Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: New icon set
I've actually got ideas for what I think would make a good lineup of icon sets in the future: 1. Something like the current Gnome icons. They recently dropped their Tango ones on 2.30 and these new ones are rather interesting. 2. Something Metro-like. This could satisfy a need for more plain/monochrome icons for high/low contrast users, may also fit in well on the Android version too, and give us a good native look for Windows 8 users 3. Something bright and colorful for Windows XP/KDE/etc. On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Kévin PEIGNOT peignot.ke...@kpeignot.fr wrote: Hi Mirek, great to read you. Hi all(again) 2012/2/22 Mirek M. maz...@gmail.com Hi everyone, If we are to make an icon set, I would prefer it to be designed from scratch. I don't think we can achieve good quality by transforming the Tango icon set or the High Contrast Galaxy set (frankly, it's much harder for me to decipher the icons from the HC than the standard icon set). I tried from high contrast (see my last mail), I think we could achieve good quality. But, for sure, not the best one for most of the icons. I was thinking we could begin with a simple icon set for Android. We'd probably need to make this set anyway, as LibO would look really out-of-place on Android if it shipped with Tango icons. And the initial plans for the Android port are to make a high-fidelity document viewer, so we won't have to make many icons initially. As the Android port develops, the icon set would grow, and when it grew big enough, it would be suitable for the desktop version. I am totally in. Anyway, we will have to design a monochrom icon set. So it's good making android viewer one first, and to see, then, whether it can adapt to desktop, because it follow TDF plans and it permit a first feedback on the icons. As for active vs. disabled icons, Android has guidelineshttp://developer.android.com/design/style/iconography.htmlfor this: 30% opacity for disabled icons, light or dark. To truly achieve good quality, though, we need someone experienced to coordinate the project. Nobody's raised their hand so far -- perhaps we should ask some prominent open-source icon designers ourselves or raise money on KickStarter if nobody was willing to help with this for free. Do someone know one of them ? Steva ? (from Sun) ? I'm in for the kickstarter project, for sure, but I hope we could make without it. P.S. Also take a look at Adobe Buzzword's icons: http://www.writerstechnology.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/buzzword-screenshot.png Quite beautiful. -- 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 -- 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 -- 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-doing the installer
I remember proposing this back when, but now I think we should re-consider it. Anyway, I'm using XAML and VB to mock up a potential redesign for the LibreOffice installer. My idea for interfacing with it would be to have a wrapper for the files (though this time, maybe a 7-Zip one more like Firefox), which would include the MSI and the files for this program. Then this would launch and manage whatever is needed to actually make the MSI file do its thing. http://i.imgur.com/mG6jj.png I personally think that improving and simplifying the installation experience would be a good way to help further increase our accessibility to new users. Anyone have ideas or input? -- 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] SmartArt into libreoffice? - sorry this time without html
So, you basically want a system for creating diagram templates? On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:09 AM, Christopher Stark christopherst...@gmx.dewrote: Hi, I'm not working with M$ Office but I heard from my flatmate that the so called smart art is supposed to be very helpful. They look like that: http://www.office2010-blog.de/de/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/SmartArtGrafik_auswaehlen.png My suggestion would be to implement something like that into libreoffice. I already started with that see here: http://www.christopherstark.de/extern/smartart.odp What do you think? Should I start a Wiki-Entry with that topic? (so far I couldn't manage do edit the wiki-site even when I'm logged in) Best Regards Christopher -- Christopher Stark Heimfelder Straße 17 21075 Hamburg Tel +49 (0)40 57 131 028 Mobil +40 (0)151 178 98801 Fax 030 284 821 39 www.christopherstark.de -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] Installer changes for Windows users
On the topic of this, I had actually proposed an entire redesign of the installer system in a much earlier post, but in discussions on IRC I was informed that making alternate UI's for Windows Installer systems is a pretty difficult task. ~Shawn On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Cesare Leonardi celeo...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all. I'm just a user too, that follows the LibreOffice project with many hopes and that try to contribute with bug filing and comments. On 11/03/2011 16:17, Jared Meidal wrote: When the first step to installing LibreOffice is the prompt to ask where to extract the install folder immediate confusion comes to many elementary PC users. I think this is primarily because this step is unusual, most Windows-based apps do not contain this step, or hide it from the user. I suggest eliminating this step. Either the installer file is packaged differently to accomplish this, or it automatically extracts the MSI, etc. into a temp folder in the background, which is afterwards deleted upon a successful installation. I completely agree with you. I've always found strange using the desktop as temporary folder and also found strange that the user has to manually delete later this folder. I concur that this forlder should go to %temp% and that has to be deleted after the setup completes (even with error). I'm unsure if can be useful to make a permanent copy of this folder under the LibreOffice folder in %programfiles%, so that the user can modify his setup without having to find the original installer. Tipical use case is, for example, to add Impress if you haven't installed it in the first place, or to modify file associations, or to restore the program if something got screwed up. It wastes disk space but can be useful in many cases. The second issue is that the install folder C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 3 contains the version number. This is much better than the Start Menu\Programs folder LibreOffice 3.3 which contains the point version also. I suggest removing both. Simply LibreOffice is enough, and is a much more common standard and expectation for Windows users. Like Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, for example. It's something i do on every setup: i change the folder name deleting the version. It makes upgrades easier (from a user point of view). For example, when you upgrade from 2.4 to 3.x (as i'm doing now at work), many users ends up with a broken quicklaunch program in their startup folder: if you use version number in folder, quicklaunch is not able to find itself anymore after upgrade and you have to solve the problem manually. Another thing that i've always found strange in OpenOffice/LibreOffice Windows configuration is that, under the Start Menu, LibreOffice programs are showed with their real name (LibreOffice Writer, LibreOffice Calc, etc), while if you right-click on the systray icon you can see the localized document type (i translate from italian: Text document, Spreadsheet, Presentation). My workmate believe this is a bug, me just an incoherence. In my opinion the better solution would be to render identical both strings, with something like this: Writer (Text documents) Calc (Spreadsheet) Impress (Presentations) ... Or reversed: Text documents (Writer) Spreadsheet (Calc) ... All the string should be localized, like the ones in the quicklaunch. And without the LibreOffice prefix (as LibreOffice Writer), since the word LibreOffice it is already in the folder name. This has the good effect of teaching the corrispondence between the name of the application and what it does. Many employees keeps on calling Excel the spreadsheet and Word the word processor and ignoring what are Calc and Writer... ;-) Hope to help. Cesare. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] Logo proposal without TDF line
Okay, sorry if this reiterates anything we've said, but If anything, I would purely just drop it from the logo entirely. If a mentioning of TDF is required in artwork (like the splash screen), it could easily be thrown in the corner or something. I feel TDF needs to be branded as the people/vendor behind LibreOffice, not as the slogan of LibreOffice. On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 8:04 AM, Nik n...@tdf.nikashsingh.com wrote: Note to all: long email, you may want to skip it and just check out these if you have time; * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs01.jpg * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs02.jpg * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs03.jpg * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs04.jpg * http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs05.jpg Hi Bernhard! I know I told you I'd be busy with my research but you keep raising interesting topics that lure me back! =) Besides, some /*very*/ important stuff is being decided right now, that if I miss out on, I know it will never get changed again. That is the way of Open-Source huh? like a big machine on rails that can only go forward, not back =) On 1/31/2011 9:12 AM, Bernhard Dippold wrote: Do you think we can present this logo (or something similar) to the Steering Committee as our Design Team proposal for an official logo of LibreOffice for external use? Comments? Critics? Improvements? If the possibility of /small/ changes are possible to the logo in this context, can we take this opportunity to address some if its shortcomings? I mean it is the *one symbol* that represents this WHOLE community and project. It wouldn't entail major changes, but the longer we trudge on with an interim logo, the more certain I become that it will remain the *only* logo tried. I won't write a million words like I usually do, just a thousand =) ... I'll try and explain in designs instead; I've uploaded a deconstruction of the TDF-less logos here; *http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs01.jpg* R01 was the centered original logo, R02 is what I think David was suggesting (*bottom* aligned as /well/ as right-aligned). But even with R02, the space between the icon and the text creates a void and looks separated. R03 is what I would recommend, I think the gap could decrease and because the letter L has a good corner effect, it perfectly juxtaposes the icon when aligned. This way, the entire arrangement would look like one visual block which is what you want; White space /around/ the logo, rather than /between/. This image shows how the spacing may be causing the element to look disconnected; *http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs02.jpg* If we were feeling adventurous, I think small changes could really improve the look of the current logo; (refer to R05) *http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs03.jpg* - Clip the L so it is cut by the same gap which slices the paper icon: for continuation. - Lighten the colours to mid-grey instead of dark-grey, this will still print well and compliments the green better. - Colour the broken corner of the paper icon to create a focal point that leads the eye through the logo I'm not sure giving the members logos is the entire solution because it just creates many logo variations. I think creating badges for community members with a non-TDF logo /attached/ will send the right message without diluting the brand. Because it suggests affiliation without suggesting ownership. I think Charles mentioned this in an Email to the Design list (I've CC'ed him), I was really excited by the prospect of making team badges, but because I'm short on time, I've only got roughs (plenty of glitches). I thought the topic could wait, but these are related things. I thought we could create shields or emblems for our community. R07 shows members and distributors roughs only; *http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs04.jpg* And they could be arranged in something like this way (R08); *http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibOlogo_reconfigs05.jpg* This way it is not a logo, it is more like signage. Right about now, you're probably hoping you hadn't asked for feedback right? I'm sorry =) ... But let me know what you think, these are all embedded in my page now anyway; http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:Nik I'm sorry I keep bringing this up, but I think it's necessary to discuss and plan for this. Most people will see our logo before they even try the software. We might lose them before we even shake their hand. -Nik -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.orgdesign%2bh...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to
[libreoffice-design] Proposal: Redesign the Windows installer
Okay, this might be tricky given the fact that we use Windows Installer (MSI and such), but I kinda find the LibreOffice installer to be a little plain looking, and given that it seems like we're trying to distance ourselves from the look of that other free office suite, I think it could use a new paint job. Note, when I say new paintjob, I kinda mean a stylistic overhaul. What I'm proposing, is that we re-design the wizard to break away from the old Wizard 97 style of design that we're using now, and shift more towards the style of wizard layout that Windows Vista began to use (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511302.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511260.aspx for info) Now note, despite the fact that I am proposing this style of layout, we should still do it in a way that is backwards compatible with the previous versions of the OS too. Thankfully, the designers did make a graceful fallback for the classic theme (there is a regular titlebar, and the back button appears in the main window alongside the page heading), so I'm taking it to my advantage. After the installer launches (maybe we should find a way to lose that extraction wrapper somehow too in the process, or at least theme it to look like what we'll be doing here), the start screen would be a little different since Aero Wizards discourage welcome screens unless there is a lot of things to know on startup or there is a function on it. Thus, I have made it the select installation type screen in my mockup. I may also move down the buttons to squeeze in the LibreOffice logo in between just so it doesn't look blank. (see http://ploader.net/files/0be576d5c9d6b605a7ec4188d77f2d1c.png) I'm working on mockups for the other screens, but they would be along this line (take the file association screen): http://ploader.net/files/a1a2f2c4a97eb33da1aec77d4a9035eb.png Notice the slightly different wording, the now-active back button, and the general ideas here. I wanna keep most of the workflow intact, but update it to a more clear and concise look. Now, when we actually theme this, it wouldn't look like a typical Aero wizard, it would have a design similar to our web design style (the triangle motif, plain looking buttons, etc), and it would just use a normal window frame (not the enlarged one real implementations use) I am working on more mockups for this right now, so don't worry, you will get a full workflow of this soon. And, in response to concerns that a installer this glitzy would be unprofessional, do note that this is gonna be based off HIG's that Microsoft has put out for what everyone should begin to be using, and that even worse, the Office 2010 installer doesn't follow a single word of this. ~Shawn -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
