Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Stefan Knorr (Astron)]

Hi Kendy,

> Thank you both! :-)  I am still trying to get the "real" values from the
> system, so that we are 100% consistent there, I'll keep you informed
> where I get with those efforts.

I think, LibO already uses the "real" values. It's just that Microsoft
has never found visual consistency (Metro UI might resolve this
problem at least) and is still experimenting very much.
This leads to ribbon apps (like Paint and Wordpad) looking completely
different from menu-based apps on the same OS. Ribbon apps are only
shipped in Windows 7 and up, so even though their visual style would
look good on Vista, it probably isn't available (MS makes their ribbon
UI available for use, I think, though).
Which somehow means hardcoding is the best option I see... The good
news is that, on Vista and 7 and 8, there is little configurability as
to the look of the OS. With the Aero style, the only option available
is selecting the colour of the window border. Then there's Aero Basic
(AFAIK, it doesn't have any options) and Windows Classic (which has
lots of options but is better served with our existing Windows
XP-and-below style).


> But for sure we can improve the look of the non-themed LO [ie. when used
> on Linux outside of Gnome / KDE, or when used on older Windows]
> immediately.  I myself slightly prefer the bluish look, but... ;-)

I guess I wouldn't really go for the bluish look outside of its
Vista/7/8 domain. (One'd have to try it though.)


> The code that sets the defaults in that case is here:
>
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/tree/vcl/source/app/settings.cxx#n355

Really cool. I've played a bit with it... however, for Windows XP and
below, it actually is a very fitting look, I guess. The only thing
that really annoyed back in my XP days was the gradient behind the
individual toolbars and behind all of the toolbars.
So, I've got a few questions:
* On which of those values do the gradients depend?
* Is there any way to make the gradients horizontal instead of vertical?
* Is there any way to define the colour for the main window indepently
from the color of the dialogue windows?


Astron.

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Re: [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mattias Põldaru]

30.04.2012 18:21, Jan Holesovsky kirjutas:
It is a bug, unrelated to my changes. If you can report that, that 
would be best - please mail me the bug number when you have it.

Here you are: https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=49310

Regards
Mattias

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Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Astron, Mirek,

On 2012-04-29 at 17:00 +0200, Mirek M. wrote:

> > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Mainwindow-win7-mockup.png [1].
> 
> I made my own mockup based on yours, but with the assumption that the
> toolbar background has to be the same for each toolbar and using the
> current borders between toolbars. I ended up with something with much
> flatter: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/2/22/Doze.png.

Thank you both! :-)  I am still trying to get the "real" values from the
system, so that we are 100% consistent there, I'll keep you informed
where I get with those efforts.

But for sure we can improve the look of the non-themed LO [ie. when used
on Linux outside of Gnome / KDE, or when used on older Windows]
immediately.  I myself slightly prefer the bluish look, but... ;-)

The code that sets the defaults in that case is here:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/tree/vcl/source/app/settings.cxx#n355

The values are reasonably self-descriptive, so if you can / want to play
with that directly, it would be most appreciated :-)  The trick on Linux
to force the 'generic' look is to

export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen

before running LibreOffice.

Alternatively just send me what to exchange the values to [including eg.
the default font size etc.], and I'll do it here & post you a
screenshot.

Thank you a lot,
Kendy


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Re: [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Mattias,

On 2012-04-27 at 23:22 +0300, Mattias Põldaru wrote:

> > http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers.png
> > http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers-scrolled.png
> Hey, nice job! It's much cleaner now.
> 
> One question still, the example image and both images of implementation 
> seem to be missing ~15 pixels of rulerbar on bottom left. Is this 
> intentional?

It is a bug, unrelated to my changes.  If you can report that, that
would be best - please mail me the bug number when you have it.

Thank you,
Kendy


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Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

Hi Stefan, everyone,
2012/4/29 Stefan Knorr (Astron) 

> Hi all,
>
> I've done a little mock-up of some changes of colour (strictly for
> Windows Vista and up, when using Aero or Aero Basic as the theme):
>
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Mainwindow-win7-mockup.png [1].
>
> The icons in my mockup may be pretty random, but I think the Tango
> style actually looks quite handsome in this setting.
> (The "inspiration" for this obviously comes from the versions of Paint
> and Wordpad included in Windows 7.)
> What do you say?
>

I agree that it's an improvement, though I would prefer something less blue
myself.

I made my own mockup based on yours, but with the assumption that the
toolbar background has to be the same for each toolbar and using the
current borders between toolbars. I ended up with something with much
flatter: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/2/22/Doze.png.

I'm not too happy with the result, but at least it can serve as a base for
other proposals.
The source is here (with icons):
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_RBf0YVtxzkSkJjazgyOC10Rmc

If there was only a single top toolbar, though, it'd be much better IMHO.

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Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Stefan Knorr (Astron)]

Hi all,

I've done a little mock-up of some changes of colour (strictly for
Windows Vista and up, when using Aero or Aero Basic as the theme):

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Mainwindow-win7-mockup.png [1].

The icons in my mockup may be pretty random, but I think the Tango
style actually looks quite handsome in this setting.
(The "inspiration" for this obviously comes from the versions of Paint
and Wordpad included in Windows 7.)
What do you say?


And, of course, replies to the previous mail...

>> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=778d80bc2c37e4549daff2cc1f74f8665235407b
Wonderful. Thank you, Kendy.


>> I am not sure if we can do any improvements wrt. the 'scrolled' version;
>> fading the document to the workspace would probably be ideal, but not
>> yet sure if doable with reasonable effort...
>
> I think it's fine the way it is.

Microsoft got away with a very similar look, so will we, I think.


Astron.


[1] SVG version (without icons [2], sorry) is here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Mainwindow-win7-mockup.svg
[2] I've actually added the icons later, in Gimp, because Inkscape
skewed them somehow.

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Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

2012/4/27 Jan Holesovsky 

> Hi Mirek,
>
> Mirek M. píše v St 25. 04. 2012 v 19:23 +0200:
>
> > > So - if you can propose a better looking ruler, that would be great,
> > > just please so far keep in mind that it should play well with the
> > > default Windows theme :-) - other than that, let's go for changing
> that!
> > > If you can create a proposal that would be applied to a screenshot of
> > > Writer, that would help a lot.
> > >
> >
> > I'd suggest making the rulers adopt the document background, lose the
> > divider between the background and the rulers, lose the black square
> around
> > the tab insertion mode, and tone down the colors (black->gray). The
> result
> > might look something like this:
> > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/45/Rulers.png
>
> Beautiful, thank you so much! :-) - so now it is implemented:
>
>
> http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=778d80bc2c37e4549daff2cc1f74f8665235407b
>
> [mostly by removing code ;-)]  Screenshots of LibreOffice master with
> the changes:
>
> http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers.png
>
> http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers-scrolled.png
>

Looks excellent, thanks.


> I am not sure if we can do any improvements wrt. the 'scrolled' version;
> fading the document to the workspace would probably be ideal, but not
> yet sure if doable with reasonable effort...
>

I think it's fine the way it is.

I'm adding the UX advise list for comments from the UX point of view.
>

Actually, the design team takes care of UX, too. The UX advise list is a
communication gateway between developers and designers.

>
> Thank you again,
> Kendy
>
> ___
> Libreoffice-ux-advise mailing list
> libreoffice-ux-adv...@lists.freedesktop.org
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-ux-advise
>

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Re: [PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mattias Põldaru]

27.04.2012 23:10, Jan Holesovsky kirjutas:

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers.png
http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers-scrolled.png

Hey, nice job! It's much cleaner now.

One question still, the example image and both images of implementation 
seem to be missing ~15 pixels of rulerbar on bottom left. Is this 
intentional?


Regards
Mattias

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Astron,

Stefan Knorr (Astron) píše v Pá 27. 04. 2012 v 15:01 +0200:

> >> What makes the
> >> task of changing the entire chrome hard is that there is so many widget
> >> types - push buttons with many states (normal, pressed, hover, default),
> >> scrollbars (hover, pressed button, dragging the scroller), etc. etc.
> 
> How hard would it be to change the backgrounds of the menus and
> toolbars? (Just the background gradients, not actually the widgets
> themselves.)
> If that were easy, we could consider a colour scheme like the one
> Windows 7 Paint and Wordpad use (which seems a bit more balanced and
> less glossy than our current colour scheme.)

It is easy to change the colors, or the gradients, the problem I am
having at the moment is that we are taking that directly from the system
(when we use the native theming).  I have checked the values, and they
are consistent with some of the apps, but not with the others, like the
one you pointed to here:

> [1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Getting-started-with-Paint

So - I'll be investigating more ;-)

And actually one more thing I'm investigating is how to paint to the the
window border (the "2" in the above mentioned picture), like some of the
apps do recently (including Firefox) - that might be something we could
use for the facelift too.

All the best,
Kendy


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[PUSHED] Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Mirek,

Mirek M. píše v St 25. 04. 2012 v 19:23 +0200:

> > So - if you can propose a better looking ruler, that would be great,
> > just please so far keep in mind that it should play well with the
> > default Windows theme :-) - other than that, let's go for changing that!
> > If you can create a proposal that would be applied to a screenshot of
> > Writer, that would help a lot.
> >
> 
> I'd suggest making the rulers adopt the document background, lose the
> divider between the background and the rulers, lose the black square around
> the tab insertion mode, and tone down the colors (black->gray). The result
> might look something like this:
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/45/Rulers.png

Beautiful, thank you so much! :-) - so now it is implemented:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=778d80bc2c37e4549daff2cc1f74f8665235407b

[mostly by removing code ;-)]  Screenshots of LibreOffice master with
the changes:

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers.png
http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/lo-new-rulers-scrolled.png

I am not sure if we can do any improvements wrt. the 'scrolled' version;
fading the document to the workspace would probably be ideal, but not
yet sure if doable with reasonable effort...

I'm adding the UX advise list for comments from the UX point of view.

Thank you again,
Kendy


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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Stefan Knorr (Astron)]

Hi Mirek, Kendy,


> One more idea -- could you change the font drop-down menu into an icon menu?

That's a little off-topic now, innit? It's probably best to start a
new topic for that... (but I hear Kendy is open to such proposals!)


>> What makes the
>> task of changing the entire chrome hard is that there is so many widget
>> types - push buttons with many states (normal, pressed, hover, default),
>> scrollbars (hover, pressed button, dragging the scroller), etc. etc.

How hard would it be to change the backgrounds of the menus and
toolbars? (Just the background gradients, not actually the widgets
themselves.)
If that were easy, we could consider a colour scheme like the one
Windows 7 Paint and Wordpad use (which seems a bit more balanced and
less glossy than our current colour scheme.) See [1].
Granted, both are ribbon apps, so their scheme of gradients would need
to be slightly adapted to fit our current UI.
For a start, they use a simple horizontal gradient RGB(197,207,223) to
RGB(220,229,242) as the document background. (Of course, all those
changes should only be activated on Vista and 7.)


> I'd suggest making the rulers adopt the document background, lose the
> divider between the background and the rulers, lose the black square around
> the tab insertion mode, and tone down the colors (black->gray). The result
> might look something like this:
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/45/Rulers.png

Exactly! Thanks, Mirek.


Astron.

[1] http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Getting-started-with-Paint

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Alberto Delgado]

Ok, it should be ready by the end of the week,
i have to start writing it now.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Andrew Pullins]

Hello,

> Ok, great, so... Would you like it if we made a full revision on the UI?
> You know, make it just work, and look good too.

This is the reason I'm here, to make LibreOffice loons good. I like Mirek's
whole UI mockup found on his blog [1].

> I think it is possible, but we have to be WAY more organized for
> something like that to actually work out. I have something in mind
> that could help make that happen (while also working on immediate
> tweaks to the current UI) Should i work on it?

If you have an idea then propose it to the team on this mailing list. We
are currently trying to get more organised, and work one one whiteboard [2]
a week. Right now we are working on the color picker whiteboard [3].

[1]
clickortap.wordpress.com/ 
[2]
wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards
[3]
wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Color_Handling

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Alberto Delgado]

A Workflow proposal, i want to try to make something that let's us
work on a refined UI while also working on tweaks and small
improvements to the current UI. I also want to have the workflow
keeping us from drifting away, make us concentrate on one or two
things at a time.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

2012/4/25 Alberto Delgado 

> Ok, great, so... Would you like it if we made a full revision on the UI?
> You know, make it just work, and look good too.
>
> I think it is possible, but we have to be WAY more organized for
> something like that to actually work out. I have something in mind
> that could help make that happen (while also working on immediate
> tweaks to the current UI) Should i work on it?
>

What exactly do you mean? A UI proposal? A workflow proposal? A HIG
proposal? Or perhaps a way to get developers interested?

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Alberto Delgado]

Ok, great, so... Would you like it if we made a full revision on the UI?
You know, make it just work, and look good too.

I think it is possible, but we have to be WAY more organized for
something like that to actually work out. I have something in mind
that could help make that happen (while also working on immediate
tweaks to the current UI) Should i work on it?

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Andrew Pullins]

I did not say that. Iv been trying to get this team to start working on the
UI for months, and we are just now getting interspersed in it. I forgot to
say that we need to work on it one peace at a time. But it is taking a long
time to do that even with people that are interested.
On Apr 25, 2012 1:49 PM, "Alberto Delgado"  wrote:

> >
> > I'd suggest making the rulers adopt the document background, lose the
> > divider between the background and the rulers, lose the black square
> around
> > the tab insertion mode, and tone down the colors (black->gray). The
> result
> > might look something like this:
> > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/45/Rulers.png
>
>
> Awesome, that's what i meant, it looks much more integrated
>
> Andrew:
> I know changing the whole UI is a lot of work, but we can do it
> in parts if we follow the same style in each element we change.
> Also, we can't not do something because it's hard or it takes too
> much time, if we keep doing that we're not getting anywhere.
>
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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Alberto Delgado]

>
> I'd suggest making the rulers adopt the document background, lose the
> divider between the background and the rulers, lose the black square around
> the tab insertion mode, and tone down the colors (black->gray). The result
> might look something like this:
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/45/Rulers.png


Awesome, that's what i meant, it looks much more integrated

Andrew:
I know changing the whole UI is a lot of work, but we can do it
in parts if we follow the same style in each element we change.
Also, we can't not do something because it's hard or it takes too
much time, if we keep doing that we're not getting anywhere.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

2012/4/23 Jan Holesovsky 

> Hi Mirek, Astron, all,
>
> On 2012-04-20 at 09:16 +0200, Mirek M. wrote:
>
> > I agree that the rulers should look better.
> > Kendy -- would it be possible to change the look of the rulers?
>
> First of all - thank you for lots of good ideas.  I am now going through
> them, to sort what is easy, and what is harder, but immediately I can
> answer, that changing any particular widget is +-easy.


One more idea -- could you change the font drop-down menu into an icon menu?
Reasoning:
a) we want to encourage style use, especially when it comes to fonts (if a
user wants to use several fonts in a document, he should be using styles)
b) the drop-down takes up too much space compared to how frequently it is
used
c) it'll help streamline the UI


> What makes the
> task of changing the entire chrome hard is that there is so many widget
> types - push buttons with many states (normal, pressed, hover, default),
> scrollbars (hover, pressed button, dragging the scroller), etc. etc.
>
> So - if you can propose a better looking ruler, that would be great,
> just please so far keep in mind that it should play well with the
> default Windows theme :-) - other than that, let's go for changing that!
> If you can create a proposal that would be applied to a screenshot of
> Writer, that would help a lot.
>

I'd suggest making the rulers adopt the document background, lose the
divider between the background and the rulers, lose the black square around
the tab insertion mode, and tone down the colors (black->gray). The result
might look something like this:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/4/45/Rulers.png

>
> Looking forward to this,
> Kendy
>
>
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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Andrew Pullins]

Yes but unforchantly we do not enough people to work on the UI, or enough
interest or something. It's taking us a long time to even discuss the color
picker. Though some are contributing it could be further along then it is.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Alberto Delgado]

>
> The problem is a sane default; currently it is taken from system, but from
> some
>
reason it is different (and uglier) than in other apps. I'm still
> investigating.
>
> Regards,
> Kendy


Sorry for sending two mails, but after sending the first one i
realized maybe my idea was a bit incomplete.
The reason for which LibO looks uglier isn't the background,
or any other isolated element, but the interaction between all the
elements of the UI. Look at any other "pretty app" they don't have
the best background, or the best toolbar or the best status bar,
what they have is a beautiful interaction of elements inside the
app that gives as a result a "pretty" program.

What i mean is, change the background, it's a quick, easy fix,
but don't expect it to work wonders and suddenly make LibO
look good, if what you want it to make a good looking office suite,
you need to change everything to make the overall look awesome.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Alberto Delgado]

I found that removing the rulers makes it look a bit better,
maybe the problem is a contrast thing, maybe what we
need is not a change in the background alone, but a revision
of the visual appearance of the program as a whole.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Jean-Francois Nifenecker  napsal(a):

>>  I'd prefer if the background stayed a solid color --
>> there's beauty in simplicity.
>
>+1 with an editable background color (some pale color by default).

The color is editable, you can choose it in Tools -> Options. The problem is a 
sane default; currently it is taken from system, but from some reason it is 
different (and uglier) than in other apps. I'm still investigating.

Regards,
Kendy

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jean-Francois Nifenecker]

Le 19/04/2012 17:01, Stefan Knorr (Astron) a écrit :


To me, the idea seems sensible, but just as Mirek said, just adding a
document background doesn't make the application that much prettier.


+1



What is indeed quick to fix is the document background. Applying the
same sickly hue of blue that the toolbar backgrounds currently use,
looks actually quite okay. Try setting the document background to
RGB(221,227,243), for instance.


Why not.



[1] A list of stuff we can probably remove from the standard toolbar:
* Send as email (do people use that? for me, it doesn't play a role,
because I usually want to check that I've done everything looks okay
in an exported document.)


yes


* Print preview (I don't think that many people use it, )


hu? Live it alone, please. I do it all the time and know plenty of 
people using that icon.
IMO, it can be removed if and only if a standard keyboard shortcut is 
assigned to the File/Print preview menu entry.



* AutoSpellcheck (the only people who I've seen turn that off are
people that are presenting stuff on OHP, but use a text document for
that purpose; another use case would be making screenshots of eg
diagrammes that you could add to another document later – we should
encourage neither use case)
* Format Paintbrush (counters our goal to encourage using styles)


Oh yesss!


* Add Hyperlink (is usually added automatically)


dunno. Perhaps people creating errr... web pages... using Writer?


* Gallery (completely useless right now)


Yes.

BTW, the Tools/Gallery menu should be Display/Gallery.


* Non-printing characters (users set that once, never use it again)


Mmmm... Remember that non-printing chars will govern the page borders 
appearance in 3.6.x (Cedric has reintroduced the former page borders 
that 3.5.x had lost). Thus, having a direct switch will be convenient, I 
think.



* Data sources (probably used rather seldomly)


Yes. Data sources are used by people with some knowledge, so pressing F4 
is probably a no-brainer for them.



* Help (?? there's a menu for that )


Yes. F1 is the way to go, anyway.



[2] I still much prefer removing the status bar over removing the rulers.


No, don't remove them as both are usefull.
The rulers because you can see the current settings (I discourage using 
them to actually set parameters as this can be quite approximative).
The status bar because it displays the... hem... document status. And, 
perhaps, can be used (double-click) for a quick access to some parameters.



I'd add to the list:

* Drawing tools

First, there's a Display/Toolbars/Drawing that does that. Second, the 
question is: do people often use the drawing tools in Writer? IMO, they 
should be directed to the Draw module.


* Styles and formatting

(1) People using styles know what they are doing and have heard about 
F11, and (2) they usually set this once and for all.


* Increase/Decrease paragraph margins

Use styles instead :)
I know of no-one who use these.

--
Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jean-Francois Nifenecker]

Le 19/04/2012 14:17, Mirek M. a écrit :


To be honest, I don't think a background image wound necessarily make our
suite prettier. I'd prefer if the background stayed a solid color --
there's beauty in simplicity.


+1 with an editable background color (some pale color by default).

--
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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Mirek, Astron, all,

On 2012-04-20 at 09:16 +0200, Mirek M. wrote:

> I agree that the rulers should look better.
> Kendy -- would it be possible to change the look of the rulers?

First of all - thank you for lots of good ideas.  I am now going through
them, to sort what is easy, and what is harder, but immediately I can
answer, that changing any particular widget is +-easy.  What makes the
task of changing the entire chrome hard is that there is so many widget
types - push buttons with many states (normal, pressed, hover, default),
scrollbars (hover, pressed button, dragging the scroller), etc. etc.

So - if you can propose a better looking ruler, that would be great,
just please so far keep in mind that it should play well with the
default Windows theme :-) - other than that, let's go for changing that!
If you can create a proposal that would be applied to a screenshot of
Writer, that would help a lot.

Looking forward to this,
Kendy


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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[klaus-jürgen weghorn ol]

Hi Andrew,
Am 20.04.2012 04:46, schrieb Andrew Pullins:

I was wanting to do this not too long ago. I saw this a while back and
really liked it [1]. but here is my version [2]

[1]
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/DocumentBackground
[2]
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Motif.png


IMHO your proposal seems a little bit restless and will divert from the 
text/work.


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k-j

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Ron Faile]

Hi Jan, all,

If I may, I'd like to slip in a few ideas here. They're some really
simple improvements, but improve the usability, at least for me.

1. Mirek's Citrus mockup shows a really nice background color. And it
can be used in LibreOffice just by changing a few settings.

Go to Tools-Options, on the Color page of the LibreOffice section, add
a custom color, RGB 227,227,223.

Then go to the Appearance page and change the following settings:

Application background to RGB 227,227,223
Text boundaries to RGB 227,227,223
Shadows to RGB 227,227,223 (this changes the shadow around the
document to the same color effectively eliminating the shadow)

2. On my user page, I've created and posted an soc file containing an
updated color palette. Just paste this file over the default palette
to use it. The colors can be changed of course. The main point here is
that there is some logical organization in the palette.
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:Rmfaile

3. Change the toolbar icon view to large icons in the Options dialog.

4. Add the 'Comment' command to the standard toolbar using the
Customize dialog. Helpful especially for Writer.

5. Change the default font to something that is open source.


Ron

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

2012/4/19 Stefan Knorr (Astron) 

> Hi all,
>
> just FYI, there were people some time ago that wanted to add a
> document background:
>
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/DocumentBackground
>

I did know about this, but as the whiteboard was concerned with both the
document background and the document border, and as the whiteboard was
archived as completed, I thought it would be more appropriate to create a
new one rather than try to make the old one adhere to the new template.

>
> To me, the idea seems sensible, but just as Mirek said, just adding a
> document background doesn't make the application that much prettier.
>

Frankly, I think it makes it uglier in most cases.

>
> The thing that sticks out to me most in our Windows appearance is that
> we have glossy blue toolbars that clash with the Tango icons and also
> clash with the grey document border.
>

I agree.

> Now, the glossy toolbars look "native," so I think that's not
> something that we want to change, actually.


Here I disagree. Microsoft Office has never adhered to the default Windows
Vista/7 theme. Nor has Microsoft Expression. Nor has its own Zune software.
These applications go so far as to theme their own scroll bars. And they
definitely don't follow the glossy aesthetic of the default toolbar+menu
background.

I don't think changing the look of the toolbars would be an issue -- quite
the opposite, it would drive more users to the suite.

The Tango icons may not
> fit on Windows, but they are the best icons we have and I know at
> least some people think Galaxy is impractical, both because it stands
> so much for the Ooo era and also because they are incredibly bland.
> What might, read: might help, is increasing the icon size by default
> to "large" and reducing toolbar elements, so we can fit all necessary
> toolbars in one row on the average screen [1].
>

I agree with the one row proposal.
Not sure I agree with the large icon size proposal.

>
> What is indeed quick to fix is the document background. Applying the
> same sickly hue of blue that the toolbar backgrounds currently use,
> looks actually quite okay. Try setting the document background to
> RGB(221,227,243), for instance.
>

I prefer the current Ubuntu background. Not sure if the Windows background
is the same...


> Standing between the toolbars and the document there are still the
> rulers, and those are really ugly right now. However, we should _not_
> remove them by default if we're also removing the statusbar [2], so
> what I would propose is to add some sort of gradient to the rulers
> such that the connect the chrome to the document background (maybe
> even the document itself).
>

I agree that the rulers should look better.
Kendy -- would it be possible to change the look of the rulers?

>
> [1] A list of stuff we can probably remove from the standard toolbar:
> * Send as email (do people use that? for me, it doesn't play a role,
> because I usually want to check that I've done everything looks okay
> in an exported document.)
> * Print preview (I don't think that many people use it, )
> * AutoSpellcheck (the only people who I've seen turn that off are
> people that are presenting stuff on OHP, but use a text document for
> that purpose; another use case would be making screenshots of eg
> diagrammes that you could add to another document later – we should
> encourage neither use case)
> * Format Paintbrush (counters our goal to encourage using styles)
> * Add Hyperlink (is usually added automatically)
> * Gallery (completely useless right now)
> * Non-printing characters (users set that once, never use it again)
> * Data sources (probably used rather seldomly)
> * Help (?? there's a menu for that )
>

I agree, though I'd like to see the overflow menu implemented first, so
that users that actually use these features would be able to easily find
them again and get them back quickly if they wanted to.

I'd also propose to hide unclickable elements -- in most cases, users don't
need to see the "Edit document" icon.
I'd argue that we also don't need "New document" or "Open" on the toolbar,
as the user won't use these while editing the document.

I'd also like the navigation toolbar to be removed from the default layout.

Lastly, it might be more visually pleasing if the user was allowed to align
toolbars to the right or center them. I don't think the current behavior of
dragging a toolbar to any position on the bar has real advantages -- why
would a user want to position a toolbar in such a way as to leave a gap on
the left?

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Andrew Pullins]

I was wanting to do this not too long ago. I saw this a while back and
really liked it [1]. but here is my version [2]




[1]
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/DocumentBackground
[2]
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Motif.png

* Print preview (I don't think that many people use it, )
>

I agree besides we have a print preview in the print menu. so why do we
need it twice.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Stefan Knorr (Astron)]

Hi all,

just FYI, there were people some time ago that wanted to add a
document background:

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

To me, the idea seems sensible, but just as Mirek said, just adding a
document background doesn't make the application that much prettier.

The thing that sticks out to me most in our Windows appearance is that
we have glossy blue toolbars that clash with the Tango icons and also
clash with the grey document border.
Now, the glossy toolbars look "native," so I think that's not
something that we want to change, actually. The Tango icons may not
fit on Windows, but they are the best icons we have and I know at
least some people think Galaxy is impractical, both because it stands
so much for the Ooo era and also because they are incredibly bland.
What might, read: might help, is increasing the icon size by default
to "large" and reducing toolbar elements, so we can fit all necessary
toolbars in one row on the average screen [1].

What is indeed quick to fix is the document background. Applying the
same sickly hue of blue that the toolbar backgrounds currently use,
looks actually quite okay. Try setting the document background to
RGB(221,227,243), for instance.
Standing between the toolbars and the document there are still the
rulers, and those are really ugly right now. However, we should _not_
remove them by default if we're also removing the statusbar [2], so
what I would propose is to add some sort of gradient to the rulers
such that the connect the chrome to the document background (maybe
even the document itself).

[1] A list of stuff we can probably remove from the standard toolbar:
* Send as email (do people use that? for me, it doesn't play a role,
because I usually want to check that I've done everything looks okay
in an exported document.)
* Print preview (I don't think that many people use it, )
* AutoSpellcheck (the only people who I've seen turn that off are
people that are presenting stuff on OHP, but use a text document for
that purpose; another use case would be making screenshots of eg
diagrammes that you could add to another document later – we should
encourage neither use case)
* Format Paintbrush (counters our goal to encourage using styles)
* Add Hyperlink (is usually added automatically)
* Gallery (completely useless right now)
* Non-printing characters (users set that once, never use it again)
* Data sources (probably used rather seldomly)
* Help (?? there's a menu for that )

[2] I still much prefer removing the status bar over removing the rulers.

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

2012/4/19 Jan Holesovsky 

> Hi Mirek,
>
> On 2012-04-19 at 14:17 +0200, Mirek M. wrote:
>
> > So I propose this instead: let's work on finding the right colors and/or
> > gradients for the LibreOffice chrome, and let's also use a custom theme
> on
> > Windows Vista/7, as the native theme looks awful (bad enough that not
> even
> > Microsoft's own applications use it).
>
> I appreciate what you are saying, but please note that even the most
> trivial custom chrome needs some serious programming work, in addition
> to the designing work.  Would be great if somebody took the time, and
> hacked all those Windows-95-like scrollbars, buttons, etc. that you can
> see when you run without the Windows theming.  But that is some serious
> hacking work, not to mention the design work you would have to provide.
>

Would it not be even possible to change the design without changing
dimensions/shapes?
How about having a custom skin for Windows, one different from the default
one?

>
> I'd love to see that happen - but I unfortunately cannot spend my time
> on that :-(  If you know of an interested hacker, I'll handhold him
> through the oddities of the vcl code to make that happen; but I haven't
> managed to find anybody as of now - and I tried (via blog posts and GSoC
> proposals).
>
> >  That includes the background behind
> > documents, the background of the status bar, the look of separators, the
> > look of the toolbars and the menu bar (Windows-only).
> >
> > What do you think? Should I start a whiteboard for this?
>
> Let's start simple - please propose what _easy_ changes can we do to
> achieve better look.  Easy changes include:
>
> - background for the Writer window (be it a solid color, or a picture)
>

Made a whiteboard for this [1].

>
> - differently laid out toolbars (removal or addition of things there)
>

Tweaked my own whiteboard for this [2]. (My proposal may not make much
sense on it now, I'll change it soon.)

Could you look at my overflow menu idea [3] (as seen on Google+ [4])? I
believe it would allow us to streamline the UI without frustrating power
users. How hard would it be to develop?

>
> - hiding / showing things by default (like, hide the ruler, status bar,
>  some toolbar, etc.)
>

You already know about the status bar revamp whiteboard [5].
It'd be acceptable to hide the ruler by default -- it's very easy to get
back.

>
> This could actually lead to results - when people see what's going on,
> more can join, and we'll be able to do more radical changes.
>
> But please - let's start small, and without too much overhead :-)  How
> does that sound?
>
> Thank you,
> Kendy
>
>
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[1]
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Document_background
[2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Toolbar_layout
[3]
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Better_command_access#Proposal_by_Mirek2
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Zxbs5uqEjc0
[5] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/Status_bar

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Mirek,

On 2012-04-19 at 14:17 +0200, Mirek M. wrote:

> So I propose this instead: let's work on finding the right colors and/or
> gradients for the LibreOffice chrome, and let's also use a custom theme on
> Windows Vista/7, as the native theme looks awful (bad enough that not even
> Microsoft's own applications use it).

I appreciate what you are saying, but please note that even the most
trivial custom chrome needs some serious programming work, in addition
to the designing work.  Would be great if somebody took the time, and
hacked all those Windows-95-like scrollbars, buttons, etc. that you can
see when you run without the Windows theming.  But that is some serious
hacking work, not to mention the design work you would have to provide.

I'd love to see that happen - but I unfortunately cannot spend my time
on that :-(  If you know of an interested hacker, I'll handhold him
through the oddities of the vcl code to make that happen; but I haven't
managed to find anybody as of now - and I tried (via blog posts and GSoC
proposals).

>  That includes the background behind
> documents, the background of the status bar, the look of separators, the
> look of the toolbars and the menu bar (Windows-only).
> 
> What do you think? Should I start a whiteboard for this?

Let's start simple - please propose what _easy_ changes can we do to
achieve better look.  Easy changes include:

- background for the Writer window (be it a solid color, or a picture)

- differently laid out toolbars (removal or addition of things there)

- hiding / showing things by default (like, hide the ruler, status bar,
  some toolbar, etc.)

This could actually lead to results - when people see what's going on,
more can join, and we'll be able to do more radical changes.

But please - let's start small, and without too much overhead :-)  How
does that sound?

Thank you,
Kendy


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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Mirek M.]

Hi Kendy,

2012/4/19 Jan Holesovsky 

> Hi designers,
>
> Recently I got a report that we look much worse than MSO, together with
> a screenshot:
>
> http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/design-list/MSO-LO.jpg
>
> The good thing is there are some easy things that we can improve
> +-easily, like the background of the writer document - instead of the
> dark grey, I am sure the code changes to get an image there instead
> should be doable with reasonable effort.


To be honest, I don't think a background image wound necessarily make our
suite prettier. I'd prefer if the background stayed a solid color --
there's beauty in simplicity.

That said, there are a number of things we can and should do to make LibO
prettier. Take a look at Google Docs [1], the upcoming version of MS Office
[2a, 2b], Adobe Buzzword [3], and my (amateur) Citrus UI mockups
[4]. Despite all having radically different UIs, they are simple and
pleasant to look at. They accomplish this by a) good choice of color, b)
use of accent color, c) not using the default Windows look (which makes
menu bars and toolbars pretty ugly).

So I propose this instead: let's work on finding the right colors and/or
gradients for the LibreOffice chrome, and let's also use a custom theme on
Windows Vista/7, as the native theme looks awful (bad enough that not even
Microsoft's own applications use it). That includes the background behind
documents, the background of the status bar, the look of separators, the
look of the toolbars and the menu bar (Windows-only).

What do you think? Should I start a whiteboard for this?

[1]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/Google_Docs_-_example_document.png
[2a]
http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/142595/navpane.jpg;pv040f62c964f6d055
[2b]
http://www.winsupersite.com/content/content/142600/widescreen.jpg;pv4e1a2dd6d87d55da
[3] http://help.adobe.com/de_DE/Acrobat.com/Buzzword/images/edit_docs.png
[4] http://clickortap.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/float.png

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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Klaus-Juergen,

On 2012-04-19 at 12:40 +0200, klaus-jürgen weghorn ol wrote:

> > How does that sound?  Can we together do something sexy for 3.6?
> 
> Timeplan?

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/3.6 ;-)

So - I hoped I'd trigger something fun, something people would like to
do without pressing them with a deadline ;-)  But for those, who need a
deadline: until the end of April, so that there is time to do the code
changes before the 3.6 beta.

[And if a cool design evolves afterwards, we can still update it in the
repository :-)]

Regards,
Kendy


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Re: [libreoffice-design] Writer background image - contest! :-)

[klaus-jürgen weghorn ol]

Hi Kendy,
Am 19.04.2012 12:06, schrieb Jan Holesovsky:


How does that sound?  Can we together do something sexy for 3.6?


Timeplan?

--
Grüße
k-j

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