Hi,
I do think he has several valid points, but I do see how it will require a lot
of time and coordination to implement it. I thought I would address them on a
point by point basis:
1.The first thing to point out is the name. Running OpenOffice.org all together
to make one word was dumb and Lbre Office is trying to do the same
(LibreOffice). Worse yet was how people would say "O-O-O" and now I see people
calling this new office suite "LibO" on the mailing lists. If you want a
shorter nick name you should call it "Libre" as saying freedom just sounds cool
and certainly has a lot of excitement behind it. It makes me think of tech savy
youth in the Middle East that are willing to risk their lives for
libre/freedom.
-This is more a marketing discussion than a design one. IMHO, I don't see
this as a huge problem at this moment.
2.The web site for Libre Office is horrible, which was initially ok as it was
just getting started, but now that they've put a little effort into the site it
actually looks worse. While paper does provide a good metaphor for office
productivity, the clipped paper icon that appears everywhere is really no good.
Below I have a suggestion for the logo that i made rather quickly.
-As I've stated in previous emails here, we need a motif that doesn't
center on the clipped paper design. This issue should be resolved once we
decide on a motif.
3.Also, all the mime type icons also used that clipped paper concept. I also
have some samples for that as well below.
I'm not quite sure what the color palette is being used by Libre Office for its
marketing and icon development, but I would like to strongly recommend looking
at using the same color palette as the Tango icon set as it seems rather well
thought out.
-This seems to also fall under the motif discussion and a valid question.
4.Another item to address with respect to the application itself are the fonts.
This is a good chance to introduce non-Linux users to some of the great fonts
that are out there. I think that Libre Office should use the Liberation Fonts
for its default values.
-This seems to also fall under the motif discussion and a valid question.
5.Laslty, I would like to address the user interface of Libre Office itself.
The current version looks like a really bad imitation of Microsoft 2000. I
would like to see a more document centric interface that takes advantage of
today's widescreen monitors. By the way, bold, italic, and underline should be
represented with a "B,I, and U" instead of an, "A, A, and A. Below is also a
quick mock-up of Libre Office.
-This is true. In fact, changing the UI is something I really want to
participate in with this project. I know that 'radical changes' is never
greeted well, but the UI really needs a radical change. With vertical real
estate on the monitor becoming increasing more costly then horizontal real
estate, we should attempt to create a new UI that improves on current systems
like KOffice or Office 2010 and doesn't imitate them.
-Daniel Merker
________________________________________
From: Christoph Noack [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 11:30 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [libreoffice-design] You've got hate-mail
>[...]
>Finally, many of the open questions can be resolved by talking about it. So I
>think we should think about the open letter like something the non-LibO
>community >perceives when looking at us :-)
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