Re: [libreoffice-design] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-28 17:23, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 13:37 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: Of the samples that were printed, the ones that I found most legible, were the group 1 colours. From the printout on my computer they had the clearest contrast. Jean mentions that to her the following would be the best compromise (if we were to agree to this) (Note that the lines ending with a ? just need to be confirmed. * Clearlooks theme * Green 2 * Libreration font sans, 11 pt. ? What we did not discuss is the size of the screen capture and quality. Could anyone comment on this? Could anyone comment on this? The website and marketing team were following this protocol: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website#Contribution_and_Support Most of the screenshots for the user guides are of dialog boxes, and those should be captured at their full size (unlike showing the full window, which is user-variable). Many (most) dialog boxes fit well on the document page just as they are (although their size does vary with contributor's screen resolution), but some are too wide and must be shrunk to page width or cropped. When putting screenshots into user guides, several other consistency and usability issues arise. I have a few guidelines summarised in some document, but they are not as complete as they should be. They include suggestions for cropping for emphasis (best done by the person working on a particular document, who will know what the emphasis needs to be), and guidelines for inserting cropped images at a size that results in a common text size in all the dialog boxes in a document (realising that in a few cases it must be smaller); the weight and color of any lines pointing to items in the dialog box (or circles or boxes around items); the font, weight, and size of any numbers or other text used as labels on a screenshot or in a diagram; what if any background color to put around labels. --Jean Sounds like you had started on a protocol. If we could complete the directions along with samples it will help our screenshot helpers in supplying our teams with the more appropriate shots. Are these somewhere on the wiki? We could help you with completing these if you need any help. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Wed, 2011-06-29 at 04:43 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: Le 2011-06-28 17:23, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : Most of the screenshots for the user guides are of dialog boxes, and those should be captured at their full size (unlike showing the full window, which is user-variable). Many (most) dialog boxes fit well on the document page just as they are (although their size does vary with contributor's screen resolution), but some are too wide and must be shrunk to page width or cropped. When putting screenshots into user guides, several other consistency and usability issues arise. I have a few guidelines summarised in some document, but they are not as complete as they should be. They include suggestions for cropping for emphasis (best done by the person working on a particular document, who will know what the emphasis needs to be), and guidelines for inserting cropped images at a size that results in a common text size in all the dialog boxes in a document (realising that in a few cases it must be smaller); the weight and color of any lines pointing to items in the dialog box (or circles or boxes around items); the font, weight, and size of any numbers or other text used as labels on a screenshot or in a diagram; what if any background color to put around labels. --Jean Sounds like you had started on a protocol. If we could complete the directions along with samples it will help our screenshot helpers in supplying our teams with the more appropriate shots. Are these somewhere on the wiki? We could help you with completing these if you need any help. They are in the draft Chapter 2, Producing LibreOffice User Guides, which can be downloaded from http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/cgi_img_auth.php/5/5e/Producing-LO-userguides.odt --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hey, You all are thinking a lot about using clearlook theme , because it is on several distro. But reality is that clearlook is a GTK 2 gnome theme, not ported ( maybe I'm wrong to GTK 3 ) and almost every distro will switch to gnome 3 sooner or letter. Even ubuntu 11.10 will use gnome 3 with unity. So thinking of clearlook why not, but not because it's used with gnome. Kévin Le 28 juin 2011 00:38, Bernhard Dippold bernh...@familie-dippold.at a écrit : Hi David, Jay, all, planas schrieb: Hi all, On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 23:43 +0300, David Nelson wrote: Hi, On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Jean Hollis Weberjeanwe...@gmail.com wrote: [...] To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference between whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. I agree with what Jean says. Gray is a practical choice. I personally think that a consistent color for window titles and highlights would not really distract people - but if we really want to know this exactly we would have to start a user survey on this topic. Having our green more present in the user's eye is a marketing topic - and of course it is less important than good readability in the documentation. But if we can achieve both without real drawbacks, I'd go for it. But, also, after having reflected on this subject since past discussions on the documentation ML, I'm no longer totally convinced of the need to have total uniformity in screenshots, nor even of the need to have them all done under Linux rather than Windows. Providing that a little common sense is used, having some variety only emphasizes that LibreOffice runs on a large variety of platforms and under a wide variety of GUIs. +1 Common sense doesn't help against Microsoft's restrictions. So I don't want to promote Windows screenshots on our website and in our documentation. If a court would tell us, that the Microsoft website is illegal in claiming their rights on windows decoration and prohibiting partial screenshots, I wouldn't mind anymore. But until then (or until we have enough money to spend a certain amount on a lawyer investigating this topic) I'd stay with non-Windows screenshots. Variety is good, if we want to show the different platforms LibreOffice is able to run. But for documentation (except for platform specific topics) a consistent look-and-feel is as important as in marketing. If we want to be considered professional, we have to play in their league. Of course it might be possible to create one document with one set of screenshots and another with a different one. But as they should be consistent inside one document and they should be able to created by different people a clear and easy to follow description is all you need to create screenshots with similar look-and-feel on different distros and platforms. And if we want to improve branding by our screenshots too, people should know about the recommended color of window title bars. Extending this description by the theme and the font we'd like them to use is not a huge topic and helps new contributors to create good screenshots. Where should they know about the best resolution for different purposes if not from this description? Where to put the info about cutting off all the desktop background and providing just the single relevant window? All this can be subsumed in a short description or specification people can be pointed to when they tell us they want to create screenshots. And finally they want to know exactly what should their screenshot show. This needs to be covered by an additional explanation at the mailing list or in a table of needed screenshots on the wiki too. From all my personal experience new contributors like very much to get a hand on how to provide their first contribution. A wiki page containing all the necessary information would serve them best in my eyes. And from this first contact with the wiki and our lists they are much more likely to stay within the active part of the community than being told to do some screenshots on their standard OS and left alone with the additional questions. In reality, it's important for us not to raise the entry barriers to contribution too high, Right - but a wiki page explaining the best parameters for LibO screenshots is not a barrier, but a help in my eyes. because I notice that most people only contribute for a short period of time and then tend to fall away. In the most cases this has nothing to do with high entry barriers, but with lack of personal approach to them, not telling them where they find the best area to contribute with their skills and especially no reaction (or negative reaction) on the work they present. There are lot of areas that would love to see regular contributions, but leading
Re: [libreoffice-design] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi all! To add one thing - it is simply practical if different teams / authors can share / exchange materials easily. Especially if the original authors are unavailable and their work is getting extended by others ... or if a team of different people is working on one document / work item. Then (and this is already done today), you need to coordinate such content creation anyway. So, to me, the aim of consistent screenshots make totally sense - even or especially from a community POV. Cheers, Christoph -- Sent via mobile... Bernhard Dippold bernh...@familie-dippold.at schrieb: Hi David, Jay, all, planas schrieb: Hi all, On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 23:43 +0300, David Nelson wrote: Hi, On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Jean Hollis Weberjeanwe...@gmail.com wrote: [...] To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference between whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. I agree with what Jean says. Gray is a practical choice. I personally think that a consistent color for window titles and highlights would not really distract people - but if we really want to know this exactly we would have to start a user survey on this topic. Having our green more present in the user's eye is a marketing topic - and of course it is less important than good readability in the documentation. But if we can achieve both without real drawbacks, I'd go for it. But, also, after having reflected on this subject since past discussions on the documentation ML, I'm no longer totally convinced of the need to have total uniformity in screenshots, nor even of the need to have them all done under Linux rather than Windows. Providing that a little common sense is used, having some variety only emphasizes that LibreOffice runs on a large variety of platforms and under a wide variety of GUIs. +1 Common sense doesn't help against Microsoft's restrictions. So I don't want to promote Windows screenshots on our website and in our documentation. If a court would tell us, that the Microsoft website is illegal in claiming their rights on windows decoration and prohibiting partial screenshots, I wouldn't mind anymore. But until then (or until we have enough money to spend a certain amount on a lawyer investigating this topic) I'd stay with non-Windows screenshots. Variety is good, if we want to show the different platforms LibreOffice is able to run. But for documentation (except for platform specific topics) a consistent look-and-feel is as important as in marketing. If we want to be considered professional, we have to play in their league. Of course it might be possible to create one document with one set of screenshots and another with a different one. But as they should be consistent inside one document and they should be able to created by different people a clear and easy to follow description is all you need to create screenshots with similar look-and-feel on different distros and platforms. And if we want to improve branding by our screenshots too, people should know about the recommended color of window title bars. Extending this description by the theme and the font we'd like them to use is not a huge topic and helps new contributors to create good screenshots. Where should they know about the best resolution for different purposes if not from this description? Where to put the info about cutting off all the desktop background and providing just the single relevant window? All this can be subsumed in a short description or specification people can be pointed to when they tell us they want to create screenshots. And finally they want to know exactly what should their screenshot show. This needs to be covered by an additional explanation at the mailing list or in a table of needed screenshots on the wiki too. From all my personal experience new contributors like very much to get a hand on how to provide their first contribution. A wiki page containing all the necessary information would serve them best in my eyes. And from this first contact with the wiki and our lists they are much more likely to stay within the active part of the community than being told to do some screenshots on their standard OS and left alone with the additional questions. In reality, it's important for us not to raise the entry barriers to contribution too high, Right - but a wiki page explaining the best parameters for LibO screenshots is not a barrier, but a help in my eyes. because I notice that most people only contribute for a short period of time and then tend to fall away. In the most cases this has nothing to do with high entry barriers, but with lack of personal approach to them, not telling them where they find the best area to contribute with their skills and especially no reaction (or negative reaction) on the work they present.
Re: [libreoffice-design] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi Kévin, On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 08:09:22 +0200 Kévin PEIGNOT winniemie...@gmail.com wrote: Hey, You all are thinking a lot about using clearlook theme , because it is on several distro. But reality is that clearlook is a GTK 2 gnome theme, not ported ( maybe I'm wrong to GTK 3 ) and almost every distro will switch to gnome 3 sooner or letter. Even ubuntu 11.10 will use gnome 3 with unity. So thinking of clearlook why not, but not because it's used with gnome. you mention a valid point here. But from what I've heard, gnome 3 isn't really usable yet. Not on my distribution (Mageia) and not on others. There is still a lot in flux when it comes to gnome 3. I'd say let's start with clearlooks now and we can decide later on, what we're going to do, when gnome 3 is widely available on most distros. I would expect, that clearlooks is then ported to gnome 3 as well. Just my opinion, of course. Sigrid -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi, On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Christoph Noack christ...@dogmatux.com wrote: So, to me, the aim of consistent screenshots make totally sense - even or especially from a community POV. Well, in any case, as someone who is a constant presence in the LibO docs team, I'll certainly cooperate in promoting/coordinating uptake of the initiative if it takes off. But, like I already said, I'm wary of complexifying the process of getting involved in docs contribution, and I don't feel like seeing things get over-regulated in the docs team. A) Don't we get enough of that in daily life already? Contributing to an OS project is supposed to be fun, not an over-regulated part-time job with as many rules as your day job. B) It is so easy to scare new contributors off. For some time now, practically every newcomer has faded after just a short time of getting involved. If there's too much outside interference from people who don't actually regularly take part in the English docs team's life, it might not actually help us build a stable docs team, C) Personally, I just don't see any need for standardization and uniformization. However, if this thing gets off the ground and has broad support, I'll certainly cooperate as a good team player. I'll be monitoring the conversation. BTW, all this is just my 2 cents. Please don't shoot me down for voicing it. TIA. -- David Nelson -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-28 04:31, David Nelson a écrit : Hi, On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Christoph Noackchrist...@dogmatux.com wrote: So, to me, the aim of consistent screenshots make totally sense - even or especially from a community POV. Well, in any case, as someone who is a constant presence in the LibO docs team, I'll certainly cooperate in promoting/coordinating uptake of the initiative if it takes off. But, like I already said, I'm wary of complexifying the process of getting involved in docs contribution, and I don't feel like seeing things get over-regulated in the docs team. A) Don't we get enough of that in daily life already? Contributing to an OS project is supposed to be fun, not an over-regulated part-time job with as many rules as your day job. On the contrary, this effort is to give clarity to taking screenshots. It is not fun, when you find that there are no people joining in, for example, taking screenshots, because there is no protocol. When the directions are clear and organised, then people join. With lack of clarity, people may show their hands up for a project and then loose faith where there is no help or direction. After all, this is what our LibreOffice is based on, a clear set of directions on how to build great documents. The documentation team uses established styles for their documentation. Imagine, if there were no styles, where would the documentation effort be then? B) It is so easy to scare new contributors off. For some time now, practically every newcomer has faded after just a short time of getting involved. If there's too much outside interference from people who don't actually regularly take part in the English docs team's life, it might not actually help us build a stable docs team, I think that by now everyone can see the pattern, it is the same as with the OOo. There have already been comments on the lists that the same pattern has re-established itself with a core group doing most of the documentation, just as with the OOo. If this is the case (and it is), then our methods need to change. By establishing clear protocols on taking screenshots should enable more people to jump in and help out, and, will also help veteran members speak with one voice with respect to screenshot quality for our great documentation. I am not sure what you call outside interference. In any part of LibreOffice, there are many ways to contribute. Also, sometimes, a new fresh pair of eyes may help out. If you find that you are lacking in contributors and you are doing the same as before (OOo), then maybe, having a change in some aspects of the protocols (in this case, screenshots) may help. C) Personally, I just don't see any need for standardization and uniformization. Bernhard has summed up all of the reasons that were proposed on uniformization on this discussion thread in a recent post. Just in case you missed it, you may find it here: http://www.mail-archive.com/design@global.libreoffice.org/msg02537.html I think he has put it all very eloquently and as plain as possible. I think the reasons for writing up protocols are overwhelming. However, if this thing gets off the ground and has broad support, I'll certainly cooperate as a good team player. I'll be monitoring the conversation. BTW, all this is just my 2 cents. Please don't shoot me down for voicing it. TIA. Hey, no problem, we are all contributing on the conversation and eventually, something will come of it. Now is the time to offer opinions and contributions to the discussion. I have already put up my hand to help out with screenshots and I am sure we will be able to steer newcomers to the documentation team to the screenshots protocols page as a place where they can get their feet wet, while they ramp up to more contributions on the team. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi Sigrid et al: Le 2011-06-26 04:57, Sigrid Carrera a écrit : Hi Marc, On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:11:06 -0400 Marc Parém...@marcpare.com wrote: Le 2011-06-26 01:38, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 02:15 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote: Hi Jean, Sigrid, all, Jean Hollis Weber schrieb: Jean wrote: [...] Well, as you say, there are different needs. The documentation's first need should be that of print quality. If we are to submit our work to LuLu's for print, the buyers should definitely get what we consider a good representation of LibreOffice in type and screenshots. From an aesthetic point of view, not sure if all in gray is too appealing for users making use of reading our documentation online. It would be nice if we got the same print from one of our greens as with a gray. But if not, then gray should be it. BTW ... are the Lulu prints in colour or B/W? For web and marketing teams, the green in the theme is pretty well called for, if we are to keep with the brand colour. It identifies the suite and lends itself well to brand recognition. Would getting an opinion from someone involved at Lulu's be of any additional help as far as the print quality? They may be able to give us a little more input from the point of view of end product. I think we could convince them to offer some opinion on the matter if we had some samples for them to look at. Hm, you're talking to the right person - Jean is the one who is involved with Lulu. :) The books we offer through Lulu are printed in b/w, because colour would be much more expensive. We only have some colour on the title page, the rest is black and white and greyscale. Then, we can all decide (vote). The vocal people and others can all participate on the design decision being well informed on the options, this, as per usual with design proposal and adoption decisions. We are looking at: * a theme that is easily installable by members * a theme optimized for LibreOffice documentation screenshot print * a theme suitable for web and marketing purposes The theme does not necessarily need to be of the same configuration for the two and may lead to 2 theme configurations. That would be ok with me. But I would like to have a decision soon - I'd like to finish the first chapter with the screenshots. I took already 9 shots, but I'm hesitant to take more, if we decide for something different and I have to redo them again. :) Is there anything missing? BTW ... sorry I didn't participate on the testing of the samples as I don't think that I would have a well enough informed opinion on the print quality. I don't think my printer would give a good enough print to compare. No, I think you should have used your printer - print one version in colour and maybe another one in greyscale. See how those printouts look. I suspect, that this is what many people do (not everyone buys the books from Lulu) and not everyone likes reading from a computer screen. (I personally prefer reading from a printout instead of reading from my screen). Sigrid I've gone ahead and printed out the samples in B/W from these pages: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:Eskroni/Tests ; http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Clearlooks_-_Green1_-_Liberation_Sans_11pt_bold_.png. These were printed out on my Samsung SCX-4200 laser 600dpi in B/W, unfortunately, I do not have a colour printer. Of the samples that were printed, the ones that I found most legible, were the group 1 colours. From the printout on my computer they had the clearest contrast. Jean mentions that to her the following would be the best compromise (if we were to agree to this) (Note that the lines ending with a ? just need to be confirmed. * Clearlooks theme * Green 2 * Libreration font sans, 11 pt. ? What we did not discuss is the size of the screen capture and quality. Could anyone comment on this? The website and marketing team were following this protocol: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website#Contribution_and_Support Cheers, Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 13:37 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: Of the samples that were printed, the ones that I found most legible, were the group 1 colours. From the printout on my computer they had the clearest contrast. Jean mentions that to her the following would be the best compromise (if we were to agree to this) (Note that the lines ending with a ? just need to be confirmed. * Clearlooks theme * Green 2 * Libreration font sans, 11 pt. ? What we did not discuss is the size of the screen capture and quality. Could anyone comment on this? Could anyone comment on this? The website and marketing team were following this protocol: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website#Contribution_and_Support Most of the screenshots for the user guides are of dialog boxes, and those should be captured at their full size (unlike showing the full window, which is user-variable). Many (most) dialog boxes fit well on the document page just as they are (although their size does vary with contributor's screen resolution), but some are too wide and must be shrunk to page width or cropped. When putting screenshots into user guides, several other consistency and usability issues arise. I have a few guidelines summarised in some document, but they are not as complete as they should be. They include suggestions for cropping for emphasis (best done by the person working on a particular document, who will know what the emphasis needs to be), and guidelines for inserting cropped images at a size that results in a common text size in all the dialog boxes in a document (realising that in a few cases it must be smaller); the weight and color of any lines pointing to items in the dialog box (or circles or boxes around items); the font, weight, and size of any numbers or other text used as labels on a screenshot or in a diagram; what if any background color to put around labels. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-26 22:59, Christopher Lee a écrit : How much of another distro will really be visible in a screenshot, though? I feel like most people would just say, Hey, that's a cool looking theme... and move on. The screenshots are only those of the LibreOffice window. All other OS components will not appear. This is done intentionally so that the OS is unidentifiable. The only hint that it will not be from a Windows OS is the top corner minimize, maximize, exit icons that may looks slightly different from the Windows version. People will not be aware of which OS the screenshots were taken from. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-26 19:11, Bernhard Dippold a écrit : Hi Jean, all, Jean Hollis Weber schrieb: [...] I agree with you that any colour chosen should harmonize with the positive attitude of our branding. I also agree that Green 1 is a bit aggressive. Green 2 will do; it prints well enough. Blue 2 seems a bit too bright when viewed in colour, but it prints fine. Blue 3 looks better to me, but the contrast with white text isn't so good; using Blue 3 with black text is much better in print. However, I haven't found a way to change the text in dialog box title bars from white to black. At least on my Ubuntu it depends on the theme used - some have black texts, some white ones. I don't see an option to change them independently either. I still am not convinced that there is any real marketing or other advantage to having coloured title bars and highlighting *in the user guide illustrations* -- I don't see why they need to be the same, as the purpose and use of the two are different, and the screenshots themselves will be different (so no reuse advantage to us). I think there are reasons to use the same screenshots in user guides and marketing material - e.g. including a new feature in the user guide. If such a feature has already been presented with a screenshot based on the common theme, this screenshot might be re-used. And the other way round: If someone wants to show some of the best features in LibreOffice as part of his presentation, it would be easy to use screenshots from the user guides. You're right that marketing oriented screenshots just showing the product are not suitable for documentation and screenshot of option windows are most likely irrelevant for marketing needs. I see the common branding as platform both areas should work together. Consistency improves recognition and should be tried to achieve - but we shouldn't go as far to give branding a higher importance than the goals the teams want to achieve with their work: If consistency would lead to minor quality in documentation or marketing, we definitely should look for two different themes. To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference beween whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. While I understand the reasons for a greylevel version based on printing cost, my perception of online documentation is different. Nearly all the screenshots I see are in color (just try a Google image search on screenshot or documentation). You're right that grey title bars look more common than colored ones in a different color than the user's theme. With a LibO green (preferable from branding POV) we definitely differ from the user's desktop (at least in the colored version) - but this is on purpose: A mental link between new green in screenshots and green LibreOffice establishes our branding in a broader sense. But it's not my decision, and I'm not a marketing expert, and the vocal people all seem to want the user guides and the marketing material (website etc) to match... so I'm just looking for a good compromise solution. Reading your follow-up mails, I'd support Libre Green 2 as highlight color in Clearlooks theme. What I'd like to know is: Does this combination work well for visually impaired people? If we can get an affirmation from the accessibility list, I think this topic could be closed soon. Anybody able post a screenshot with - Clearlooks theme - Font: Liberation bold - Font size: 11 pt - Highlight foreground color: Libre Green 2 (#43C330) to the list accessibil...@global.libreoffice.org and ask for comments? Looking at the wiki page http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Color_blindness_issues discrimination between foreground and background (or white text in headings) might work well, even if green is quite similar to orange. Jean: Are these modifications to the Clearlooks theme the ones you propose? Best regards Bernhard PS: From what I read here on the list I don't think we need a formal voting to come to a common proposal. If your impression is different, please raise your concerns - I just don't want to postpone Sigrid's and others work. Agree with all except for the PS. This will not postpone any work if one considers that if we do not get consensus, then we may have to revisit this whole subject again at a later date and have to go back and possibly have to retake screenshots. Let's get it done right now, discuss it, consider our options and vote. Sigrid is only one person out of all the other NL documentation, web, and marketing groups. It would be nice to establish some kind of policy now before we get too far. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org Posting guidelines + more:
Re: [libreoffice-design] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Mon, 2011-06-27 at 02:39 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: Yes, this is definitely a point that must be considered. We still need to try to keep this as manageable as possible, but if we need 2 versions to simplify the process, then we can do a grayscale at the same time as the coloured version. Is the conversion a requirement that was established by ourselves or Lulu's? Is this standard practise and a must when sending files to print in greyscale? I wonder if there is also a way to complete the conversion with another tool other than Acrobat Pro. We also need to keep this as accessible to other contributing members. Acrobat Pro retails for approximately US$450 which puts it out of reach for many. We should really look for FOSS alternatives. Let us know if we can help with this. No one needs to do those steps except the person who submits the files to Lulu. Therefore NO ONE else needs Acrobat Pro. Other contributors merely create a PDF from LibreOffice in the usual way. At this time, I am the only person publishing the books on Lulu, and I have a copy of Acrobat Pro, so it is not a problem. (Gary Schnabl also has a copy, and others may as well.) If and when The Document Foundation chooses to have its own Lulu account, then this would become an issue. AFAIK, conversion to grayscale before submission to Lulu is not required. However, saving to PostScript and redistilling using Acrobat Distiller seems to be required for the files to print reliably on all of Lulu's printers. (Which printer does the work depends on where the purchaser of the book is located.) Lightning Source, Lulu's main printer, states that PDFs MUST be produced using Acrobat Distiller to ensure the files print okay. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Mon, 2011-06-27 at 01:11 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote: - Clearlooks theme - Font: Liberation bold - Font size: 11 pt - Highlight foreground color: Libre Green 2 (#43C330) [...] Jean: Are these modifications to the Clearlooks theme the ones you propose? Yes. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi Bernhard, *all, On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:11:45 +0200 Bernhard Dippold bernh...@familie-dippold.at wrote: Hi Jean, all, Jean Hollis Weber schrieb: [...] [...] Reading your follow-up mails, I'd support Libre Green 2 as highlight color in Clearlooks theme. What I'd like to know is: Does this combination work well for visually impaired people? If we can get an affirmation from the accessibility list, I think this topic could be closed soon. Anybody able post a screenshot with - Clearlooks theme - Font: Liberation bold - Font size: 11 pt - Highlight foreground color: Libre Green 2 (#43C330) to the list accessibil...@global.libreoffice.org and ask for comments? Done. I've posted to the accessibility list. See here: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice-accessibility-Sample-Screenshot-please-comment-td3113037.html Sigrid -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi David, Jay, all, planas schrieb: Hi all, On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 23:43 +0300, David Nelson wrote: Hi, On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Jean Hollis Weberjeanwe...@gmail.com wrote: [...] To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference between whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. I agree with what Jean says. Gray is a practical choice. I personally think that a consistent color for window titles and highlights would not really distract people - but if we really want to know this exactly we would have to start a user survey on this topic. Having our green more present in the user's eye is a marketing topic - and of course it is less important than good readability in the documentation. But if we can achieve both without real drawbacks, I'd go for it. But, also, after having reflected on this subject since past discussions on the documentation ML, I'm no longer totally convinced of the need to have total uniformity in screenshots, nor even of the need to have them all done under Linux rather than Windows. Providing that a little common sense is used, having some variety only emphasizes that LibreOffice runs on a large variety of platforms and under a wide variety of GUIs. +1 Common sense doesn't help against Microsoft's restrictions. So I don't want to promote Windows screenshots on our website and in our documentation. If a court would tell us, that the Microsoft website is illegal in claiming their rights on windows decoration and prohibiting partial screenshots, I wouldn't mind anymore. But until then (or until we have enough money to spend a certain amount on a lawyer investigating this topic) I'd stay with non-Windows screenshots. Variety is good, if we want to show the different platforms LibreOffice is able to run. But for documentation (except for platform specific topics) a consistent look-and-feel is as important as in marketing. If we want to be considered professional, we have to play in their league. Of course it might be possible to create one document with one set of screenshots and another with a different one. But as they should be consistent inside one document and they should be able to created by different people a clear and easy to follow description is all you need to create screenshots with similar look-and-feel on different distros and platforms. And if we want to improve branding by our screenshots too, people should know about the recommended color of window title bars. Extending this description by the theme and the font we'd like them to use is not a huge topic and helps new contributors to create good screenshots. Where should they know about the best resolution for different purposes if not from this description? Where to put the info about cutting off all the desktop background and providing just the single relevant window? All this can be subsumed in a short description or specification people can be pointed to when they tell us they want to create screenshots. And finally they want to know exactly what should their screenshot show. This needs to be covered by an additional explanation at the mailing list or in a table of needed screenshots on the wiki too. From all my personal experience new contributors like very much to get a hand on how to provide their first contribution. A wiki page containing all the necessary information would serve them best in my eyes. And from this first contact with the wiki and our lists they are much more likely to stay within the active part of the community than being told to do some screenshots on their standard OS and left alone with the additional questions. In reality, it's important for us not to raise the entry barriers to contribution too high, Right - but a wiki page explaining the best parameters for LibO screenshots is not a barrier, but a help in my eyes. because I notice that most people only contribute for a short period of time and then tend to fall away. In the most cases this has nothing to do with high entry barriers, but with lack of personal approach to them, not telling them where they find the best area to contribute with their skills and especially no reaction (or negative reaction) on the work they present. There are lot of areas that would love to see regular contributions, but leading newcomers towards manageable work with visible positive impact on the community or the product is something that needs time and dedication. The developers provide such a guidance by patch review and approval - based on their easy hacks with manageable pieces of work.They have quite high entry barriers (get LibreOffice to compile on their machine), but with personal guidance this works quite well. The number of regular work contributors (as opposed to mailing list contributors) is quite low. But this is not because of the
Re: [libreoffice-design] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-26 01:38, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 02:15 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote: Hi Jean, Sigrid, all, Jean Hollis Weber schrieb: Jean wrote: [...] My first thought is that a variation on Clearlooks (colour and perhaps font) should work very well. But I want to do some printing tests on a b/w printer before saying more. I'll get back to this list with more comments later today (it's 07:00 here). --Jean My tests suggest that for printing in grayscale, the best choice from Sigrid's collection uses Clearlooks modified to use the Green 1 colour for highlighting and title bar backgrounds; it has very good contrast with the white text in title bars and highlighted menu selections. I used Liberation Sans at font size 11. You probably used the bold version of Liberation Sans for title bars? In direct comparison to the standard here on my Ubuntu 11.04 (Ubuntu bold) it looks a bit less clean and calm. But as Liberation Sans is part of our binaries (IIRC) - if it has not been stripped off by the distributions already containing it - I'd go for it too. I created a screenshot of a LibO window using these settings: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Clearlooks_-_Green1_-_Liberation_Sans_11pt_bold_.png It's quite similar to Sigrid's one, but I don't know the size of her larger font, so I tried Jean's description. Compared to the standard Clearlooks theme the headings and selected items (look at my LibO shortcut on the desktop) are not as calm as with the lighter blue - the darker green with it's increased contrast looks a bit aggressive in my eyes. While this might be an optimum for greylevel printing, I don't think that this high contrast helps us to spread the idea of a friendly, free and open office suite when people look at the color version. Marketing is much more about feelings than facts. And if I want to convince possible users to try LibreOffice showing them a screenshot that looks less friendly than the desktop they know, it might become unnecessary hard. Even for printed documentation with colored screenshots I would suggest to use a different theme. Jean, you wrote, that this theme has very good contrast in the windows headings and highlighted text, while the other areas have good contrast. Do you think it would be reasonable to find a color with still good contrast for headings in greylevel, but harmonizes better with the positive attitude of our branding? I don't know if Green 2 would serve such a compromise best - perhaps we should think about keeping headings blue (staying more consistent with the view Windows users are used to), if this improves the contrast in greylevel while staying more friendly in color. LibOBlue 2 could be worth a try. The other parts of Clearlooks (grays and whites in dialog boxes) print clearly with good contrast. I would be very happy to see the Green 1 variation selected to be the standard LibreOffice theme. Sorry for not being convinced - perhaps we will not even be able to find a solution that fits all our needs. If you think Green 1 is the best solution not only for greylevel printing but for colored versions too, it's just my personal opinion that differs. (And I'm not the target group - neither for documentation nor for our website...) I agree with you that any colour chosen should harmonize with the positive attitude of our branding. I also agree that Green 1 is a bit aggressive. Green 2 will do; it prints well enough. Blue 2 seems a bit too bright when viewed in colour, but it prints fine. Blue 3 looks better to me, but the contrast with white text isn't so good; using Blue 3 with black text is much better in print. However, I haven't found a way to change the text in dialog box title bars from white to black. I still am not convinced that there is any real marketing or other advantage to having coloured title bars and highlighting *in the user guide illustrations* -- I don't see why they need to be the same, as the purpose and use of the two are different, and the screenshots themselves will be different (so no reuse advantage to us). To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference beween whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. But it's not my decision, and I'm not a marketing expert, and the vocal people all seem to want the user guides and the marketing material (website etc) to match... so I'm just looking for a good compromise solution. --Jean Well, as you say, there are different needs. The documentation's first need should be that of print quality. If we are to submit our work to LuLu's for print, the buyers should definitely get what we consider a good representation of LibreOffice in type and screenshots. From an aesthetic point of view, not sure if all in gray is too appealing for users making use of reading our
Re: [libreoffice-design] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi Marc, On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:11:06 -0400 Marc Paré m...@marcpare.com wrote: Le 2011-06-26 01:38, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 02:15 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote: Hi Jean, Sigrid, all, Jean Hollis Weber schrieb: Jean wrote: [...] Well, as you say, there are different needs. The documentation's first need should be that of print quality. If we are to submit our work to LuLu's for print, the buyers should definitely get what we consider a good representation of LibreOffice in type and screenshots. From an aesthetic point of view, not sure if all in gray is too appealing for users making use of reading our documentation online. It would be nice if we got the same print from one of our greens as with a gray. But if not, then gray should be it. BTW ... are the Lulu prints in colour or B/W? For web and marketing teams, the green in the theme is pretty well called for, if we are to keep with the brand colour. It identifies the suite and lends itself well to brand recognition. Would getting an opinion from someone involved at Lulu's be of any additional help as far as the print quality? They may be able to give us a little more input from the point of view of end product. I think we could convince them to offer some opinion on the matter if we had some samples for them to look at. Hm, you're talking to the right person - Jean is the one who is involved with Lulu. :) The books we offer through Lulu are printed in b/w, because colour would be much more expensive. We only have some colour on the title page, the rest is black and white and greyscale. Then, we can all decide (vote). The vocal people and others can all participate on the design decision being well informed on the options, this, as per usual with design proposal and adoption decisions. We are looking at: * a theme that is easily installable by members * a theme optimized for LibreOffice documentation screenshot print * a theme suitable for web and marketing purposes The theme does not necessarily need to be of the same configuration for the two and may lead to 2 theme configurations. That would be ok with me. But I would like to have a decision soon - I'd like to finish the first chapter with the screenshots. I took already 9 shots, but I'm hesitant to take more, if we decide for something different and I have to redo them again. :) Is there anything missing? BTW ... sorry I didn't participate on the testing of the samples as I don't think that I would have a well enough informed opinion on the print quality. I don't think my printer would give a good enough print to compare. No, I think you should have used your printer - print one version in colour and maybe another one in greyscale. See how those printouts look. I suspect, that this is what many people do (not everyone buys the books from Lulu) and not everyone likes reading from a computer screen. (I personally prefer reading from a printout instead of reading from my screen). Sigrid -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 04:11 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: Well, as you say, there are different needs. The documentation's first need should be that of print quality. If we are to submit our work to LuLu's for print, the buyers should definitely get what we consider a good representation of LibreOffice in type and screenshots. From an aesthetic point of view, not sure if all in gray is too appealing for users making use of reading our documentation online. It would be nice if we got the same print from one of our greens as with a gray. But if not, then gray should be it. BTW ... are the Lulu prints in colour or B/W? I do interior b/w to keep the cost reasonable. Colour interiors are possible but vastly more expensive (at least 4x, from memory). In terms of contrast, some of the greens and blues print fine in b/w, though it depends a bit on whether text is black or white against the colour. On personal printers, the colours might even print better in b/w (especially if laser toner is low), but on colour printers they use up an awful lot of expensive colour ink or toner to no advantage to users that I can see. That's my point: some colours print fine, but what is the value to users of having them? IMO appealing is a poor criterion: what one person finds appealing, another finds ugly or irritating or even confusing (Why don't I see the green/blue/other colour? This doesn't look like what I see; why?) Would getting an opinion from someone involved at Lulu's be of any additional help as far as the print quality? They may be able to give us a little more input from the point of view of end product. I think we could convince them to offer some opinion on the matter if we had some samples for them to look at. I doubt it's worth the effort; in my experience, they refer all questions to their online help. Anyway, they are just a front end to printers such as Lightning Source, with whom I have had an account for about 10 years. I have been considering working directly with LS, but they also tend to refer people to their help. Having published at least 15 (I haven't counted them recently) books through Lulu and Lightning Source, I've had quite a bit of trial and error experience. If anyone else here has had actual experience with them, I would certainly be interested in what they have to say. BTW, I use Lulu for convenience and because the other convenient services (CreateSpace I forget the other names) do not appear to have a convenient way for a non-US-based publisher to avoid having US income tax withheld from profits; while it's possible to get withheld taxes back from the IRS, it involves paperwork that I at least am unwilling to cope with. --Jean Then, we can all decide (vote). The vocal people and others can all participate on the design decision being well informed on the options, this, as per usual with design proposal and adoption decisions. We are looking at: * a theme that is easily installable by members * a theme optimized for LibreOffice documentation screenshot print * a theme suitable for web and marketing purposes The theme does not necessarily need to be of the same configuration for the two and may lead to 2 theme configurations. Is there anything missing? -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
To summarise, two objective points: * Some of the colours suggested in this thread should print just fine in grayscale by Lulu's printers. * If users print directly from the PDFs, the colours use up a lot more expensive ink or toner than does gray whether printed in colour or b/w. And one subjective point: * Some users will find that the colours make the screenshots look very unlike what they see, and that may detract from their usefulness in some cases. This is an untested hypothesis, other than some observation. AFAIK, no one's answered this question yet: what is the advantage to users of having colour in the screenshots in the PDFs? --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 19:29 +1000, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: To summarise, two objective points: * Some of the colours suggested in this thread should print just fine in grayscale by Lulu's printers. * If users print directly from the PDFs, the colours use up a lot more expensive ink or toner than does gray whether printed in colour or b/w. And one subjective point: * Some users will find that the colours make the screenshots look very unlike what they see, and that may detract from their usefulness in some cases. This is an untested hypothesis, other than some observation. AFAIK, no one's answered this question yet: what is the advantage to users of having colour in the screenshots in the PDFs? --Jean And another thing... The documentation team is very small. Why spend time replacing hundreds of otherwise perfectly good (gray) screenshots with ones with colours? Yes, some screenshots do need replacing because they were taken with Windows or used a different Linux theme and thus are inconsistent. It takes time to redo screenshots: not just the time to recapture the images but to check that they have been correctly done, show what they are supposed to, are correctly labelled, and so on. Many volunteers do a poor job with labelling or don't set up the shot so it shows what the text says it shows. Another round of proofreading is required, by people who pay close attention, and many don't. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
To summarise, two objective points: * Some of the colours suggested in this thread should print just fine in grayscale by Lulu's printers. * If users print directly from the PDFs, the colours use up a lot more expensive ink or toner than does gray whether printed in colour or b/w. Pardon, but while it seems only one version could be sent to print, the Internet isn't going to run out of space any time soon. Why not host two versions-- one colored one for presentation, and another one in grayscale with Print Optimized in the link name or description? Many websites have separate options for printable versions, and I think many users are used to selecting a different print option if it's available. * Some users will find that the colours make the screenshots look very unlike what they see, and that may detract from their usefulness in some cases. This is an untested hypothesis, other than some observation. I think the problem may be less the colors used so much as the icon set used. Documentation for Microsoft Windows programs is more or less constant across all three major versions of Windows in play, because most consumers can distinguish UI elements in their manual even if they're running XP versus Vista, or vice versa. There are also plenty of older guides to Ubuntu Linux floating around back when the default theme was brown, and when I was trying to figure out how to do things I never found the differing colors to be particularly offputting. On the other hand, although the icons will be in the same places on default installs of LibreOffice as the screenshots, if there's a special theme used the icons might look wholly different than whatever the user's running, especially if the suite obeys the user's GTK preferences. That could be much more problematic. The documentation team is very small. Why spend time replacing hundreds of otherwise perfectly good (gray) screenshots with ones with colours? Yes, some screenshots do need replacing because they were taken with Windows or used a different Linux theme and thus are inconsistent. Some icons lose contrast or meaning when they're in grayscale. Any icons that are dark blue or so may not stand out enough from the background, making it much harder for the user to identify what exactly goes where. It also makes areas of the UI highlighted in colors harder to distinguish, for example grayed-out options indicating that they are unavailable. On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 6:23 AM, Jean Hollis Weber jeanwe...@gmail.comwrote: On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 19:29 +1000, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: To summarise, two objective points: * Some of the colours suggested in this thread should print just fine in grayscale by Lulu's printers. * If users print directly from the PDFs, the colours use up a lot more expensive ink or toner than does gray whether printed in colour or b/w. And one subjective point: * Some users will find that the colours make the screenshots look very unlike what they see, and that may detract from their usefulness in some cases. This is an untested hypothesis, other than some observation. AFAIK, no one's answered this question yet: what is the advantage to users of having colour in the screenshots in the PDFs? --Jean And another thing... The documentation team is very small. Why spend time replacing hundreds of otherwise perfectly good (gray) screenshots with ones with colours? Yes, some screenshots do need replacing because they were taken with Windows or used a different Linux theme and thus are inconsistent. It takes time to redo screenshots: not just the time to recapture the images but to check that they have been correctly done, show what they are supposed to, are correctly labelled, and so on. Many volunteers do a poor job with labelling or don't set up the shot so it shows what the text says it shows. Another round of proofreading is required, by people who pay close attention, and many don't. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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 -- Christopher Lee Executive Director Champion Debate Camp Co-Captain Thomas Jefferson Policy Debate Team --The Gunboat Debater-- -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-26 05:29, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : To summarise, two objective points: * Some of the colours suggested in this thread should print just fine in grayscale by Lulu's printers. * If users print directly from the PDFs, the colours use up a lot more expensive ink or toner than does gray whether printed in colour or b/w. And one subjective point: * Some users will find that the colours make the screenshots look very unlike what they see, and that may detract from their usefulness in some cases. This is an untested hypothesis, other than some observation. Not sure about this. In in the educational field, there are very few screenshots done up in grayscale or B/W. If they are, it is mostly due to costs savings and little to do with impact on use. If this were the case, then most of the documentation from various software titles would be done up in grayscale. I think, to make this assertion, there would have to be a study on this. AFAIK, no one's answered this question yet: what is the advantage to users of having colour in the screenshots in the PDFs? --Jean Colour icons bring familiarity with the LibreOffice suite. Users work all day with colour menus. I would imagine that, if all of sudden, working on a LibreOffice documentation screen with B/W screenshots would be an experience that would leave most users wondering why colour was not used. In print, this is another matter, as most people will recognize the cost factor in the equation and that if a user wants colour print, then that user should be willing to offer up the extra purchase . So, if the screenshots are done in colour, we should make sure that they are printed at the quality that we expect from a B/W or grayscale. My personal opinion is that if we can get the screenshots done up in LibO greens (whichever of the greens 1-2-3 etc) for added market recognition in our documentation, and, if they print up well on personal printers and at Lulu's, without print degradation, then we should go for this. -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-26 06:23, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 19:29 +1000, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: To summarise, two objective points: * Some of the colours suggested in this thread should print just fine in grayscale by Lulu's printers. * If users print directly from the PDFs, the colours use up a lot more expensive ink or toner than does gray whether printed in colour or b/w. And one subjective point: * Some users will find that the colours make the screenshots look very unlike what they see, and that may detract from their usefulness in some cases. This is an untested hypothesis, other than some observation. AFAIK, no one's answered this question yet: what is the advantage to users of having colour in the screenshots in the PDFs? --Jean And another thing... The documentation team is very small. Why spend time replacing hundreds of otherwise perfectly good (gray) screenshots with ones with colours? Yes, some screenshots do need replacing because they were taken with Windows or used a different Linux theme and thus are inconsistent. It takes time to redo screenshots: not just the time to recapture the images but to check that they have been correctly done, show what they are supposed to, are correctly labelled, and so on. Many volunteers do a poor job with labelling or don't set up the shot so it shows what the text says it shows. Another round of proofreading is required, by people who pay close attention, and many don't. --Jean The team is small, but we are trying to make it easier for people to join and install a theme for taking screenshots. Hopefully this will attract more people with these sets of skills (screenshot taking) who will make contributions of the quality that we need. I will also commit to helping out with screenshots and replacement if we decide to go with colour. I can also help out with the FR and ES groups as well. We can work out a schedule for replacement and in the meantime the B/W can stay till replaced. It's a little of a catch 22. Leave it as is because we have too few to take screenshots or make it easier for people and worry about the quality. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 14:44 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: My personal opinion is that if we can get the screenshots done up in LibO greens (whichever of the greens 1-2-3 etc) for added market recognition in our documentation, and, if they print up well on personal printers and at Lulu's, without print degradation, then we should go for this. If consistency between docs and marketing is considered sufficiently important by the majority, Clearlooks modified with Green 2 is the best compromise I've seen so far. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 08:45 -0400, Christopher Lee wrote: Why not host two versions-- one colored one for presentation, and another one in grayscale with Print Optimized in the link name or description? Many websites have separate options for printable versions, and I think many users are used to selecting a different print option if it's available. That's an interesting idea. I convert the colour version of the full, compiled books to grayscale before submitting them to Lulu, so there's no extra work involved for them. However, the individual chapters would be in colour only unless someone took the time to convert them. Technical aside: I use Acrobat Pro to do the conversion from colour to grayscale, save the result as PostScript, and then create a new PDF using Acrobat Distiller. This has the added advantage of dramatically reducing the file size. Even without the convert to grayscale step, the other 2 steps are necessary to ensure that Lulu's printers accept the file. Although some PDFs produced directly from OOo/LibO print on some of Lulu's printers, not all are accepted. Lulu's techs told me to use the save as PS redistill technique to avoid any problems. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Earlier, I wrote: On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 08:45 -0400, Christopher Lee wrote: Why not host two versions-- one colored one for presentation, and another one in grayscale with Print Optimized in the link name or description? Many websites have separate options for printable versions, and I think many users are used to selecting a different print option if it's available. That's an interesting idea. I convert the colour version of the full, compiled books to grayscale before submitting them to Lulu, so there's no extra work involved for them. However, the individual chapters would be in colour only unless someone took the time to convert them. Technical aside: I use Acrobat Pro to do the conversion from colour to grayscale, save the result as PostScript, and then create a new PDF using Acrobat Distiller. This has the added advantage of dramatically reducing the file size. Even without the convert to grayscale step, the other 2 steps are necessary to ensure that Lulu's printers accept the file. Although some PDFs produced directly from OOo/LibO print on some of Lulu's printers, not all are accepted. Lulu's techs told me to use the save as PS redistill technique to avoid any problems. More info: The technique I described converts *everything* to grayscale: headings, LibO logo, background colours on tips/notes/cautions, as well as images. To convert only the images would require a macro to select each one and change it (manually would take far too long), but that has an unwanted side-effect: the little caution symbols would be grayscaled against a coloured background. I suppose one could run the macro to stop at each image for an operator decision, but that's not very efficient. Or one could eliminate the caution symbols and keep only the word. Or... My point is that all these choices have side-effects which should be taken into account but are often overlooked. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi all, On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 23:43 +0300, David Nelson wrote: Hi, On Sun, Jun 26, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Jean Hollis Weber jeanwe...@gmail.com wrote: I still am not convinced that there is any real marketing or other advantage to having coloured title bars and highlighting *in the user guide illustrations* -- I don't see why they need to be the same, as the purpose and use of the two are different, and the screenshots themselves will be different (so no reuse advantage to us). To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference beween whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. I agree with what Jean says. Gray is a practical choice. But, also, after having reflected on this subject since past discussions on the documentation ML, I'm no longer totally convinced of the need to have total uniformity in screenshots, nor even of the need to have them all done under Linux rather than Windows. Providing that a little common sense is used, having some variety only emphasizes that LibreOffice runs on a large variety of platforms and under a wide variety of GUIs. +1 In reality, it's important for us not to raise the entry barriers to contribution too high, because I notice that most people only contribute for a short period of time and then tend to fall away. The number of regular work contributors (as opposed to mailing list contributors) is quite low. We already use standardized chapter templates, and Jean and others have done great work on the documentation team contributor's guide (an on-going work). Do we really have to get too fussy about standardized themes used for taking screenshots? As we've already read in this thread, it can develop into quite a complicated issue, and I'd suggest we really have other more-urgent issues to deal with... Just my own 2 cents... -- David Nelson Actually I think some the Linux distros might enjoy unintentional free publicity from a screenshot. Depending on each contributer's set up there could be some hopefully only differences. -- Jay Lozier jsloz...@gmail.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi all, I tried to browse all the mail that were sent during the last days ... so sorry if I missed something, but I hope to add my thoughts. Am Samstag, den 25.06.2011, 13:00 +0200 schrieb Astron: Hi Marc, Actually, if we do adapt and name our theme, our goal, like any other product in our arsenal of products would be to use it to our marketing advantage. We could easily market it as a theme optimized for screenshots and people would gladly download our LibreOffice Theme for this reason and not necessarily for LibreOffice reasons. Mmh, although this would be nice - we already miss people who work on the product itself, so I think this is very optimistic :-) Clearly, maintaining an own theme is a lot of work. For instance, I don't know if Clearlooks has already been ported to Gnome 3. Another thing to note is that a) Mac theming is not customisable at all today and b) Windows theming is far less flexible than in the 2000 era (well, the legacy theming engine from Windows 2000 and earlier is still present, but it simply doesn't look temporary any more). It also isn't easy to install a third-party modern theme engine like Clearlooks in XP or later, additionally the free ones I've seen were all not very high-quality ones (I think they also have to be signed in Vista and 7, but I'm not sure). In Vista's and 7's Aero mode one can only choose a hue for the window frame. c) Gnome 3 theming is currently also not customisable via GUI, even though it has a very flexible CSS theming engine now. This is a very good summary which leads (from my point-of-view) to the basic questions, how crucial it is to provide screenshots differently themed ... at the end, you may ask whether Gnome Linux, SuSE Linux, or Fedora is the reference for the *nix screenshots. Thus, I think it would be beneficial to: * chose a decent and rather vendor neutral theme like Clearlooks (controls and window decoration) [by the way, I often used it for my own OOo/LibO presentations - its nicely designed so that it doesn't distract people when looking at the LibO UI] * try to avoid showing the window decorations (the most distinctive element, usually) -- focus on the main window of LibO * adapt the design of the theme to match the LibreOffice branding Concerning the latter, the advantage is that our branding is a bit different from all the mentioned operating system designs - so no one will be hurt when using it ;-) [...] Here's an idea of mine: a public screenshot machine where after a login people can easily make screenshots within their browser windows. However, it would be difficult to make screenshots that require devices or OSs not installed on the machine. Additionally you'd need to make sure that people can upload example files etc. before they start the session and can download their screenshots afterwards. (Please note, I am just throwing this out here and have no idea how hard this would be to implement!). Hehe, look at the time needed to setup and maintain the different buld machines - a lot of time, I assume. But even today, its solvable... * Pick a common Linux distribution (that runs from an USB stick, at LiveCD, within a virtual machine) * Adapt the tweaks to the theme (if its something simple like one font or less than five colors) * Install the required build (e.g. beta release, RC release) within the Linux distribution It is not the one click solution, but it should be do-able - the hurdles are rather low, I think. Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-25 07:00, Astron a écrit : Hi Marc, Actually, if we do adapt and name our theme, our goal, like any other product in our arsenal of products would be to use it to our marketing advantage. We could easily market it as a theme optimized for screenshots and people would gladly download our LibreOffice Theme for this reason and not necessarily for LibreOffice reasons. Clearly, maintaining an own theme is a lot of work. For instance, I don't know if Clearlooks has already been ported to Gnome 3. Another thing to note is that a) Mac theming is not customisable at all today and b) Windows theming is far less flexible than in the 2000 era (well, the legacy theming engine from Windows 2000 and earlier is still present, but it simply doesn't look temporary any more). It also isn't easy to install a third-party modern theme engine like Clearlooks in XP or later, additionally the free ones I've seen were all not very high-quality ones (I think they also have to be signed in Vista and 7, but I'm not sure). In Vista's and 7's Aero mode one can only choose a hue for the window frame. c) Gnome 3 theming is currently also not customisable via GUI, even though it has a very flexible CSS theming engine now. So that leaves KDE fully configurable but this is probably the least used among the platforms. A practical solution would be to offer a download package for Gnome and KDE (where all that should be changed should be the colors of a standard theme like Clearlooks, plus maybe a .fonts.conf to configure font display), and giving Windows Vista/7 users hints as to how to change the window frame hue in their system. Using the practical solution then will make it more difficult to install from the user point of view. The idea was to find an easily installable theme that would enable more member participation at taking screenshots for our various documentation, website, marketing etc work. If we are going to be serious about quality document production, website, etc. then we should maybe consider adding the care of the LibreOffice theme to the list of responsibility of the dev team. I imagine that we could also enlist the help of the website team experts in this domain. It could be a shared responsibility and it doesn't necessarily mean that it is someone's responsibility but more of a responsibility of the dev/website or dev team for whoever would like to take it up. Here's an idea of mine: a public screenshot machine where after a login people can easily make screenshots within their browser windows. However, it would be difficult to make screenshots that require devices or OSs not installed on the machine. Additionally you'd need to make sure that people can upload example files etc. before they start the session and can download their screenshots afterwards. (Please note, I am just throwing this out here and have no idea how hard this would be to implement!). There were also some questions about FreeSans being opensource, yes, it is. It can be downloaded from here: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/freefont/ . It should share most of its metrics with Arial/Liberation Sans, aside from its line-height being much higher—I suppose that's because of the comprehensive language support. But if you've already decided, stick with Liberation. Astron. Sound like an idea worth exploring, but, still sounds complicated to implement. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 02:15 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote: Hi Jean, Sigrid, all, Jean Hollis Weber schrieb: Jean wrote: [...] My first thought is that a variation on Clearlooks (colour and perhaps font) should work very well. But I want to do some printing tests on a b/w printer before saying more. I'll get back to this list with more comments later today (it's 07:00 here). --Jean My tests suggest that for printing in grayscale, the best choice from Sigrid's collection uses Clearlooks modified to use the Green 1 colour for highlighting and title bar backgrounds; it has very good contrast with the white text in title bars and highlighted menu selections. I used Liberation Sans at font size 11. You probably used the bold version of Liberation Sans for title bars? In direct comparison to the standard here on my Ubuntu 11.04 (Ubuntu bold) it looks a bit less clean and calm. But as Liberation Sans is part of our binaries (IIRC) - if it has not been stripped off by the distributions already containing it - I'd go for it too. I created a screenshot of a LibO window using these settings: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Clearlooks_-_Green1_-_Liberation_Sans_11pt_bold_.png It's quite similar to Sigrid's one, but I don't know the size of her larger font, so I tried Jean's description. Compared to the standard Clearlooks theme the headings and selected items (look at my LibO shortcut on the desktop) are not as calm as with the lighter blue - the darker green with it's increased contrast looks a bit aggressive in my eyes. While this might be an optimum for greylevel printing, I don't think that this high contrast helps us to spread the idea of a friendly, free and open office suite when people look at the color version. Marketing is much more about feelings than facts. And if I want to convince possible users to try LibreOffice showing them a screenshot that looks less friendly than the desktop they know, it might become unnecessary hard. Even for printed documentation with colored screenshots I would suggest to use a different theme. Jean, you wrote, that this theme has very good contrast in the windows headings and highlighted text, while the other areas have good contrast. Do you think it would be reasonable to find a color with still good contrast for headings in greylevel, but harmonizes better with the positive attitude of our branding? I don't know if Green 2 would serve such a compromise best - perhaps we should think about keeping headings blue (staying more consistent with the view Windows users are used to), if this improves the contrast in greylevel while staying more friendly in color. LibOBlue 2 could be worth a try. The other parts of Clearlooks (grays and whites in dialog boxes) print clearly with good contrast. I would be very happy to see the Green 1 variation selected to be the standard LibreOffice theme. Sorry for not being convinced - perhaps we will not even be able to find a solution that fits all our needs. If you think Green 1 is the best solution not only for greylevel printing but for colored versions too, it's just my personal opinion that differs. (And I'm not the target group - neither for documentation nor for our website...) I agree with you that any colour chosen should harmonize with the positive attitude of our branding. I also agree that Green 1 is a bit aggressive. Green 2 will do; it prints well enough. Blue 2 seems a bit too bright when viewed in colour, but it prints fine. Blue 3 looks better to me, but the contrast with white text isn't so good; using Blue 3 with black text is much better in print. However, I haven't found a way to change the text in dialog box title bars from white to black. I still am not convinced that there is any real marketing or other advantage to having coloured title bars and highlighting *in the user guide illustrations* -- I don't see why they need to be the same, as the purpose and use of the two are different, and the screenshots themselves will be different (so no reuse advantage to us). To me having the user guide screenshots in gray DOES have advantages FOR THE USERS: they are less likely to be distracted by the difference beween whatever colours they see on their screen and the gray in the screenshots; and the gray looks less foreign to Mac users. But it's not my decision, and I'm not a marketing expert, and the vocal people all seem to want the user guides and the marketing material (website etc) to match... so I'm just looking for a good compromise solution. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi, I just tried out different LibO greens with my titlebars: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green0.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green1.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green2.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green3.png I think Green 0 actually looks best, but I am not completely sold on this. The other greens seem a bit aggressive. Another thing to think about is font. I would propose (for Linux systems) FreeSans, a Helvetica copy, which is almost universally installed and works well as an interface font. When setting this, think about font hinting, too. Should Cleartype (Windows)/sub-pixel hinting (and what level) (Linux) be enabled or not? Subpixel hinting looks bad in print, on CRTs or on LCD screens that use a different sub-pixel ordering, but is much smoother on R-G-B LCD screens. Astron. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-24 03:35, Astron a écrit : Hi, I just tried out different LibO greens with my titlebars: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green0.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green1.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green2.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green3.png I think Green 0 actually looks best, but I am not completely sold on this. The other greens seem a bit aggressive. Another thing to think about is font. I would propose (for Linux systems) FreeSans, a Helvetica copy, which is almost universally installed and works well as an interface font. When setting this, think about font hinting, too. Should Cleartype (Windows)/sub-pixel hinting (and what level) (Linux) be enabled or not? Subpixel hinting looks bad in print, on CRTs or on LCD screens that use a different sub-pixel ordering, but is much smoother on R-G-B LCD screens. Astron. I just checked on my system (Mageia 1 - a Mandriva fork), FreeSans is not installed. How is the Liberation font family for print? This font is definitely installed on all linux boxes. If we are to adopt a specific font, we should make sure that it is a maintained font and that we can either have a link to a site where it can be downloaded from or we should store in on our own servers. I also think that it should be opensource. I think I had seen somewhere on one of the wiki pages, a specific recommendation for a font for print, was is not Vegur? Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-24 16:48, Jean Hollis Weber a écrit : On Fri, 2011-06-24 at 11:06 -0400, Marc Paré wrote: Le 2011-06-24 03:35, Astron a écrit : Hi, I just tried out different LibO greens with my titlebars: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green0.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green1.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green2.png http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Green3.png I think Green 0 actually looks best, but I am not completely sold on this. The other greens seem a bit aggressive. Another thing to think about is font. I would propose (for Linux systems) FreeSans, a Helvetica copy, which is almost universally installed and works well as an interface font. When setting this, think about font hinting, too. Should Cleartype (Windows)/sub-pixel hinting (and what level) (Linux) be enabled or not? Subpixel hinting looks bad in print, on CRTs or on LCD screens that use a different sub-pixel ordering, but is much smoother on R-G-B LCD screens. Astron. I just checked on my system (Mageia 1 - a Mandriva fork), FreeSans is not installed. How is the Liberation font family for print? This font is definitely installed on all linux boxes. If we are to adopt a specific font, we should make sure that it is a maintained font and that we can either have a link to a site where it can be downloaded from or we should store in on our own servers. I also think that it should be opensource. I think I had seen somewhere on one of the wiki pages, a specific recommendation for a font for print, was is not Vegur? We are using Liberation Sans for headings and text in the user guides. It prints well (sharp and dark, good contrast) in addition to being very readable on-screen. (We use Liberation Mono for code.) --Jean The added benefit of perhaps using the Liberation font family is that RedHat is the author of these fonts and that they are on-board with LibreOffice. If we need some tweaking of the fonts, they would maybe consider doing this to help us out. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi Marc, all, Marc Paré schrieb: Le 2011-06-24 17:34, Sigrid Carrera a écrit : Hi Marc, On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 16:43:22 -0400 Marc Parém...@marcpare.com wrote: [...] At this point, we should try to accommodate the comments from Jean Hollis Weber on this topic and try to find a theme OR create our own theme for this purpose. Maybe none of the pre-packaged themes will work for what we need. I'm not sure that I agree with your statement here. Bernhards goal was to have a theme that is widely available, that looks nice and modern. Not only: I want to combine the needs of the documentation team with marketing and branding. And if it would be possible to increase the number of contributors to LibreOffice by an easy way to create the screenshots we need, this would be the cherry on the cake. If we can modify one of the prepackaged themes that would mean, that many people have access to it [...] I think the goal of the theme was to have one suitable for screenshots and for print. This is the tool we are seeking for the website and documentation team. Of course looking modern and clean would be also involved in this search. No - my main point is consistency as part of our branding. Otherwise it would be much easier: We could use the best theme for web presence and another one for documentation. Bot not only branding is important. It is crucial for our recognition in public - and thus a relevant marketing topic - that Windows user get the right impression about our product from the screenshots they see (whether they be on the website, in documentation, press articles or any other place). We shouldn't present a XP like style telling the people that we believe in old-fashioned UI (and backed by the MS Office 2003 menu structure our UI is based on). The theme will have to take into account that most of our new users fell comfortable with Windows 7. My point about creating our own theme, if we cannot find a suitable one, is that we can develop it, maintain it, and submit it to the kde-look.org and gnome-look.org sites and this will make it available through the KDE/Gnome system settings for anyone's use. ... for anyone on a GNU/Linux OS. [...] IMO, if we do find a theme, if at all possible through the design team, we could decide to adopt the theme, and, if the licence permits it, rename it, and, from then on, take on the task of maintaining the theme. This way, again, we are in control of our quality assurance as far as the screenshots are concerned. I don't want to take this task, as I still hope that a standard theme like Clearlook would serve our needs (perhaps with some minor modifications for printable screenshots) - but perhaps someone else would. With a standard theme (and a good documentation of any modification) the necessary manpower is minimized, and people can use it on their platform with minor effort. From a marketing point of view, if the theme were to incorporate the LibreOffice name, it would be a plus for us, from the point of view of branding. People would then talk about adopting the LibreOffice theme or LibreOffice ScreenShot theme or ... Getting our name out in the wild will get us more brand recognition. For marketing a Win7 like theme would be great - and I'd rather like to see more theming in the LibreOffice UI to fit with the user's personal desktop theme than in modifying the user's desktop appearance to fit with LibreOffice. This said - a theme that transports the LibO branding to the users' desktops would of course support our marketing, but I would think that this might rather be used by people already convinced that LibreOffice is the best software package on earth ;-) Best regards Bernhard -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-24 18:47, Bernhard Dippold a écrit : I don't want to take this task, as I still hope that a standard theme like Clearlook would serve our needs (perhaps with some minor modifications for printable screenshots) - but perhaps someone else would. With a standard theme (and a good documentation of any modification) the necessary manpower is minimized, and people can use it on their platform with minor effort. Standard themes come and go. I think it better if we were to adopt in-house our theme to control it more. If there are any modifications to the theme, this is where we start losing people. the KDE/Gnome settings (for *.nix boxes) make it easy for regular users to import themes into their own theme repositories. If there is(are) someone or people able to take into their care the LibreOffice theme then we will be better off for it. It is not like the theme will need changing often (hopefully not). It would be nice if we have people who are able to take it on and help out. From a marketing point of view, if the theme were to incorporate the LibreOffice name, it would be a plus for us, from the point of view of branding. People would then talk about adopting the LibreOffice theme or LibreOffice ScreenShot theme or ... Getting our name out in the wild will get us more brand recognition. For marketing a Win7 like theme would be great - and I'd rather like to see more theming in the LibreOffice UI to fit with the user's personal desktop theme than in modifying the user's desktop appearance to fit with LibreOffice. This said - a theme that transports the LibO branding to the users' desktops would of course support our marketing, but I would think that this might rather be used by people already convinced that LibreOffice is the best software package on earth ;-) Best regards Bernhard Actually, if we do adapt and name our theme, our goal, like any other product in our arsenal of products would be to use it to our marketing advantage. We could easily market it as a theme optimized for screenshots and people would gladly download our LibreOffice Theme for this reason and not necessarily for LibreOffice reasons. If we are going to be serious about quality document production, website, etc. then we should maybe consider adding the care of the LibreOffice theme to the list of responsibility of the dev team. I imagine that we could also enlist the help of the website team experts in this domain. It could be a shared responsibility and it doesn't necessarily mean that it is someone's responsibility but more of a responsibility of the dev/website or dev team for whoever would like to take it up. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Hi again, I'll start with my thoughts on the topic. Fell free to provide yours. Once we finished this collection and basic discussion we should move the results to a dedicated wiki page for further reference. But for the direct discussion I prefer the mailing list more: Bernhard Dippold wrote: [...] Consistency is a relevant part of Visual Identity and therefore I'd like to ask you all provide your thoughts on 1) how such a UI theme should look like - It should be clean, balanced and friendly as we refer to LibreOffice on our branding wiki page: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Branding#Branding - It should look familiar to Windows users, so they don't consider the office suite as geeky and specially designed for GNU/Linux users. - It should look up-to-date to most users, so Windows XP style should be avoided (as it resembles too many people to an old-fashioned office suite). - It should be accessible for visually impaired people (at least for the most common cases like red-green color blindness). - It should have enough contrast to print well in greylevels. 2) what other conditions should be met - It should *not* use a standard Windows theme, because there are legal issues [1]. - It should be available for most users, because providing screenshots is a task that might be solved by new contributors on their first steps into our community (if we provide the necessary background to take the screenshots in a consistent way). 3) which existing UI theme would serve best as standard for screenshots Sigrid already uploaded a variety of themes to this wiki page: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/DE/Doku/Allgemein/Screenshots On the de-discuss list she voted for the theme Clearlooks because - it is the standard theme on Gnome - it has been ported to KDE as Cleanlooks - it is available for Windows XP too, so even Windows users can take screenshots without the legal restrictions mentioned above. (sorry, German:[2]) Do you think these 3 questions could lead to a consensus on a theme to be used? Should we add more points? Best regards Bernhard [1]: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/website/msg01950.html [2]: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/de/discuss/msg06547.html (Mail-archive.com seems not to be reachable at the moment) -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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] [VI] Consistent theme for screenshots
Le 2011-06-23 14:30, Bernhard Dippold a écrit : Hi again, I'll start with my thoughts on the topic. Fell free to provide yours. Once we finished this collection and basic discussion we should move the results to a dedicated wiki page for further reference. But for the direct discussion I prefer the mailing list more: Bernhard Dippold wrote: [...] Consistency is a relevant part of Visual Identity and therefore I'd like to ask you all provide your thoughts on 1) how such a UI theme should look like - It should be clean, balanced and friendly as we refer to LibreOffice on our branding wiki page: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Marketing/Branding#Branding - It should look familiar to Windows users, so they don't consider the office suite as geeky and specially designed for GNU/Linux users. - It should look up-to-date to most users, so Windows XP style should be avoided (as it resembles too many people to an old-fashioned office suite). - It should be accessible for visually impaired people (at least for the most common cases like red-green color blindness). - It should have enough contrast to print well in greylevels. 2) what other conditions should be met - It should *not* use a standard Windows theme, because there are legal issues [1]. - It should be available for most users, because providing screenshots is a task that might be solved by new contributors on their first steps into our community (if we provide the necessary background to take the screenshots in a consistent way). 3) which existing UI theme would serve best as standard for screenshots Sigrid already uploaded a variety of themes to this wiki page: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/DE/Doku/Allgemein/Screenshots On the de-discuss list she voted for the theme Clearlooks because - it is the standard theme on Gnome - it has been ported to KDE as Cleanlooks - it is available for Windows XP too, so even Windows users can take screenshots without the legal restrictions mentioned above. (sorry, German:[2]) Do you think these 3 questions could lead to a consensus on a theme to be used? Should we add more points? Best regards Bernhard [1]: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/website/msg01950.html [2]: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/de/discuss/msg06547.html (Mail-archive.com seems not to be reachable at the moment) I agree with all of these points. The ones that I would highlight, especially for our uses is the ability for contributing users being able to install the chosen theme easily on a *nix environment with the most popular windowing support such as KDE/Gnome; the theme should be optimized for print (as much as possible). If needed, a variance of the chosen theme could be designed in such as way that there be a slight difference to satisfy requirement from website use (more visual) and the documentation (visual + print). IMO, best if the theme could be the same setup for both, but, in the end, there may be different needs from one group and the other. Cheers Marc -- Marc Paré http://www.parEntreprise.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@global.libreoffice.org 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
