issue here and 19292 with and without tabs, the concept/roadmap in the wiki I pointed to covers that all. There is no difference between having two views to two different documents or two views to one single document in one tab or task window (except that they will have different menu entries or other UI means to create them). But the arrangement of windows and the code to implement it will be the same. For this part of the feature it's irrelevant whether the two (or even more) views are part of a tab or a system task. Having tabs and a tab bar inside OOo gives an additional advantage: you can move view between tabs by D&D on the tab bar. This is not possible with tabs in the system task bar. All people that have used StarOffice 5.2 might know what I mean: this was the coolest and most useful feature of the StarOffice "desktop" (that besides that was a very problematic feature).
BTW, I posted a question a couple times, and still don't know people opinions on that. Since I feel it's relevant, I'll do it again: Why don't we merge this into Issue 19292? The latter contains this Issue, so solving Issue 19292 will undoubtedly take care of both. Pls share your thoughts. Thanks!
Here's an example how it could look like (it's borrowed from StarOffice 5.2): http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Tabbed_Windows_Extension_Discussion#Should_users_be_allowed_to_reorganize_tabs.3F It shows two document views in one window. As I wrote, it's irrelevant if the views belong to one document or two.
By doing this we make clear that we won't get something as in Calc. Calc has an "internal" view split and the split is part of the view of the Calc document. That's not what I want, I want the more flexible solution that I outlined. But I wanted to mention that uniting both issues would nail the solution to the generic one.
> Why don't we merge this into Issue 19292? The latter contains this Issue, so > solving Issue 19292 will undoubtedly take care of both. I'm not sure that that's true. 19292 seems to request only a single split. I would hate for the developers to think that no one is asking them to think about implementing multiple splits. My model for this is Konqueror (from KDE), which allows you to make as many splits as you like, in both vertical and horizontal directions. The text editor I use allows this also (as, I bet, does emacs). It is unbelievable useful, especially on modern monitors that have so much space that one can easily use half a dozen splits productively. Of course, even a single split is far better than what we have now. But it sure would be nice if the general problem was coded, rather than just the 1-horizontal-split problem.
n7dr, I'm not sure either. Issue 19292 says "multiple files", without stating whether this is limited to two or not. The reported used two files as an example. I commented that the genererally mentioned workaround, resizing windows, is worse for more than two files. Anyway, it doesn't hurt to ask, right? I'll post this question there to get things clear. mba, just for myself to undertand that clearly: does your solution* predict a free number of splits and files? I mean, within practical limits. *I saw your screenshot on the tabbed splitted view. AWESOME! IMHO, this would be unbeatable.
yes, there won't be any *technical* limit. Whether the UI should set restrictions is another question.
sba, since I'm not a developer, I have some difficulty following your roadmap. But, if I got it well, the first goal is to have something as a window manager inside OOo, allowing multiple files and/or instances of the same file to be arranged in a single window. This seems to be what Issue 19292 is about and what this issue is becoming. So, in the end, both issues will become the same stuff. If I'm correct, I keep the suggestion of closing either issue, merging talks into the other, so that the discussion is unique. Another possibility is to close both issues and open a fresh one, with the clear idea in mind. Besides unifying the discussion, we also get rid of the garbage collected over the years, making it easier and more objective. My only intent with this is to end the split discussion (pun intended). Then, we move on to the ideas themselves. Thanks
I strongly object to the idea of closing this issue! There is no "garbage" or even a idea, there is just a long history of people claiming back a feature that had been here in StarOffice (!) but was removed at some point for whatever reasons. The age and history of this issue and all the votes and CCs do say something and should not be brushed under the carpet!
Yes, we don't need to close one of them. We know that they are related and won't get confused if both are kept open.
I don't want to see this issue closed either. It may certainly be possible to combine two issues, but I would worry that this one would get glossed over by the developers, as it has for so long. I cannot state this strongly enough: the split document view is the only feature that's keeping OO from being widely adopted by the education market. I just spent $10,000.00 renewing my Microsoft licensing for my district- this is money I could have spent in better ways if I could have deployed Open Office; some of that money (or all of it for all I care) could have been spent on OO development- an offer I made quite some time ago with no response. The offer is still there for an ambitious developer- you implement the feature, I am willing to pay for it. I can't see why this seems so difficult. F/OSS is a great thing, except when development stalls: then it sucks. OO is a great product, and kudos to the developers who are working to make it better. Please, though- we've been waiting for this split-document view option for ages now in education. Make it happen!
I agree as well that both issues have to be separate. Issue 19292 applies to all applications, and if I read it right would give OOo.org the ability to view multiple documents within the same application window. As a matter of fact I use this feature all the time in Excel! This issue, 19291, which I am commenting on only applies to Writer, and would give Writer functionality which already exists in Draw and Calc.
Yes and no. The Calc functionality is not enough - IMHO. You can split the view, but you can have only one selection and the two parts can only be scrolled together. In a Writer document I wouldn't accept that - IMHO both parts must be scrollable independently. And I want to select something in one view without losing the cursor in the other. And again: if done like proposed, this wouldn't be something for Writer only.
I think this issue should be kept. Also, my suggestion is we should go ahead and implement a split screen in a single document first. Then we move on from there to implement the multiple tab. If no one write the first line of code, it can never be done. Just get it moving. Please and thank you.
Now I got the idea of keeping both Issues. Thank you for the comments. IMHO, mba's roadmap is a good way to go - if I got it right, first the split screen (with any reasonable number of splits and files), then tabs on top of it. It's how I see it: split screen, both for single and multiple files is the one enhancement to get, prior to anything else except bugs. This is what will bring OOo ahead of competitors - other stuff is peanuts compared to split screen. Going to the practical side: what is needed for this to move on? Programming skills? Which languages? Logical thinking? Organization? Pls someone inform how we can push this forward other than just endlessly discussing what's already clear. Many thanks.
I'm removing my 2 votes for this one because I recently found out that using Window - New Window will open the same document in a new window. They are linked so that a change in one affects the other, so it is basically what is needed, only a little of a pain to work with. There is wasted space due to multiple window menu lines, but when extra menus are turned off most space can be recovered. It is a little better than Word in that you can open as many "splits" and desired so you can be looking at lots of different points in a document. Anyway, the way it is now will work for me.
It is really annoying working with the "two-screens-alternative", because I was used to move the "split" in MS Word up and down depending on the length of the paragraphs I'm comparing. It would be really great if someone else could do something about it, because I lack the programming skills for it.
I'm with sietske on this. I use the two windows alternative all the time, but it's not enough. I'd like to use the two windows AND split screens together. Because I often work with several documents, and at several points within those documents, simultaneously, I have a strong need for both. I also lack the programming skills to bring this feature to life. My plight is that of an impoverished poet, not a prosperous programmer. I've been keeping my fingers crossed for this split screen now for a handful of years--they're beginning to get a bit sore.
If I remember correctly, Staroffice 5.1 has such a feature. Since Staroffice is the predecessor of OOo, could the developers take a look at the codes of Staroffice, modify it and use it in OOo. That would save a lot of time and effort I suppose.
*** Issue 103967 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I was surprised to not find this feature. Adding windows to see other parts of document can be done with >20" inch display, but with notebook splitting one window is far better
I was surprised to not find this feuture. Adding windows to see other parts of document can be done with >20" inch display, but with notebook splitting one window is far better
Well put, borgo. And notebooks have become the norm. I'm actually thinking of going back to MS Office lately now that I've waited a couple of years for this one important feature that I don't think will ever be implemented.
After many year without MSWord, I still feel very annoying by the lack of the splitview feature in writer. This issue should be taken the most seriously now. Using the "new window" menu is kind of crafting.
Note that the split-view feature already exists in Open Office, just not in Writer. It _is_ in Calc, however, complete with the freeze frame option. And it works very nicely there. So it seems to me that the code is already there. It's just a matter of copying it over to Writer or letting Writer have access to it, or however it works. The point is, the code has already been written.
This is my first post here, so please pardon any bungles: wornway wrote: [quote] Note that the split-view feature already exists in Open Office, just not in Writer. It _is_ in Calc, however, complete with the freeze frame option. And it works very nicely there. So it seems to me that the code is already there. It's just a matter of copying it over to Writer or letting Writer have access to it, or however it works. The point is, the code has already been written. [/quote] What I would like to see in Calc (if this issue is not limited to Writer): I would like to have a possibility that "New Window" and "Arrange" (horizontally, vertically, tiled, etc) gives me two windows for the same .ods file with the option to work on one sheet in one window *and* any other sheet (from the same .ods file) in the other window. "Split" or Freeze frame" doesn't allow for working on a choice of sheets. I currently open a new window, size it, and position it manually. I have even got OpenOffice to remember the size and position of the second window. So for me the only drawback is the loss of a couple of rows devoted to tool bars, etc. If this could be done in OpenOffice, I'd gain these rows. (No, not everyone has mega screens and if one of the aims of OpenOffice is to attract new users, please, please introduce this feature.) Now to see where I cast my vote ***in favour*** of this added functionality.
just updated to 3.2, and it's still not there.... pity... is it likely there will be a solution for this anny time soon?? hope so since it's in fact the only function I'm missing in OO....
passerpunt, If you look at the version, it is since the time of version 1.1. It has been a few years and with 182 votes to date. As some of us have noted, technically, it is not impossible, and probably already found in StarOffice 5.1 and the Calc (present version). I have no idea what is in the minds of those developers, and how the voting system works. Only if we have the time and expertise, we do not have to keep waiting in vain.
Pls read comment from mba posted in Jan 15 2009 15:09:25. Also his comment in Issue 19292 in Thu Jan 15 16:28:32 +2009. According to developers, it will be done, and there's already a roadmap - tabbed windows. I'd just ask a milestone and a higher priority. IMHO, the milestone is needed because no major upgrade makes sense without this feature - indeed, this feature will be the killer upgrade. The higher priority would just be more suitable, since this feature is badly needed.
It is a pity that such simple though useful feature isn't implemented in 7 years...
*** Issue 37591 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
For some Users, this is a argument, to use MS Office
I really hope this feature will be implemented soon, after all these years. I believe it's a terrible lack for OOo Writer and I just don't understand why developers (used to ?) consider it as a second-class issue. (Sorry for my poor English, I'm French.)
I would like a split view into the same document very much. My Winword 2.0 had it already decades ago!
lets hope LibreOffice will implement requests more quickly!
I think it would be consistent to have the same split screen function like in openoffice calc. Voted!
Created attachment 76375 [details] Print Monitor - Documents do not print Before I updated OO, I never saw this. I print dbf files of addresses every week. It won't print anymore!
@lori0479: are you sure that you wanted to attach the picture to this issue? It has a completely different topic. Please attach the picture to the correct issue. In case you don't find one, please create a new issue and describe exactly how the problem can be reproduced.
I'm writing my masters thesis right now and my paper is about 130 pages long. I am writing the conclusion and need to reference other parts of my paper. This would be a lot easier if I could split the window. It seems like such a useful feature for documents of this length. I'm considering buying Word 2010 because it has a few useful features that OpenOffice lacks.
Buying Word just for this feature surely would be an exaggeration. If your wish is being able to see two parts of your document at a time, that's possible with OOo also. It's just less comfortable. Use "Window - New Window". This opens a second view to your document that can be scrolled and zoomed differently. The disadvantage of this solution against a "split window" function is that you have to arrange your windows by hand. On Windows 7 that's easy as it allows you to "dock" windows at the left and right side by keyboard shortcut.
While it is possible in Windows 7 to arrange the two windows, having two different windows takes up a lot of space for the windows title bars, menu etc. Yes, we can switch all those off, but that will be too troublesome.
(In reply to comment #124) > Buying Word just for this feature surely would be an exaggeration. I think he wouldn't be the first to do so, whether exaggereted or not. Surely.
*exaggerated
Yes, you would have two menus, but in case you have the windows side by side (and not over each other) they take the same amount of screen space as one menu. The same would be true for the toolbars in their default location. Only toolbars or windows docked at the left or right side of the document window eat up additional screen space. Besides that, I didn't want to give the impression that this is a complete replacement for a "split window", but IMHO it should be enough to avoid buying Word *just for this reason*. YMMV.
(In reply to comment #125) > While it is possible in Windows 7 to arrange the two windows, having two > different windows takes up a lot of space for the windows title bars, menu etc. > Yes, we can switch all those off, but that will be too troublesome. I've found this tool to be very useful for preconfiguring snap locations, accessible from a right click on the menu bar or the drag sides and corners of any window: http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/ It's very simple, free, and it just works.
This very useful, sensible, evidently implementable (in standard and non-standard applications) feature request will be ten years old in May next year (see <a href="show_bug.cgi?id=4508" title="Split screen in word processor would be a nice addition">original dup. issue 4508</a> (and the Status is "NEW"!?). Not only does it not have a target milestone, it has not been assigned to any developer ("requirements" = nobody)! It seems some of the "workarounds" suggested here are being offered as justifications for not giving this issue any attention. I am puzzled why the work area in Calc was made to be splittable (at least horizontally) and in Writer it is being seemingly dismissed as trivial or uninteresting. Not introducing this feature may (to some) not seem like a sufficient reason for switching to an alternative word-processing application, but it is certainly ANOTHER REASON TO SWITCH... and minimizing those reasons are in the best interest of the "community". So, either work on this issue or be honest enough to close it as "WONTFIX"! Users shouldn't be given the false impression that this issue matters to the OpenOffice development team!
I agree - this is really lousy service. If OOo were a paid product I would have dumped it long ago - except that I'm forced to use it by my employer (sounds like something that used to happen to Microsoft users). I do translations and want the two versions of the text in front of me simultaneously - and in the course of a working day may want to 'split view' several dozen different documents. Fiddling around with it manually is not a realistic option when you do it that frequently. Furthermore, on my screen and with the resolution I have to use the duplicated toolbar issue is a serious one. So I'm forced to repeatedly cut and paste - a real nuisance. Otherwise I'm very happy with Writer, but please, get with it, people!
I cannot believe I have subscribed to this bug when I was still living with my mother, because she is a translator trying to use openoffce. I have been married for five years and you are still discussing this. She obviously gave up on using OO long ago...
Every organization has limited resources. An alternative avenue to get this feature implemented would be to propose this as an enhancement to the various OO.org derivatives, such as LibreOffice, Go-oo, and Lotus Symphony. IBM developpers seem to be very opened to feedback.
(In reply to comment #116) > For some Users, this is a argument, to use MS Office Oh yes. Let me tell you my story... For seven years, I worked in the technology department of a public school district. I was in charge of purchasing. We used a lot of FOSS in our district- all of us in the department were eggheads. So anyhow, when our District moved to using Mac computers (laptops for all students and teachers, desktops for lab areas), we looked into deploying them with as much Open Source as possible, both to save money, and to further our ideological views (duh). Having used Oo, we all thought it would be a great fit- until we actually spoke with teachers who used word processors in the classroom. And guess what? The split view that Word offers is the one feature that pedagogically, they can't do without. It's simple, really- when you have a student editing their own work, it makes a huge difference if they can see the original portion they are correcting. So, I jumped on here to see if there was plans to implement this in Writer- imagine my shock when I found that the devs are pretty much idiots who simply say 'suck it up, princess, and use two windows!'. Obviously, none of them have ever been teachers, or tried to use tiled windows on a 12" iBook! I even went so far as to post a bounty in this thread (which I'm sure you can find if you look hard enough), with no responses AT ALL. Nobody even flinched. I offered $10K to fix this damn thing. It obviously wasn't enough. Not my money, of course- we were paying $20K a year in M$ licenses, and I got permission to offer half that in order to get us off the teat, but nobody from the dev side bit. Now, I use Pages for work and personal use- my old school District is still using MS Word. I keep getting these thread comments mostly for the amusement factor- it reminds me to stay in the real world where Open Source is often ridiculed for its lofty ideals and complete failure to deliver value. There's a reason most .edu organisations use proprietary stuff: they want it to work. You can bet your ass if MS Word lacked this feature that their devs would implement pretty fast when schools started asking. Now I'll go back to lurking for another 5 or 6 years.
Perhaps, we should lead the developers to see the positive side of implementing this feature. How about this, ask this question: how many of those who gave up OO due to the leak of this feature will turn back to use OO? May I assume that there are at least a few thousand?
Everyone already knows how needed is the feature, so let's not waste time ranting on that. This place is for techical discussion. If you can write the code for that, pls do so. Or, if you want someone else to do it, cursing them isn't the way to go.
After looking at the attitude of those who challenge the general user to write the code themselves, I am now totally agree with methylene_blue to close this issue as "WON'T FIX". While I agree that this is a place to discuss technical issue, and not a place to justify a feature, but I suppose the voting system speaks loudly for such a feature. I am wandering if there is any other feature that receives so many votes. Shouldn't this place the feature as the top priority for the development team? If not, how does the voting system works? After all, since Calc has such a feature, which proves that technically it is possible, so we are not asking for the moon. I know that we have limited developers and resource, but we can still prioritize it by setting a milestone to it. If not, just close it with "Won't Fix".
After looking at the attitude of those who challenge the general user to write the code themselves, I am now totally agree with methylene_blue to close this issue as "WON'T FIX". While I agree that this is a place to discuss technical issue, and not a place to justify a feature, but I suppose the voting system speaks loudly for such a feature. I am wandering if there is any other feature that receives so many votes. Shouldn't this place the feature as the top priority for the development team? If not, how does the voting system works? After all, since Calc has such a feature, which proves that technically it is possible, so we are not asking for the moon. I know that we have limited developers and resource, but we can still prioritize it by setting a milestone to it. If not, just close it with "Won't Fix". After all, we are here to make OOo a better programme and not to be toyed around with a voting system, a feature request still considered as new after 8 years or more, and a target milestone that never been set. Close it as "Won't Fix".
It's always puzzled me that Calc has the split window feature while Write doesn't. If I understand the object oriented world in which these two applications were programmed correctly, then it should require very nearly the same code used in Calc correctly placed and fitted into Write in order to implement the same functionality. It might not be more than 15 minutes work in all.
(In reply to comment #137) > After looking at the attitude of those who challenge the general user to write the code themselves... Isn't this what free software is about? Why can't a general user with programming abilities help? > I am now totally agree with methylene_blue to close this issue as "WON'T FIX". I vehemently disagree. This is the single most needed feature. It may not be fixed now or in the near future, but it should be fixed sometime. There's even a workpath for it: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/ArchitectureTo-Dos#Framework_Improvements > I suppose the voting system speaks loudly for such a feature... Shouldn't this > place the feature as the top priority for the development team? Yes, it does. Yes, it is. That's why, instead of "Won't fix", I'd like to ask for a milestone - or better, a blocking flag - at 4.0. IMHO, there's no point in a major version change without a major feature change. In fact, I said the same for 3.0... > I know that we have limited developers and resource, but we can still > prioritize it by setting a milestone to it. By all means, do that. As already said enough times by enough people in enough places, this is by far the most important feature. New bells and whistles or minor changes can surely wait, while lacking this feature is a plain show stopper. IMHO, it'd be more convenient to block 4.0 on that. What sense would have a 4.0 release without split windows? Pls set the milestone, but also strongly consider the blocking flag. If not, just close it with "Won't > Fix".
(In reply to comment #140) > (In reply to comment #137) > > After looking at the attitude of those who challenge the general user to write > the code themselves... > > Isn't this what free software is about? Why can't a general user with > programming abilities help? Yes, but I suppose none of us, the 222 voters are not capable to do that. > > > I suppose the voting system speaks loudly for such a feature... Shouldn't this > place the feature as the top priority for the development team? > Yes, it does. Yes, it is. That's why, instead of "Won't fix", I'd like to ask > for a milestone - or better, a blocking flag - at 4.0. IMHO, there's no point > in a major version change without a major feature change. In fact, I said the > same for 3.0... > > > I know that we have limited developers and resource, but we can still > > prioritize it by setting a milestone to it. > > By all means, do that. As already said enough times by enough people in enough > places, this is by far the most important feature. New bells and whistles or > minor changes can surely wait, while lacking this feature is a plain show > stopper. > IMHO, it'd be more convenient to block 4.0 on that. What sense would have a 4.0 > release without split windows? Pls set the milestone, but also strongly > consider the blocking flag. I am not authorized to set. I think only the developers do, but it is obvious that they have no intention of doing it. That is the source of all our frustration. > > If not, just close it with "Won't > > Fix".
This issue depends on bug 102365 (which, unlike this issue, appears to have been assigned to a human being AND has the milestone OOo 3.x - hurrah!). This means that bug 102365 blocks this issue from being implemented. I would encourage all those who have voted for this issue to vote for bug 102365 as well! Perhaps that will encourage the devs to move this along.
(In reply to comment #141) > I am not authorized to set. I think only the developers do, but it is obvious > that they have no intention of doing it. That is the source of all our > frustration. Understood. My frustration too. Let me suggest something: try entering the inherited bug in LibreOffice: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31481. Since LO is more community-driven, chances are we have better luck there. Maybe the users with programming skills are more able to do something there.
(In reply to comment #142) > This issue depends on bug 102365 (which, unlike this issue, appears to have > been assigned to a human being AND has the milestone OOo 3.x - hurrah!). ... > I would encourage all those who have voted for this issue to vote for bug > 102365 as well! Perhaps that will encourage the devs to move this along. Agreed and done. What about echoing my request on setting a milestone for this bug too?
(In reply to comment #144) > What about echoing my request on setting a milestone for this bug too? Well, yes of course I certainly echo that, for what it is worth (effectively zero). I think your suggestion below has a better chance of succeeding: (In reply to comment #143) > Let me suggest something: try entering the inherited bug in LibreOffice: > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31481. I've made an entry there and hope others will do likewise. (It means, of course, setting up yet another bug tracker account... sheesh!) It will be interesting to compare responses between OpenOffice and LibreOffice on this matter!
(removed non-deliverable CC's jdhodges, mr_smyle, peschtra)
(In reply to comment #145) > (In reply to comment #144) > > What about echoing my request on setting a milestone for this bug too? > Well, yes of course I certainly echo that, for what it is worth (effectively > zero). > > I think your suggestion below has a better chance of succeeding: > > (In reply to comment #143) > > Let me suggest something: try entering the inherited bug in LibreOffice: > > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31481. > > I've made an entry there and hope others will do likewise. (It means, of > course, setting up yet another bug tracker account... sheesh!) > > It will be interesting to compare responses between OpenOffice and LibreOffice > on this matter! So we are talking about an exodus here. I will follow suit.
> > > Let me suggest something: try entering the inherited bug in LibreOffice: > > > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31481. > > > So we are talking about an exodus here. I will follow suit. The few postings at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31481 have already paid off a bit! The priority/importance of this issue on LibreOffice was changed yesterday from medium to high! That's more that can be said for this issue posted here over 9 years ago! There's hope, folks! Let's move LibreOffice along!
Well, me too: I'm gone, went to LibreOffice installing LO 3.3.3 and am supporting https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31481 . I have new hope.
Pls note Bug 102365 blocks this one. Those who can help by writing code, testing and giving technical suggestions, pls go there and help. Those who can't, like me, pls to there, enter the CC list and vote. Before Bug 102365 is solved, all discussion here becomes useless...
This is the problem with so-called 'Open source' products - the people that create them sometimes are too arrogant, or whatever the hell the problem is, to take on board a valid request. This bug is listed as trivial. Trivial indeed. 300,000+ lawyers work in the USA alone. I have recently spoken to one person in this area who had a new computer delivered to him (but not sold to him by me) which had Open Office (of all things!)on it. He rang me up and complained that he couldn't find the split screen function in OO and would I know where it is. I said to him that it doesn't have it. Not a very happy camper was he. Here is why 300,000+ lawyers need this function (as just an example in ONE profession): When working on a case, other cases have to be read for research and case citations extracted and placed (via copy and paste) in a master document. This enables points to be summarized, notes to be added, more references to be made to go look up something else relating to the case that has just been noted, etc. This is done tens, sometimes even hundreds, of times FOR ONE CASE. Hence the enormously valuable ability of having two documents up side by side; one is the case being read and the other is where one puts the notes. And the stupid remark about having two (different) WINDOWS open really is very, very dumb and shows a complete lack of understanding of why this feature is so valuable. Go and ask any lawyer and they will tell you why - in great detail too. That's why you won't find many lawyers, if any, using OO (and if they are its probably because they are too poor to afford MS Office). Trivial indeed. Huh. MS Office allows not only split screens, but also unlocking the scrolling function so that both screens can scroll independently of each other. Needless to say, my friend has put MS Office on his machine and removed OO.
The Calc application already has the similar feature (menu "Window" - "Split"). Could splitting be implemented to Writer by the same way with both horizontal and vertical splitting (vertical may be usefull for wide screens) and with adding of Rulers wihthin both "frames"? I know about option of opening the second window (menu "Window"-"New Window") but it's inconvenient in the very most cases and take a lot of time to arrange the windows ans such manipulations grab attention from working with document.
This Feature request exists already 10 years and was voted 229 times. So it's rather wanted feature. Please, implement it like it's already implemented in Calc of Apache OpenOffice if it could be made for AOO 4.0.
I have been impressed with Apache up until this point but I do a lot of translating and the simple split screen that I used on MS Office was an invaluable tool. I don't want to give MS a lot of money but translating on Apache is far more time consuming than on MS.
I just found a way that helps me translate. In bottom right hand corner of an open document I selected the icon with two pages next to each other, not the one where they are joined. I then set the zoom to 69% so I had the original document on the left hand side of the screen and the blank document on the right hand side. I adjusted font size and full screen view to get a readable document with my ageing vision. With this I could read the original and write on the blank page. This is not perfect because each page will have to be adjusted separately but it is better than going from one screen to another.
(In reply to jrdgyg from comment #156) > I just found a way that helps me translate. > > In bottom right hand corner of an open document I selected the icon with two > pages next to each other, not the one where they are joined. I then set the > zoom to 69% so I had the original document on the left hand side of the > screen and the blank document on the right hand side. I adjusted font size > and full screen view to get a readable document with my ageing vision. With > this I could read the original and write on the blank page. > > This is not perfect because each page will have to be adjusted separately > but it is better than going from one screen to another. Translating is much more efficient when you use specialized tools. If you want to use AOO, you may try Anaphraseus extension. This is not to say that split view issue doesn't need addressing, but translating using just two "buffers" is suboptimal in most cases. Of course, when you are Ok with this suboptimal approach, not being able to split the window makes it subsuboptimal.