[libreoffice-design] Just created a them whiteboard

2012-04-08 Thread Andrew Pullins
Hello,

apparently in the color picker whiteboard there used to be something about
a theme dialog. when asked about it in Mireks email about the color picker
I decided to make my own mockup. so here it is [1]

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Document_Themes

cheers,
Andrew

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted



Re: [libreoffice-design] Just created a them whiteboard

2012-04-08 Thread Mirek M.
Hi Andrew,

2012/4/8 Andrew Pullins android2...@gmail.com

 Hello,

 apparently in the color picker whiteboard there used to be something about
 a theme dialog. when asked about it in Mireks email about the color picker
 I decided to make my own mockup. so here it is [1]

 https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Document_Themes


I'd prefer to hold off on creating new whiteboards until we take care of
the many we currently have, but since you have started this whiteboard,
we'll keep it.

A couple of notes, though:
- Personas are basically a fictional description of potential users and
the way the feature relates to them. See
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/20/persona_analysis/ for more info
- Since we're incorporating themes from scratch, we shouldn't restrict the
scope to a theme dialog. If somebody suggests a UI element that better fits
theme management, then we should accept it.
- Use the Definition of terms section only when certain terms are
unclear, not widely known, or could be interpreted in several ways.
- You don't need the Tentative design section when we're not at the
design taking shape stage yet.

I edited the whiteboard accordingly.

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted



[libreoffice-design] Re: Color handling

2012-04-08 Thread Mirek M.
Here's my take on the questions:

- Do we need recently-used colors? If yes, should they be shared across all
 LibO modules, across a single LibO module, or apply only to the current
 window?


No, I don't think we need recently-used colors. It would just add
unnecessary complexity.


 - Do we want to go with AutoPreview? If yes, we'll need a rough
 specification for that before we start with the color stuff (we need a
 general spec for all who also want to implement AutoPreview).


Yes, I think we do, but I would leave it up to the developers. It won't
affect the UI of the picker or dialog, and it can be implemented later.


 - Do we want to have something like Themes for the current document
 (Theme: Color Palette is bound to the Document/Template and not to the
 current application)?


That's not really the definition of themes. While themes do include a
variable color palette (i.e. changing a theme changes all the relative
colors the user used), they also include relative styles (so changing a
theme would change the look of all your headings, paragraphs, tables,
charts, etc.).

Themes would be useful, but they're a separate topic from color handling
and should be dealt with as such.


 - Do we want to work on a new LibO specific color palette?


Yes, but, again, this is a separate topic.


 - Do we need structured data for the color palette files? (Proposed Meta
 Data: Name, Comment, Author, Date/Version; plus Name, color values for each
 color).


I don't think so. There's no place in the UI for the comment, author, or
date, and I think letting users name every custom color would be
counterproductive.


 - How should colors within a document but not available in the included
 palettes be labeled? How will the user know that this is a non-standard
 color? How does LibO set the name (Color n, n=number)?


Document-specific colors should have their own section. They should be
labeled with their HEX value.

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted



Re: [libreoffice-design] User testing icons

2012-04-08 Thread Björn Balazs
Hi Andrew, all,

first of all thanks for the positive replies towards user-testing of the 
icons. I think only Andrew was negativ about it, so I would like to answer his 
mail in detail:

Am Freitag, 6. April 2012, 11:31:53 schrieb Andrew Pullins:
 I don't like the idea of letting the users test the icons. There are many
 things that the users can test that would benifit us, but the disign of
 things is not one of them. If they have something that they would like to
 be different then they can join the team, or find a way to help. 

Testing icons does not mean let the users design them. I agree that users are 
not the right people for designing icons. I was referring to the discussion of 
using 'a' or 'A' or 'i' or whatever. My advice would be to design all possible 
icons and see which work best for different users with different cultural 
background. 

 I think we
 would work on making the icons look relitivly the same. As though they were
 made by one artist, and not by eight.

Agree on that. Otherwise we would not talk about an icon 'set'.

 Besides I don't think that user really care what we make as long as we
 revamp the crap that we have now. 

Perhaps you should try to find some more careful words here. If you think LO 
or parts are 'crap' you should perhaps keep that to yourself. It is not 
encouraging for anyone who has been involved in the past and did the best 
possible in the given circumstances, if anything in this context is called 
'crap'. Times and fashion has changed and it is good to keep every part of LO 
up-to-date, including the icons.If this is what you mean - I would agree to 
it.

 If you go back and read the comments to
 the OMG!Ububtu article about the Citrus UI [1] you will see that all the
 users loved the UI, and that they could not stand our new one.
 
 If you want you can get there opinion of all the icons together once we
 have them done. 

The normal user (aka the vast majority) does not read nor comment on 
OMG!Ubuntu. So I would be careful about any generalization based on comments 
on a(ny) webpage. Please be aware that we have (probably hundereds of) 
millions of users in LO varying in technical, cultural, social and every other 
persepctive you can even think about. So getting a good feedback from these is 
a non-trivial task. And in any case not beeing done by publishing on 
OMG!Ubuntu.

 But most users don't enven care as long as we make it look
 pritty. My friend does not even care about that, she is fine with it the
 way it is. zshe just likes it because its free, and she can write docs for
 school.

See, you are disagreeing with the 'crap'-thing yourself. If it is working, it 
cannot be crap. And if it is working we need to be very careful to actually 
improve things. Not everything new is automatically better as well.

Summing it up: Do not take the integration into teams too easily. Next to the 
obvious teams, like developers, translation or marketing, it should be our job 
here to not loose the user-team, but to strongly integrate it into the 
development. So again: I am not going to do it myself, but I am willing to 
support anyone who really wants to go the way to involve users into the LO 
development. Simply ping me :)

Happy easter!

Björn

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted



[libreoffice-design] New member

2012-04-08 Thread Jean-Francois Nifenecker

All,

I'm a recent (and till now silent) subscriber of this list. Before I 
post a few things about LibO GUI and usage, I'd like to introduce 
myself: I'm a 56 yo French civil servant using OOo since 2005 when my 
employer decided to move from MSO. Since then I never looked back and I 
have always been very pleased with OOo.


In a former part of my professional life, I had been an unofficial 
part-time programmer (Turbo-Pascal, Object Pascal then Delphi). Though 
this was supposed to be a part-time job, it in fact took most of my 
time, daily and nightly for nearly 15yrs.


I had to stop sometime after I switched job as I couldn't do both. Now, 
I've been an IT tech (support chain) for 20yrs. As such, among a lot of 
other things, I help and train my colleagues to our office automation 
suite of choice (formerly MSO, currently OOo, very soon to be LibO [2012]).


As such, I can see everyday how and why my colleagues use the software, 
what they do right and what they do wrong. To the risk of seeming overly 
proud, I think I have a broad view of our corporate workflows and I can 
tell where the local pitfalls are (wrt office automation tools). I have 
some ideas of what should be changed wrt textprocessor and in which 
direction some changes would be beneficial to their users. (hence my 
visit here ;)


BTW, I've written a dozen FR how-tos and guides for OOo Writer and I'm 
involved in some other Free software areas: I'm a member of the local 
Bordeaux LUG, a contributor to Clonezilla Live doc and also to the 
OpenStreetMap project.


CU soon,
--
Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted



Re: [libreoffice-design] Just created a them whiteboard

2012-04-08 Thread Andrew Pullins
Mirek,

 I'd prefer to hold off on creating new whiteboards until we take care of
 the many we currently have, but since you have started this whiteboard,
 we'll keep it.

Ok, ill just make stuff and then propose it when its the paropreat time
then.

 A couple of notes, though:
 - Personas are basically a fictional description of potential users and
 the way the feature relates to them. See
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/20/persona_analysis/ for more info

Ok so the section that tells how the user uses this part of the app. I can
try to add something. I had forgot about that section.

 - Since we're incorporating themes from scratch, we shouldn't restrict the
 scope to a theme dialog. If somebody suggests a UI element that better
fits
 theme management, then we should accept it.

I'm still confused on whats in scope and what's out of scope, so I wrote
what I thought made since. If it is wrong or needed to change then we will.
I do not care what it is in the end just wanted to show how I think it
should be done. Which is like styles In Gdocs.

 - Use the Definition of terms section only when certain terms are
 unclear, not widely known, or could be interpreted in several ways.
 - You don't need the Tentative design section when we're not at the
 design taking shape stage yet.

That's why I left it blank.

 I edited the whiteboard accordingly.

I don't care, if you see something that could be better or mest up then
change it. I'll see who did it in the history.

Cheers,
Andrew

-- 
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted