Re: [libreoffice-design] Minutes from the UX/design meeting 2023-Jul-31
Hi Heiko, you wrote this: + necessary if the app DPI differs from the screen DPI (Csongor) but I didn't say this. I meant in my comment that this feature would be useful when you want to see more information than the resolution of your screen (and your eyes) allows. You could magnify the region of interest (ROI) while you still can see the big picture as well. I created a mimicking screenshot in GIMP how I think it should look: https://i.ibb.co/WW0WsxC/magnifier-sample.png Disclaimer: for the screenshot, I used the Spherize filter of GIMP, which is geometrically not identical to a magnifier lens but shows well enough what I would like to see. In order to not hide anything from the underlying screen, it is essential that the center of the circle shows things larger than their original size but at the same time, around the edge, things look smaller. This way, the magnifier doesn't cover anything, just shows some distortion around the edges. A realistic lens effect can be seen here: https://youtu.be/XtCW-axRJV8?t=271 I think this would be such a useful feature that it should be supported at operating system level. Csongor On 1/08/2024 04:56, Heiko Tietze wrote: Present: Sahil, Eyal, Heiko Comments: Mike, Justin, Stephane, Stuart, Cor Tickets/Topics (Suggested bump-up (Eyal): * Cell selecting fat border looks ugly especially if you selected some cell range, it also can block content in other cells https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=161709 + Rafael: Made commits to improve the cosmetic situation, consider the bug fixed. + Rafael: This was done to resolve 143733, which requested the rectangle not cover the active cell + Heiko: Suggest accepting the current situation for now + Eyal: Serious degradation of UX - text in surrounding cells partially hidden, can make one value appear as another due to hiding. + Eyal: Suggest back-out of changes to before 143733, for now, and reconsideration. Must fix this for 24.8 release. + Eyal, Mihai, Rafael, Roman, flm2: Excel active cell rectangle looks nice => please discuss at Bugzilla or the mailinglists (Heiko) ) * No option to automatically indent multiline list entries to align with numbering followed by space + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156071 + line up *subsequent lines* of each list entry, see c12 + no good example for the necessity (Mike, Cor, Heiko) + mandatory to have this as cross-platform feature (Justin, Cor) + A tab is, in the general sense, an inherently flawed solution, because once your number exceeds the tab width - you'll overflow and the alignment will be messed up (Eyal) + Request is reasonable (Eyal): + Follows a different aesthetic principle: Fixed amount of space between number and paragraph content v-start rather than uniform content v-start across all paragraphs + Should be implemented via a paragraph feature to move all lines further in to respect the maximum constraints on each individual line (e.g. numbering, wrapping around frames etc.), ensuring that the paragraph's v-start is uniform across all lines, without having to set it explicitly using indentation and/or tabs. + Should be usable even without numbering being active (an aspect of a paragraph's style) + requires probably also to start a list from any number (Heiko) + MSO does exactly the same as we do (Heiko) => comment * Tab stop of list contents increases then decreases in default Roman numeral list, looking messy + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162133 + Microsoft Office forces right alignment for Roman numerals, often with horrible results (Justin) + right-alignment is not the right solution => WF (Stephane, Cor) => solution follows bug 156071 * PIVOTTABLE: Formating Pivot Tables + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51732 + double-click brings up the Data Field dialog currently, add a context menu (Stephane. Cor) + perhaps more obvious via push button? (Sahil) => provide a context menu for the functions * Magnifier Tool for a quick overview and spot zoom into a document in Multiple-page view + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162101 + magnifier is always just a click away, eg. Win + +/- on KDE + bug it does not render again with a higher resolution (Heiko) + "magnifier" would be an excellent feature *in general* (Stuart, Cor) + necessary if the app DPI differs from the screen DPI (Csongor) + duplicates / relates to bug 101646 "UI option "Scaling" was removed" with a lot duplicates itself + weird relation to multi-page view; suggest to do with low priority (Eyal) => comment -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-
Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Re: [libreoffice-design] Moving to LibreOffice 8?
Hi everyone, After reading all the messages in this topic, and learning how experienced marketing experts are in the team, I have the following humble thoughts. 1. I am a techie person who is far from being a marketing expert. Therefore, take my opinion with a grain of salt. 2. For most of the users, simple version numbers like X.x versus version Y.y don't say anything. Nobody remembers what the difference was between LO 5.0 and 6.0, but what other FOSS projects use, like Thunderbird 103 or Firefox 111, is also totally meaningless to a normie. A version number like MSOffice'97 or JetBrains IntelliJ 2023 tells much more. People may know such a program has features we used 26 years ago or just recently. Therefore, I think a year based version number would make more sense. I feel LibreOffice 2023 sounds much more modern than LO 8.0. It has no sneaky marketing-bias, it is a factual and meaningful information. Again, this is just what _I_ think. If the decision will be different, I will be totally OK with it, I leave the decision to experts but wanted to add my two cents. With regards, Csongor On 7/04/2023 18:23, Mike Saunders wrote: Hello, On 06.04.23 22:12, Eyal Rozenberg wrote: Great, what's the problem? Why should we be in a rush to get existing users to upgrade from 7.5 to 7.6? Well, one argument is that we have very limited resources to support two branches. LibreOffice 7.5 won't be around forever, so at some point we'll need to push people to update to 7.6/8.0, as the previous version won't be maintained and could potentially have security issues. On Reddit, social media etc. we see lots of posts from people using ancient versions of LibreOffice, and have no idea that there are newer major releases. There are various reasons for that, but IMO we need to keep people up-to-date. Not for quarterly sales targets as a CompuGlobalHyperMegaCorp, as you say, but because it's better for us all in the project when people are using maintained and supported versions. So, we should be at least skeptical about copying MS behavior regarding MSO in which their marketing wing is calling the shots. Agreed that we shouldn't copy problematic behaviour, but if our goal is to raise awareness of LibreOffice as much as possible, and get it into as many hands as possible (and I know not everyone agrees with that), then we have to be aware of the market in which we're operating, and competing. IMO, it's a lot like the whole "using proprietary services to reach users" debate. Arguably, as a FOSS project, we should avoid closed platforms like Twitter and Facebook. But we make a compromise and are active on those platforms, because they are very effective for reaching new users and communicating with them. So I think our marketing has to balance these things. If we only care about the technical side, we could use XTerm-style numbering (just keep bumping a single number with every release). But as if we want to reach Microsoft Office users and make a compelling argument to them, our marketing has to fit. And I know that Italo has a ton of experience and knowledge in this field, so his perspective on this is very valuable IMO. Cheers, Mike -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-design] Moving to LibreOffice 8?
I totally understand Italo's frustration. I also hate when I am expected to make a decision and people, who were absolutely silent and indifferent before, suddenly start to verbalise their opinion, which "happens to be" different from mine. Regarding the version number, I think people who liked 7.x, will continue to like 8.x too. The rest may find the big jump attractive enough to try it but I believe most of the articles would emphasize "Hey people, here is the new version but there is nothing remarkably new in it". Which erodes the reputation of the product. Therefore, I second Eyal's suggestion. Let's keep the new major version number for something really big jump. Such a big jump could be an AI integration (like ChatGPT). It could really change how people use LO (at least, Writer and Impress) Csongor On 28/03/2023 20:43, Italo Vignoli wrote: I have been asked to provide my opinion by developers, who seem to think that the change of version has to be a marketing decision. As I have said quite clearly, I am pissed off by the current situation, where I am asked to take a decision and then I am blamed because I take one. I leave the decision to the community. 28 Mar 2023 08:18:13 Eyal Rozenberg: I respectfully disagree with Italo. First, about the "frame of reference". In my opinion, decisions such as major version number bumping are not, first and foremost, marketing decisions. That is a _consideration_, since the version number is declarative than technical. But - such an action should be "truthful" before being "marketable". It is more important, in my opinion, that users and potential users receive trustworthy signaling from the project - not just w.r.t. version numbers, but generally - than for the media to get a gimmick for coverage. A second point is that bumping a version number without a major innovation moves you a few more steps into the category of, say, Firefox and such, where versions just increase automatically with no meaning whatsoever. Italo, you said we are perceived as a "real innovator"; well, when a real innovator starts having hollow version number bumping, that perception fades. Finally, everyone who likes the marketing potential of version 8 - great, but - keep that benefit for when we have a significant step forward to celebrate. Don't squander it. Eyal PS: availability on a new platform is not a reason to bump a version number. It's the "same" software, but built for another target, so same version as before. IMHO anyway. On 27/03/2023 20:11, Italo Vignoli wrote: Moving to LibreOffice 8 (instead of 7.6) makes sense for marketing purposes, as media is looking at LibreOffice as the real innovator in the open source office suite market, and the feeling of journalists is that we are forever stuck at 7.x. We all know that the next version will not include any significant innovation which can justify the change of version, apart from the new build system for Windows and the availability of LibreOffice for Arm processors on Windows (which has not been announced). Playing with the number 8, which can be rotated 90° to become the "infinite" symbol, we can frame the next version as LibreOffice for an infinite number of users, as we cover all hardware platforms and all operating systems for personal productivity. This is my opinion. If the community wants to stick with 7.6, I won't insist. I have received enough insults both public and private for the marketing plan, and I am still receiving them from a few people, that I am not willing to enter into that process again (even if the decision on the "community" tag has not been mine, but it looks like people have a very short memory). Looking forward to your thoughts. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to:design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems?https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more:https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive:https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ Privacy Policy:https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: Calc Survey
Hi All, I wrote my response before reading the response of others and there is a little bit of overlapping. Sorry for that. Here are my thoughts. 1. I don't think the first question helps too much about the future of the LO. It is very discouraging for non-binary people. If it is really-really necessary to ask, let's put it to the end of the list. But the best would be to drop this question completely. Similarly, the age also should be asked only at the end of the survey. 2. A much more relevant question would be how long the person has been using computers. Are you 30 and started at the age of 10, or are you 25 who started at 24? 30-10=20 is much more than 25-24=1. 3. Instead of asking the age with non-continuous intervals, a much easier-to-grasp question would be "which year you were born in?". - 1966 or before - 1967-1976 - 1977-... This is easier than expecting them to decide if 34.5 belongs to the 25-34 or 35-44 group. Here above I just converted the age limits to years but round year numbers are probably even better: - before 1960 - 1960-1969 - 1970-1979 - 1980-1989 - 1990-1999 - 2000-2009 - 2010 or later 4. The optional answer for the usage frequency are very hard to understand. Do I use LO Calc "All the time" if I use it every time when I need it, two times a year? Instead of these soft categories, I would be more exact: - less than once in a year - a couple of times in a year - a couple of times in a month - cca once a week - almost every day - several hours each workday (at least 4 days a week) 5. The answers for Q7 (What is the size of your typical LibreOffice Calc dataset?) will be very hard to process. Instead of this opened question, I wold ask something like this: - How many sheets you normally use in a Calc spreadsheet? Categories: always 1, 1-3, 2-5, more - How many rows do you use in a Spreadsheet? Categories: <50, 50-500, 500-5000, 5k-50k, more - How many columns do you use in a Spreadsheet? Categories: <10, 10-20, 20-50, more 6. The row labels "Select 6 as youranswer choice" and "Select "No Answer" asyour answer choice" for Q9 seem to be a mistake. 7. Typo: "Liner and Non-Linear Solvers" => "Linear and Non-Linear Solvers" 8. "Please select "No Answer" if you are not familiar with a particular feature." There is no "No Answer" column. 9. For Q13, the row labels could be simplified if the introduction would be rephrased. Instead of "Please choose the appropriate response for each item" I would write "To what extent do you agree with the following statements" After this, the row labels can be simpler: "I think that I would like to use LibreOfficeCalc frequently. => "I would like to use LibreOffice Calc more frequently." 10. It's hard to switch between positive and negative statements. Say, if I love LO Calc then sometimes I need to tick the leftmost circle, sometimes the rightmost one. This is a bit hard. It would be better to rephrase the negative statements to positive ones. For example: "I think that I would need the support of atechnical person to be able to useLibreOffice Calc." => "I can use LO Calc without the support of a technical person." In this case it is more visible. If all the ticks are on the right side then everything is good. 11. After rephrasing the second statement "I find LibreOffice Calc unnecessarily complex", we get the third one: "LibreOffice Calc is easy to use". I would remove the second one and keep just the third one. Why would we ask the same thing twice? 12. Probably this is just a draft-draft version but the final version should be typographically perfect. It would be a big shame for a Document Company to share a PDF in which the cell content doesn't fit into the cells. Example: "1 -Not Important at All" in Q9. These were just a rough list I could put together quickly but I am sure there would be a lot more things to change after trying to actually answer the survey and then evaluating it too. Therefore, I suggest making these changes, ask 10 people to answer it and then try to evaluate it. Probably we will see that they answer the questions in a way we cannot interpret, something it not clear, something is hard to process. Otherwise, this is a very promising survey. Cheers, Csongor On 1/07/2021 02:35, Heiko Tietze wrote: First reply from Stuart (per direct mail): "Two confusing entries on page 5 of the draft survey: Select 6 as your answer choice Select "No Answer" as your answer choice I think they need to go to have valid results (and force respondents to answer each question)." Yes, the 'Select "No Answer" as your answer' choice slipped accidentally in. Also the item 'Select 6 as your answer choice'. Second from Kompilainnen (on Telegram): * Q1: Drop question about gender (answer has no value for the results) * Q3: Add description like 'Basic - typing data, simple functions like SUM only', 'Intermediate - Basic + use Conditional formatting, Charts, more functions, like VLOOKUP,
Re: [libreoffice-design] Agenda for the design/UX meeting 2020-SEP-02 (WED)
Hi All, one more idea came into my mind, I hope it is not too late to tell. Sometimes it would be nice to export a Presentation into a video file. The result can be used as an automatised presentation. Exporting all the slides into still images is not enough because the individual slides can have animations and between them there are transitions as well. This could be a GSOC project, I think. Csongor ps: Unfortunately I cannot attend the meeting, here in Australia it is at 4am. On 2/09/2020 02:11, Heiko Tietze wrote: Hello all, the next design/UX meeting is on Wednesday, Sep/02, 20:00 Berlin/CEST/GMT+2 resp. 6pm/18:00 UTC. This time we have the special agenda and will discuss the two-years plan as announced in [1]. Input so far: #1 Mozilla-like plugin/themes system to tweak the UI (Csongor) #2 unify "brand/layout" and UI on all platforms (Andreas) #3 theming engine for the different platforms (Andreas) #4 migration of all UIs to the Notebookbar framework (Pedro) #5 Simplify and decrease the number of UIs on offer per platform (Pedro) #6 Improve UI/UX in specific OSes, polish visual niggles, adopt universal office suite shortcuts, uniformize the branding of the modules (Pedro) #7 Uniformize tool usage between modules (Pedro) And I'd like to add some requests from BZ, see also [2] #8 tdf#37134 Tabbed UI: Document-per-tab (similar to Firefox, Opera, gedit) MDI #9 tdf#37932 Support for Editing and Creation of SmartArt #10 tdf#51733 Update icons for high-resolution HiDPI / Retina display #11 tdf#91874 A Search by function or keyword over main menu-- similar to SpotLight, Tell Me, or Ubuntu's HUD but native for LO GUI #12 tdf#115439 SVG-Icons should be preferred over PNG Finally, we have a pad with ideas for GSoC at [3]. The meeting will be held on IRC (the Telegram bridge works smoothly; the Matrix to Telegram bridge omits messages from IRC however). You can use the webchat to access IRC as guest: https://irc.documentfoundation.org/?settings=#libreoffice-design Looking forward tomorrow, Heiko [1] https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/2020/msg00095.html [2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/Bugzilla/Statistics#Bugs [3] https://pad.documentfoundation.org/p/UX-GSoC_Ideas -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-design] Two-years plan
Hi All, I don't know too much (khm. I don't know anything:)) about the internal structure of the LO code base. But the question is what I would like to see in 2 years so, if you don't mind, I let me go crazy and come up with wild ideas, regardless of how easy they are to implement. I think it is a waste of the developer resources to redesign the user interface every fifth year, when the fashion changes. What did work very well in the past, is the add-on system of Firefox. I would like to see something similar in LibreOffice. (I am talking about the first version of the FF addons, when there was a lot of freedom, not the newer model, when a lot of nice old addons don't work anymore.) It would be great if there was a separate code base in LO which manipulates the document itself and a sharply separated other one which is responsible for the UI. They should communicate on an interface which makes it possible to write UI add-ons for LibreOffice in easier-to-learn programming languages, for example Python and/or JavaScript, not just C/C++/ In that case, the community would win a lot of competing UIs from enthusiastic developers and some of them would be really good. People, who are experts of UIs but don't necessarily want to learn the deep secrets of the LO code base, would be able to make their on add-ons, like thousands of Firefox add-ons made the browser really popular. After this structural change, people who know LO deeper, can focus on new functions, performance improvements, better compatibility and other useful things while people, who want to make spectacular UI, can focus on just the UI, without knowing too much about the internal parts of LO. There would always be one or two official UI packages which offers an acceptable balance between functionality, beauty and used resouces but people could choose 3rd party UI add-ons freely, from a LibeOffice add-on store. Disclaimer: I am writing this idea without having any clue what the current structure of the code base is and how complicated this change would be. Take this just as it is. As an idea which can be ignored if it is totally useless. :) Cheers, Csongor On 14/08/2020 06:45, Heiko Tietze wrote: Hi all, other communities such as KDE [1] plan the work for next releases. This idea also comes up repeatedly for LibreOffice; and while steering in a narrow sense is not possible, it make sense to have a common vision for the next two years. That's why Andreas Kainz suggested an IRC meeting. We should do this similar to the question what topics to foster for next year's GSoC [2]. An example for such a 2-year plan clould be to rework all property dialogs and to get rid of tabs in favor of a sidebar with text/icons (see tdf#113418; controversially discussed in the design meeting today). Please think about where you see LibreOffice in 2 years and what you want the design/UX group to achieve. I suggest to share the ideas first here. The meeting should be on Sep/02 at 6pm UTC / 20:00 CEST (Berlin) (replacing the usual weekly meeting). We talk on IRC #libreoffice-design (bridged to Telegram). Looking forward your thoughts, Heiko [1] https://community.kde.org/Schedules [2] https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/msg09343.html -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
