[Solved] Editing sections like in a treeview in Writer??

[MrSlider]

Hey there, right to the point...

Is there any addon which I could work sections with?
I mean this addon should allow edit section index like in a treeview.
(And if the addon does not exist, may this become a suggestion to OpenOffice developers).

For example: this would be a treeview for an .odt

1. Intro
------- 1.1. Topic 1
------- 1.2. Topic 2
------- 1.3. Topic 3

2. Main stuff
------- 2.1. Beginning
------- 2.2. Story
------- 2.3. Ending

3. Conclusion
------- 3.1. How
------- 3.2. Why
------- 3.3. Prevention

But in printing view you should see the section and the text inside each section.
The indentation would depend on the settings for each section and paragraphs.

1. Intro

1.1. Topic 1
BlaBlaBla1

1.2. Topic 2
BlaBlaBla2

1.3. Topic 3
BlaBlaBla3

Anybody knows something like this?

[Villeroy]

Hit F5

[Bill]

F5 opens the Navigator. If you use the default settings in Tools > Outline Numbering and create your treeview using the heading paragraph styles, then the Headings section in the Navigator will display your treeview, but the text part of the document will display the headings and all other text. "Sections" in Writer aren't based on the outline.

[RoryOF]

You may be able to do this using the Navigator, depending just what you mean by sections. If you mean OpenOffice's Sections (as in /Insert /Section), I don't think you can do so, but if you mean sections as defined by Heading styles, then Navigator can do it.

Have a play with Organon from the extensions repository.


See also
oStoryBook
and
Plume Creator
both undergoing extensive rewrites, but the existing versions are good and usable.

Another similar tool is (was) Author Support Tool
a project from University of Bremen
http://ast.informatik.uni-bremen.de/?topic=home
This needs recompiling for OO 4.1.1, but will run as is on OO 3.1 (3.x?)

[MrSlider]

That's exactly my point.
Plume Creator would be a good example, but it's strictly oriented to writers, I'm talking about something more flexible.

When using navigator sections one cannot see a structured view but a plain list of the sections.
Then one can configure indentation, styles and properties section by section. I'd say it's a less visual procedure.
I haven't used sections before in swriter because is not an intuitive thing to use and it's not so close to my finger tips.

My idea is about having sections structured (maybe at navigator/sections where the node "Sections" would be the root for all sections) like:

[...]
Sections
------[icon] Introduction
------------[icon] Case1
------------[icon] Case2
------[icon] Body
------------[icon] Part1
------------------[icon] Case11
------------------[icon] Case12
------------[icon] Part2
------------------[icon] Case21
------------------[icon] Case22
------[icon] Ending
[...]

And yet one could be able to configure each section deciding whether or not should keep the indentation the section treeview nodes represent, among other things.
So I think Author Support Tool would be the most suitable thing by now, still, I would have to compile it. Maybe I'll be back later for that...

[acknak]

What, like this?

navigator_headings.png (8.4 KiB) Viewed 2809 times

LibreOffice includes expand/collapse buttons for each section.

[MrSlider]

OK, sections... headings... (my semantics may not match yours, I haven't used this stuff either but I did think that swriter could have something like that)...
But the image is perfect, better than 1000 thousand words...
The thing here is that one could be able to edit headers just from navigator, so the headers would be reflected on the text later.
I just tried it right now. I have to write the headers on the document first and then "Format/Autoformat" or similar thing, would add the headers to navigator.
The idea I'm suggesting is the other way around: set the structure of the document first (on "Headings") and then write on the topics using the resulting headers of the tree.

[acknak]

The way I usually manage it is to type the headings in the document and assign them to the proper level using Ctrl+N (so Ctrl+1 for "Heading 1" style, top-level; Ctrl+2 for sub-headings, etc.). These will automatically appear in the Navigator.

If you need to re-arrange headings/sections, you can enable "content view" in the Navigator and drag the headings around in the Navigator window. The text and subheadings will move with the dragged heading.

[MrSlider]

Ok, I see...
So I'll consider this solved but it would be amazing for swriter to work the way I'm proposing.
Thanks for all the tips.

[acknak]

There is an open request for an "outline mode" for OO Writer, where only headings would be visible. The user could move headings around to change the outline structure of the document.

Issue 3959: Outline View (aka MS Word)

As you may notice, it's been open well over ten years; as far as I know, no one is working on it.