Thanks! One additional notion that I've had for it is to have any extraneous popup windows be displayed as part of the menu hierarchy. For instance, the current Insert > Frame dialog box would be shown such that it is a part of the menu itself. I haven't sketched this out yet as I haven't had time, but essentially the premise is that it would be embedded inside it. That way, the application does not feel as fragmented, but it has a much more fluid feel to it. Let me know what you think!
Yours Truly, Scott R. Pledger On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:43, Cyril Arnaud <[email protected]> wrote: > I depends if you want to save vertical space or horizontal space. > Since most of the screen nowadays are wide screens, we have extra > horizontal space, so we should save as much vertical space as possible. > Therefore I think the menu on the right is indeed a good idea. > > -Cyril > > On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 18:02 +0200, Christopher Stark wrote: > > > I think a Tabs-Function for all > > open documents would be especially nice!The right > > column for special functions seems to be a good Idea > too.Personally I don't like the Menu panel on the right side in that > > example. I think menus should stay horizontally on top of the > > gui.Best RegardsChristopherOn 4/26/2011 5:19 PM, Scott Pledger > wrote:This is actually very close to the design I'm currently working on for > > LibreOffice and, indeed, partly its inspiration. Much of the difference > > between the implementation of Lotus Symphony and my design is that Lotus > > Symphony's side bar does not constitute of panels which change based on > what > > the user has selected. > > > > > > The overall design concept is copied below from my original posting to > the > > design mailing list: > > > > > > * > > I've had this idea for a while now and I wanted to see what everyone here > > thought of it, so here it goes! > > > > > > Its based on two simple premises. First, I noticed that monitors are > > getting wider but the documents we type up are still vertically oriented. > > Secondly, I find floating toolbars to be extremely cumbersome. So I > decided > > I'd try to tackle both of these issues in a simple, easy-to-use manner. > > Attached to this email is the concept that I currently have (or at least > > the beginnings of it). So, here's my plan: > > > > > > 1. Have a single toolbar at the top that contains actions that can be > > used no matter what application you're using. > > 2. Move any additional toolbars to the right hand side and organize > them > > into groups based on what the user currently has selected. So let's > say > > you're editing a Writer document and you have some text selected that > is in > > a Table. You would have 3 primary categories (at the top of the > right-hand > > part of the screen): Document, Table, and Text. 'Document' is always > > present and handles document-wide settings. Table might contain > > subcategories of Row, Column, Cell, and Display. All of these would > contain > > toolbar items to modify aspects of these subcategories. Text then, > might > > contain Font, Paragraph, and Section as subcategories. And so on and > so > > forth. I also had the idea that hovering over a primary category or a > > subcategory might emphasize what would be affected in the main > document area > > by shading everything else, but I also know that that would not be a > > necessity. For the purposes of the design, this right-hand area can > be > > called the context tool panel. > > 3. Move the menus to the left-hand side, placing them above whatever > is > > typically the left side of any given LibreOffice application. > (Impress/Draw > > -Slides, etc.). Clicking one of these would then cause a panel to be > > displayed categorizing items in the same manner as the context tool > panel > > which would contain the different actions the user can take. > > 4. Possibly: Allow for LibreOffice to run everything from a single > window > > by having a tab row at the top of the screen. (I'm still not sold on > this > > idea, so let me know what you think.) > > > > > > When it came to actually designing this new layout, I tried to pull from > the > > current LibreOffice icons as much as possible, mainly because I think > they > > are absolutely awesome! > > > > > > Also, I do want to be forthcoming - I'm no UX or Design professional. > I'm a > > Computer Science major in the US, but I think that this kind of layout > can > > not only give LibreOffice one of the most unique and (in my mind) usable > > User Interfaces on the planet, but I also think that it can help > LibreOffice > > to be the very best office suite on the planet. > > * > > > > > > The aforementioned attachments can be found here: > http://pledgecomputers.com/LibreOffice/Redesign/Concept.pdfhttp://pledgecomputers.com/LibreOffice/Redesign/Concept.odgYoursTruly, > > Scott > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 16:48, RGB [email protected]:2011/4/26 > Cyril [email protected]:Most user I encountered (not that much, > so there is no statistics behind > > this observation) are doing fine because they look around, search, > > experiment. But some users are "afraid" of searching, testing. > > That's why I find the Symphony's UI interesting. It's shiny, you are > > more eager to play with it.Writer, for instance, is not an app that you > can learn by trial and > > error: you need to sit down for a while and RTFM ;) > > But even if the interface could be improved and the learning curve > > lowered, it is also true that "trial and error apps" are useful only > > for simple tasks, and for simple tasks you can use abiword. > > You cannot please everybody. And you cannot drive a jet the same way > > you drive a bicycle. So the options are mainly two: to give "normal" > > and "power" users two different apps, or to build only one app but > > with two different UI. > > I think that ooo4kids is starting to work on the second possibility. > > Cheers > > Ricardo > > > > > > -- > > Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail > > [email protected] + more: > http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/NetiquetteList archive: > http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/All messages sent to this > list will be publicly archived and cannot be > > deleted > > -- > Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] > Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ > All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be > deleted > -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
