OOo Off the Wall: Floating Windows

Floating windows are one of the keys to using OpenOffice.org
efficiently. In the same way that the design of OpenOffice.org nudges
users towards styles and templates, it also leads them towards using
floating windows to manage and apply resources. OpenOffice.org is not
the first program to use floating windows; Adobe products such as PhotoShop
and Illustrator have used them for years, and FrameMaker uses them for
applying styles. No other office program that I am aware of, however,
makes them such an essential part of the work flow. And no program of
any sort customizes their positioning in the same way that
OpenOffice.org does.

A floating window seems simple enough when described. It is a window
that can be moved in or out of the editing window, moving over existing
material while leaving it untouched. Yet this simple concept is one of the
main reasons why--outside of the free software philosophy--OpenOffice.org
is my office program of choice.

In OpenOffice.org Writer, four main floating windows are available for
managing and inserting content:

• The Gallery: Graphic and sound files
• The Data Source Window: Databases and other data
  sources
• The Navigator: Headings and inserted
  objects
• The Stylist: Styles

In its own area, each of these floating windows quickly becomes essential
once you discover it.
Gallery Slaves
The Gallery is a collection of clip art graphics and sounds included
with OpenOffice.org. When you select Tools -> Gallery, the Gallery opens
at the top of the editing window.
Figure 1. The Gallery Floating Window
Items in the Gallery are organized by folders, also called themes. To find an
item, select its theme and then select the item in the pane on the right
side of the Gallery. By default, items are displayed as thumbnails,
but you can change to the detail view if you prefer to search by files.
When you find an item to use, drag and drop it into the document--it's
as simple as that.

The default themes are, well, basic would be the polite word. They
consist mainly of graphical bullets, buttons, lines and backgrounds suited
to a mid-1990s Web site. They can't be edited, either. To add your own
graphics or sounds, click the New Theme button. Name the theme on the
General tab, and navigate to the files on the Files tab. OpenOffice.org
supports a broad array of file formats, so compatibility is rarely a
problem. After a theme is created, right-click it and select Properties
-> Files to add to its content.
Drag and Drop Data Sources
The Data Source window is a floating window available in Writer and Calc. It
contains the tools to manage and choose information from all databases,
spreadsheets and Mozilla address books that have been added to
OpenOffice.org using Tools -> Data Sources. It is opened by clicking
View -> Data Sources or pressing the F4 key. It probably is the most
underrated of the four floating windows, mostly because relatively few people
are familiar with databases.
Figure 2. The Data Source Floating
Window
As with Gallery, the Data Source window is docked at the top of the
editing window. It is divided into two panes. On the left is a tree
view of data sources; this pane is called the Explorer. If you select
the plus sign beside a data source, the links, queries and tables for
the data source open. You also can edit the available data
sources by selecting Administrate Data Sources from the right-click menu.

To view data, select an individual table from the tree view. The records
for the table then display in the right pane. The columns in the table are
fields in the data source, while the rows are records. If necessary,
you can use the buttons in the tool bar for finding, filtering and
sorting records.

As in the Gallery, you can select individual cells in the data source
window and drag them to the last cursor position in your document. This
feature especially is useful when the data source contains information
such as contact information or repeated information, including
standard language about a company or a product.
Navigator, Navigator, Rise Up and Be Strong
The Navigator is one of OpenOffice.org's strongest assets. As the name
suggests, one of its main uses is for jumping around in a document,
but don't be fooled by its name. In addition, the navigator also is an
outliner, an inserter of hyperlinks and copies of text and the table
of contents for master documents. You can open it by selecting Edit
-> Navigator or by pressing F5.
Figure 3. The Navigator Window
The Navigator offers several ways to move around documents. The toolbar
has buttons for moving to the previous or next page or to any page
that you enter. You can jump between documents at the bottom of the
window or by using the Display item option on the right-click menu. In addition,
however, the pane of the Navigator lists the types of objects that might
be found in the application you are using. In Writer, for instance, the
Navigator lists such items as headings, tables and graphics. By contrast,
the Calc Navigator includes sheets and database ranges, while Draw and
Impress Navigator show slides. Finally, if you want to cycle through all
the objects of the same type, you can click the Navigation button to open
a much smaller floating window of icons with previous and next buttons.

Objects are listed in the Navigator by the name they are given when they
are added. To take full advantage of the Navigator, try adding a descriptive
name rather than accepting the default names given by OpenOffice.org,
such as Graphic1 or Table14. That way, you know where you are
when jumping between objects. For graphics that are linked rather than
embedded in the document, the file name often is useful as the object
name. Another useful alternative is captions, if they are short.

Another use of the Navigator is for outlining and editing. This
use has already been described in
"The
Outlining and the Ecstasy". Basically, the Writer Navigator
displays all the outline levels defined in Tools ->
Outline Numbering, regardless of whether they use numbering. By
default, these levels are the Heading 1 through 10 paragraph styles. From
the Navigator, you can change the style of a particular heading by
one level or reposition the heading and all its contents until the next
heading of the same level in a new position in the document. Serious
outliners complain that these outlining tools are too basic, but using
the Navigator is far quicker than cutting and pasting. It also is less
error prone. If nothing else, there's no danger of a telephone call
interrupting when you've just cut several paragraphs, making you lose
data because you've forgotten what you were doing.

A third use of Navigator is its drag-mode, available from the right-click
menu of any item listed. This feature refers to what happens
when you drag an item in the Navigator to the document. For any type
of item, you can add a hyperlink. For headings, you also can choose to
insert a section that is either an independent copy of the material
below the heading or a linked version that is updated when the
original changes.

Finally, in a master document, the Navigator becomes the tool for adding
files, indexes or tables of contents and for rearranging the contents,
as when outlining in a shorter document. If you write short
documents with few objects in them, you may notice the Navigator rarely
if at all. However, if your documents are long or complex, get to know the Navigator
immediately. Once you understand its features, expect the Navigator to
be as essential as your right or, in my case, left hand.
The Stylist that Doesn't Do Hair
The Stylist is a floating palette for styles. I've raved about the
Stylist repeatedly when talking about different aspect of styles, but
it's worth another look here. If you are designing or applying styles, then
the Stylist in its own way is as important as is the Navigator.
Figure 4. The Stylist
Open the Stylist by selecting Format -> Stylist or by pressing the F11
key. Across the top of the window, you find buttons for changing the
view, one for each of the types of styles you can use in Writer. From
left to right, they are Paragraph, Character, Frame, Page and Numbering
Styles. Once you select the type of style, you can filter the styles
displayed from the drop-down list at the bottom. The default display of
styles, Automatic, shows a selection of commonly used styles. Most likely,
you want to change the display several times as you work. Some useful
displays are:

• All Styles: A complete lists of all styles of the current type. With
  some types of styles, this view is too long to use regularly and
  should be used as little as possible. However, it is preferable to the
  Automatic view.
• Custom styles: A list of user-defined styles. Use this display mode
  if you prefer to define your own styles and don't want to see the
  pre-defined ones.
• Applied Styles: Styles actually used in the current
  document. This view duplicates the list on the far left of the Function
  Bar but is more convenient because it always is open. In a long
  document, this view usually is the most useful one.
• Hierarchical: A tree view that shows which styles are based on which. You
  can manipulate the hierarchy using the Linked with field on the Organizer
  tab of each style to reduce the amount of editing you have to
  do.
• HTML Styles: Limits the styles to those directly mapped to
  HTML tags. If you limit your selections to these styles, the result is
  a basic, non-style sheet oriented HTML file.

At the top right of the Stylist are three tools:

• Fill Format Mode: Applies the current style. With a style and the
  Fill Format icon selected, place the mouse cursor where you want to
  apply the style and then drag the cursor to cover the areas to which you
  want to apply it. Not available for frame or list
  styles.
• New Style from Selection: Creates a new style from the current
  selection. Make a selection, then click the icon and give the new style
  a name. Not available for page styles. Use this sparingly, as it quickly
  can undermine the advantages of using styles.
• Update Style: Updates a style based on the current selection. Make
  a selection, then select the style and this icon. Available only for
  paragraph and list styles. Use this sparingly, as it quickly can undermine the
  advantages of using styles.

To modify a style, right-click in the Stylist's pane. A right-click
menu opens. Depending on where you click, a menu opens with up to three
choices:

• New: Create a new style based on the currently selected
  one. Right-clicking within the Stylist with no style selected is the
  same as creating a new style when the Default style is
  selected.
• Modify: Edit the currently selected
  style.
• Delete: Delete the currently selected style. Pre-defined styles cannot
  be deleted, and do not have this option on the right-click
  menu.

Applying a style is as simple as selecting the contents or placing the
mouse cursor in it and then clicking on the style in the Stylist. If the
style is not visible, try another display type to see
it.

The Stylist is not set up for users who prefer keyboard
shortcuts. However, for mouse-users who have suffered drilling down
through MS Word's style catalogs, the Stylist is nothing short of a
full-tile revelation. For those who like the familiar, Writer does
duplicate MS Word's style catalog, but once you discover the Stylist,
why would you want it?
Manipulating Floating Windows
Both the Navigator and the Stylist can be docked to one side of the
editing window by dragging the title bar while pressing the Ctrl key. As
the window nears one side, an outline rectangle displays, showing that
the window can be docked on that side. The Stylist can be docked on the
right or the left side, while the Navigator also can be docked on the
bottom. To undock the window, drag on it while holding the Ctrl key.
Figure 5. Docking a Floating Window
Unlike the Stylist and the Navigator, the Gallery and Data Source
floating windows cannot be moved from the top of the main window. However, the size of all
floating windows can be adjusted. You also can select the Hide button
or use the Floating/Stick button to control whether floating windows hide the contents
of the window beneath them or retract to show the content.
Conclusion
Floating windows may be a new concept to many users, but they are
worth exploring, especially if you are doing long or highly formatted
documents. To coin a phrase, mileage varies, but I estimate that the
Navigator and the Stylist alone increase my productivity by 20-25%.
Figure 6. A Tear-Off Floating Window
No wonder, then, that the concept of floating windows is so ubiquitous in
Writer. Many of the buttons on the Main menu on the left of the editing
bar feature tear-off menus of icons that form small additional floating
windows. Moreover, the developer builds of version OOo 2.0 take the concept
even further, allowing each tool bar to be dragged into its own floating
window. Other programs have similar features, of course, but with so much
of my monitor space already taken up by the four main floating windows,
I seriously am considering investing in a larger monitor before
OpenOffice.org 2.0 comes out in the spring of 2005.

For me, floating windows are to office programs what tabs are to Web
browsers: a simple, even obvious feature that makes me more productive
than ever before.

Bruce Byfield was product manager at Stormix Technologies and
marketing and communications director at Progeny Linux System. He also
was a contributing editor at Maximum Linux and the original writer of
the Desktop Debian manual. Away from his computer, he listens to
punk-folk music, raises parrots and runs long, painful distances of his
own free will.