[ODFPlugtest] Gouda plugfest: problem case with ODT frames encountered in OEP project

Thu Dec 22 13:40:24 CET 2011

Hi Willen-Jan,

I found some time to investigate the 'story' which you have described.

I have to admit that the layout algorithm of OOo Writer is quite getting in
trouble by the situation in this document.
The change in the layout which you have observed after changing the
properties can also be reproduced without changing anything:
- open KIO-experient.odt in OOo 3.3
- zoom-out - at least two pages have to be visible side-by-side
- reload
--> layout change

This happens due to the fact that the Writer layout algorithm tries to find
the best solution under the given conditions. Unfortunately, the found
solution depends under certain tricky conditions on the starting point.
After a load the document part which is visible is formatted first. Thus,
depending on the zoom and the document part which wants to be shown the
starting point is changing.
Here the situation with the three objects not fitting at the end of the
page the layout algorithm at some point decides which solution to take.
Depending at which situation the layout algorithm started the decision may
differ - as in this case.

Please stay tuned - I will come up this a solution of the stable layout.
Looking at the calendar it seems that this solution would become my
christmas gift ;-)

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards
Oliver-Rainer Wittmann

--
Advisory Software Engineer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IBM Deutschland
Beim Strohhause 17
20097 Hamburg
Phone: +49-40-6389-1415
E-Mail: orwitt at de.ibm.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH / Vorsitzende des
Aufsichtsrats: Martina Koederitz
Geschäftsführung: Dirk Wittkopp
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Böblingen / Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart,
HRB 243294

From:	Willem-Jan Veen <willem at lunatech.com>
To:	Oliver-Rainer Wittmann/Germany/IBM at IBMDE
Cc:	ODF Plugfest mailinglist <plugtest at opendocsociety.org>
Date:	24.11.2011 11:04
Subject:	Re: [ODFPlugtest] Gouda plugfest: problem case with ODT frames
            encountered in OEP project

Hi Olivier,

As I promised yesterday, a short explanation of the odd behaviour that I
experienced after some experimenting in openoffice on the
KIO-experiment.odt document, that I gave you during the plugfest. I've made
a few screen shots to visualize the steps I made to recreate this odd
behaviour.

1. open the KIO-experiment.odt and scroll to the page where to change the
frame floating behaviour (KIO-experiment-initial-rendering.png)
2. enter the frame dialog for the frame with text box and change the
anchor-type into "to-character" and the vertical relation to
"char" (KIO-experiment-changing-frame-settings.png)
3. close the frame dialog with [ok] and notice the improved rendering of
the frame with text box
(KIO-experiment-correct-rendering-after-frame-changes.png)
4. save the document and force a reload with the menu option found in
openoffice file menu (KIO-experiment-reload-modified-document.png)
5. after reloading the document, notice the unexpected altered page-layout
(KIO-experiment-broken-rendering-after-reload.png)

I had the same behaviour using neo-office. Both experiments where done on a
Mac Os (Lion).

After this experiment I stopped with experiments to improve the flow of
frames. I'm of course still very interested in a solution that resolves the
issues we have when frames start to flow to another page, both for the
images with a title above and comments below as well as for margin texts
that are encapsulated in a frame. I'm also curious what caused the observed
behaviour in the described experiments. Note that the behaviour is
reproducable in attached document.

Finally, I've similar issues with the flowing of lines in ODT documents,
but I'll devise another simple document to demonstrate this scenario.

Thanks for all the help you may give.

Regards,
Willem-Jan

[attachment "KIO-experiment.odt" deleted by Oliver-Rainer
Wittmann/Germany/IBM]

[attachment "KIO-experiment-initial-rendering.png" deleted by Oliver-Rainer
Wittmann/Germany/IBM]

[attachment "KIO-experiment-changing-frame-settings.png" deleted by
Oliver-Rainer Wittmann/Germany/IBM]

[attachment "KIO-experiment-correct-rendering-after-frame-changes.png"
deleted by Oliver-Rainer Wittmann/Germany/IBM]

[attachment "KIO-experiment-reload-modified-document.png" deleted by
Oliver-Rainer Wittmann/Germany/IBM]

[attachment "KIO-experiment-broken-rendering-after-reload.png" deleted by
Oliver-Rainer Wittmann/Germany/IBM]

On Nov 23, 2011, at 2:25 PM, Oliver-Rainer Wittmann wrote:

> Hi Willem-Jan,
>
> we already had the possibility to talk at the end of the ODF Plugfest in
> Gouda, NL last week about your layout problems in some detail.
> I think I have already given you some hints in order to get more control
> about the layout regarding the flow of text frames in OpenOffice.org
resp.
> Apache OpenOffice.
>
> As promised I am planning to followup on your problems in more detail
when
> I have some resources left. Hopefully, I have some time in the next week.
> I hope it is ok for the rest of the mailing list subscribers, if I post
the
> followup on this mailing list, because - as far as I have seen - the
> problems are more or less related to applications which base on
> OpenOffice.org code than they are related to ODF.
> If not, please let me know.
>
> Willem-Jan: Do not hestitate to ping me, if you have
questions/comments/...
>
>
> Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards
> Oliver-Rainer Wittmann
>
> --
> Advisory Software Engineer
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> IBM Deutschland
> Beim Strohhause 17
> 20097 Hamburg
> Phone: +49-40-6389-1415
> E-Mail: orwitt at de.ibm.com
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH / Vorsitzender des
> Aufsichtsrats: Martin Jetter
> Geschäftsführung: Dirk Wittkopp
> Sitz der Gesellschaft: Böblingen / Registergericht: Amtsgericht
Stuttgart,
> HRB 243294
>
>
>
> From:		 Willem-Jan Veen <willem at lunatech.com>
> To:		 plugtest at opendocsociety.org
> Date:		 18.11.2011 10:45
> Subject:		 [ODFPlugtest] Gouda plugfest: problem case with ODT
frames
>            encountered in OEP project
> Sent by:		 plugtest-bounces at opendocsociety.org
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> The problem case with frames concern for instance the inclusion of an
image
> with a title on top and additional remarks on the bottom. In the specific
> situation that the image doesn't fit on the remainder of the page, it
> automatically floats to the next page (what is good), but the positioning
> of the frames with title, image and remarks become scrambled.
>
> I've attached a small ODT file which demonstrates this behaviour. It
first
> shows a image with title and remarks which are rendered correctly
position
> to each other. A page further, in identical example is presented but this
> time the image didn't fit on the remainder of the page and floated to the
> next page. You can immediately see the resulting visual effects when
opened
> in openoffice or neo-office.
>
> Please note, that the ODT isn't correctly zipped. The original ODT was
much
> larger, so I unzipped de ODT, manually removed as much content as
possible
> while keeping the problem case intact. I then zipped the ODT quickly by
> hand without placing the file mime type as-is on the starting offset. In
> our experience, this doesn't pose a problem for rendering such a document
> in a word processor. The real system does do the final zip process
> according to specification.
>
> Regards,
> Willem-Jan Veen
>
> [attachment "KIO-exoeriment.odt" deleted by Oliver-Rainer
> Wittmann/Germany/IBM] _______________________________________________
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