Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!ANDREW.CMU.EDU!maria+ From: maria+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU ("Maria G. Wadlow") Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.andrew Subject: Re: Lost styles when cutting&pasting Message-ID: Date: 26 Jul 90 21:26:39 GMT References: <9007261949.AA03459@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 29 Excerpts from mail: 26-Jul-90 Re: Lost styles when cuttin.. Sean McLinden@dsl.pitt.e (1837) > This seems like a perfect place (one of many) where the user should be > able to specify a preference. I don't know the validity of this statement > but it seems more likely to me that the user would want to copy an object > with it's attributes *and* values than that they would want to copy an > object with the attributes but the values inherited from the new environment. > At least, I would think that the former was common enough that one would > want to have the option of that type of functionality. In the current paradigm used by the text inset, style definitions hold true throughout a given document. This paradigm has many benefits, however it also means that if I define the style "foo" to mean bold, everywhere that "foo" is used in the document, it will mean bold. If I find some text in another document which includes a "foo" style, where "foo" is defined to mean italic, when I paste it into my document (and the style definition comes along, as suggested), all text wrapped in a "foo" style throughout the document will now be italic. We didn't think that people would like that effect. It might be nice to have a system that has preferences which control every aspect of the system. However at some level, paradigm choices have to be made. Given the choices that were made and the paradigms that exist in the system now, I don't believe that the suggested change would be consistent with the mental model we are trying to espouse. Maria