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From: bhyde@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: suggestions for Macwrite and other w
Message-ID: <26700037@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 12:57:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.26700037
Posted: Mon Oct  7 12:57:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 16:42:29 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet!bhyde    Oct  7 12:57:00 1985


It is a very interesting issue how to allow a document,that 
like those of MacWrite, have more structure than a flat linear
stream.  For example Microsoft's Word allows the paragraphs
to by attributed with formatting info, so it admits to 
characters/words/sentences/paragraphs as entities within the
linear stream of your document.

To allow for multi-paragraph clusters would require some way to
visually show them.  That shouldn't be too hard except that
deep nesting and huge regions would conspire to make the whole
think seem confusing.

There is very little attempt to allow clustering in the Mac software
I'm aware of.  The grouping construct in MacDraw is one of the few.
The finder's folders are another.

If you want to push a formating context in MacWrite a marginally good
cliche is to insert two rulers, and then modify the first, and finally
insert your display.  This is no help when you want to change all the
text in the document to have a wider right margin but it is a step.

Why can't you paste a ruler into the searching/changing dialog?

 ben hyde, cambridge.