Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Is that Citrus UI stuff just a design study or actually implemented somehow? Because I really think this is the way LibO should look like - and work. The style replacement thing is great, and the unsaved style suggests the user that there is such a thing as styles. The problem with current programs is that even though you might style your text bold, the style chooser still sais standard. 2010/11/8 Mirek M. maz...@gmail.com: 2010/11/4 Craig A. Eddy ty...@cox.net Robert, I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you.I'm not a developer, I'm a user.I will admit that I started with Microsoft Word (More years ago than I'm comfortable admitting), but switched to OO.o as soon as it came out.It's only just recently that I've begun to understand how to use (and create) styles because of the complexity and lack of intuitiveness involved.That, coupled with the gadawful heading and text styles left me with having to adjust the Microsoft way - manually.I would much rather be able to set up a style and have a document stick to it than to have to go through manually and adjust everything just because I made a change.But, not being a trained power-user, the best I can do is stumble along learning by accident.And, just in the way of introduction, I have been many things in my life.In one job, alone (that I held for 15 1/2 years), I was a self-taught AutoCAD operator, a self-taught webmaster and website designer, a brochure and flier creator, and the jack-leg systems administrator that answered such questions as how do I do this with this program (a program with which I was unfamiliar and didn't have installed on my machine), or how come my machine keeps slowing down/crashing (people just won't learn about viruses).I am looking forward to LibreOffice as the new freedom from Microsoft thinking.Craig A. EddyOn 11/04/2010 11:19 AM, Robert Derman wrote:Sebastian Spaeth wrote:On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:55:19 +0100, Johannes Bausch wrote:things concerning tables. We absolutely HAVE to make the user use thestylesheet stuff, and it must be so easy that they start to use it onone-paged documents.Removing the font chooser, and font-size selector would save lots ofspace that could be replaced with a simple style chooser :)Here I have to disagree, non power users are much more likely to use the font chooser and size selector than they are to have anything at all to do with styles. On styles: http://clickortap.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/citrus-styles/ -- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
2010/11/10 Johannes Bausch johannes.bau...@gmail.com Is that Citrus UI stuff just a design study or actually implemented somehow? Unfortunately, it's just a mockup, just a suggestion to the Document Foundation. Because I really think this is the way LibO should look like - and work. The style replacement thing is great, and the unsaved style suggests the user that there is such a thing as styles. The problem with current programs is that even though you might style your text bold, the style chooser still sais standard. :) thanks. 2010/11/8 Mirek M. maz...@gmail.com: 2010/11/4 Craig A. Eddy ty...@cox.net Robert, I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you.I'm not a developer, I'm a user.I will admit that I started with Microsoft Word (More years ago than I'm comfortable admitting), but switched to OO.o as soon as it came out.It's only just recently that I've begun to understand how to use (and create) styles because of the complexity and lack of intuitiveness involved.That, coupled with the gadawful heading and text styles left me with having to adjust the Microsoft way - manually.I would much rather be able to set up a style and have a document stick to it than to have to go through manually and adjust everything just because I made a change.But, not being a trained power-user, the best I can do is stumble along learning by accident.And, just in the way of introduction, I have been many things in my life.In one job, alone (that I held for 15 1/2 years), I was a self-taught AutoCAD operator, a self-taught webmaster and website designer, a brochure and flier creator, and the jack-leg systems administrator that answered such questions as how do I do this with this program (a program with which I was unfamiliar and didn't have installed on my machine), or how come my machine keeps slowing down/crashing (people just won't learn about viruses).I am looking forward to LibreOffice as the new freedom from Microsoft thinking.Craig A. EddyOn 11/04/2010 11:19 AM, Robert Derman wrote:Sebastian Spaeth wrote:On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:55:19 +0100, Johannes Bausch wrote:things concerning tables. We absolutely HAVE to make the user use thestylesheet stuff, and it must be so easy that they start to use it onone-paged documents.Removing the font chooser, and font-size selector would save lots ofspace that could be replaced with a simple style chooser :)Here I have to disagree, non power users are much more likely to use the font chooser and size selector than they are to have anything at all to do with styles. On styles: http://clickortap.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/citrus-styles/ -- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.orgdiscuss%2bh...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.orgdiscuss%2bh...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived *** -- Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Le 2010-11-04 04:34, Sebastian Spaeth a écrit : On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:55:19 +0100, Johannes Bausch wrote: things concerning tables. We absolutely HAVE to make the user use the stylesheet stuff, and it must be so easy that they start to use it on one-paged documents. Removing the font chooser, and font-size selector would save lots of space that could be replaced with a simple style chooser :) We should not go overboard. While we should _encourage_ people to use styles when they are best used, we should not _force_ them to do so. We will loose the followers we have and not gain any new ones if we impose the right way. Besides, there are times when styles are useful and styles should be used much more than they are by most people. But there are many situations where styles add an unncessary level of complexity and a few times when styles are NOT warranted. For instance: - Take this text and assume I want to emphasize one word. I could simply do Ctl-I and get the text in Italics or define a character style and apply it. The character style may be warranted, but it's a multi-step process, and quite frankly, if I decide further down the road to change the entire text from Cambria to Bodoni, the text in Italics will change accordingly and the text defined with a character style may not change appropriately (it may stay in Cambria Italics). On the other hand, if character styles work properly, I may define a book name style as it would allow me to change all those from one font to another in a jiffy. - In Desktop publishing, there are times when fragments of text are out of context (ad, poster...). I find it easier not to have a base style for these because neither paragraph nor font information is linked to the rest of the text. Finally, if we need to train people to the proper use of word-processing software, I would suggest that emphasis be given, in order to the following nasty habits: – proper use of spaces and punctuation (hyphen vs n-dash vs m-dash); – proper use of indents and tabulations (many people still use spaces or default tabs in succession); – proper use of space before paragraph and paragraph-chaining options such as keep with next paragraph, rather than paragraph returns in series. All these make document modification harder than it needs to be. A couple of short videos might even help educate people very quickly. Speaking of modifications, it is much easier to work with a document that uses the above techniques even if it has no style, than it is to work with an improperly formatted document that has styles. -- Michel Gagnon Montréal (Québec, Canada) -- http://mgagnon.net -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Quoting Michel Gagnon: Finally, if we need to train people to the proper use of word-processing software, I would suggest that emphasis be given, in order to the following nasty habits: – proper use of spaces and punctuation (hyphen vs n-dash vs m-dash); – proper use of indents and tabulations (many people still use spaces or default tabs in succession); – proper use of space before paragraph and paragraph-chaining options such as keep with next paragraph, rather than paragraph returns in series. The problem is to define proper use. This is an elusive attribute with wide national and cultural differences that would be hard -- if not impossible -- to enforce. Rigidly forcing people to adhere to a proper usage when they have other customs would be *most* offputting. This also starts to move into the minefield of personal taste: I might prefer one style while you might prefer something quite different. P. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
2010/11/4 Michel Gagnon mic...@mgagnon.net: - Take this text and assume I want to emphasize one word. I could simply do Ctl-I and get the text in Italics or define a character style and apply it. The character style may be warranted, but it's a multi-step process, and quite frankly, if I decide further down the road to change the entire text from Cambria to Bodoni, the text in Italics will change accordingly and the text defined with a character style may not change appropriately (it may stay in Cambria Italics). Well, that's simply not true: if you link the character style to Predefined and just change the attribute, the font will be picked from the underlining paragraph. Styles are far more flexible than most people think. The problem with them is not features nor corner case solutions, problem with styles in Writer is nowadays a documentation problem and a not so clear user interface. For example, defining headers and footers by hand on a large document where you need different page layouts is impossible, you MUST use page styles... but new users get confused. Why? There are several reasons, but for example you can activate headers or footers on the page style but you cannot set its content... Why do I need to go to the page style to activate the header and then to the real page to give it content? ask users. There are two possible answers for that: - The MSWord solution where there are no page styles and you do all the page setup by hand. - Add to the page style editor the ability to set header/footer contents. I prefer the second option best. - In Desktop publishing, there are times when fragments of text are out of context (ad, poster...). I find it easier not to have a base style for these because neither paragraph nor font information is linked to the rest of the text. Writer is not a DPT tool. DPT tools are page oriented while Writer is text oriented. You can of course use Writer in combination with Scribus, obtaining amazing results. Maybe we need to think about better integration between these two wonderful opensource apps. Finally, if we need to train people to the proper use of word-processing software, I would suggest that emphasis be given, in order to the following nasty habits: – proper use of spaces and punctuation (hyphen vs n-dash vs m-dash); – proper use of indents and tabulations (many people still use spaces or default tabs in succession); – proper use of space before paragraph and paragraph-chaining options such as keep with next paragraph, rather than paragraph returns in series. All these make document modification harder than it needs to be. A couple of short videos might even help educate people very quickly. Fully agree. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
RE: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Quoting Michel Gagnon: Finally, if we need to train people to the proper use of word-processing software, I would suggest that emphasis be given, in order to the following nasty habits: - proper use of spaces and punctuation (hyphen vs n-dash vs m-dash); - proper use of indents and tabulations (many people still use spaces or default tabs in succession); - proper use of space before paragraph and paragraph-chaining options such as keep with next paragraph, rather than paragraph returns in series. The problem is to define proper use. This is an elusive attribute with wide national and cultural differences that would be hard -- if not impossible -- to enforce. Rigidly forcing people to adhere to a proper usage when they have other customs would be *most* offputting. This also starts to move into the minefield of personal taste: I might prefer one style while you might prefer something quite different. P. P., I think you missed Michel's point. The examples he gave of proper use are those formatting features that will make re-formatting easier. If we encourage such proper use through the design of the UI, as well as through education, many will be happier with the product. -JimW -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Quoting Jim White: I think you missed Michel's point. The examples he gave of proper use are those formatting features that will make re-formatting easier. If we encourage such proper use through the design of the UI, as well as through education, many will be happier with the product. -JimW I was trying to say that one person's idea of proper use is another's idea of mis-use. Consider the following: 1.- Introduction: This chapter, is the introduction- the initial explanation -, of the subject blah blah blah etc etc... This is considered perfectly proper here in Spain. I think it's awful, but that's what local custom requires. It breaks any number of the punctuation rules I was taught as a youngster in the UK but is absolutely valid here. I'm not sure how these wide cultural differences can -- or even should -- be catered for in a UI. P. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Le 2010-11-04 12:30, Jim White a écrit : Quoting Michel Gagnon: Finally, if we need to train people to the proper use of word-processing software, I would suggest that emphasis be given, in order to the following nasty habits: - proper use of spaces and punctuation (hyphen vs n-dash vs m-dash); - proper use of indents and tabulations (many people still use spaces or default tabs in succession); - proper use of space before paragraph and paragraph-chaining options such as keep with next paragraph, rather than paragraph returns in series. The problem is to define proper use. This is an elusive attribute with wide national and cultural differences that would be hard -- if not impossible -- to enforce. Rigidly forcing people to adhere to a proper usage when they have other customs would be *most* offputting. This also starts to move into the minefield of personal taste: I might prefer one style while you might prefer something quite different. P. P., I think you missed Michel's point. The examples he gave of proper use are those formatting features that will make re-formatting easier. If we encourage such proper use through the design of the UI, as well as through education, many will be happier with the product. -JimW I am thinking of training rather than enforcing. Apart from that, I am aware that there are cultural differences and typographical preferences such as the use of a hard space before the colon and semi-colon in French. But while having a 1-cm indent on the first line of a paragraph is a matter of personal taste and cultural preference (for lack of better expression), typing 10 or 20 spaces at the beginning of the first paragraph instead of setting the 1st line indent at 1 cm is NOT a cultural preference. It shows either laziness or a lack of knowledge of the software. And Jim got it right: if using the proper formatting techniques is easy, more people will use it and less training will be needed. -- Michel Gagnon Montréal (Québec, Canada) -- http://mgagnon.net -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Sebastian Spaeth wrote: On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:55:19 +0100, Johannes Bausch wrote: things concerning tables. We absolutely HAVE to make the user use the stylesheet stuff, and it must be so easy that they start to use it on one-paged documents. Removing the font chooser, and font-size selector would save lots of space that could be replaced with a simple style chooser :) Here I have to disagree, non power users are much more likely to use the font chooser and size selector than they are to have anything at all to do with styles. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Robert, I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you.I'm not a developer, I'm a user.I will admit that I started with Microsoft Word (More years ago than I'm comfortable admitting), but switched to OO.o as soon as it came out.It's only just recently that I've begun to understand how to use (and create) styles because of the complexity and lack of intuitiveness involved.That, coupled with the gadawful heading and text styles left me with having to adjust the Microsoft way - manually.I would much rather be able to set up a style and have a document stick to it than to have to go through manually and adjust everything just because I made a change.But, not being a trained power-user, the best I can do is stumble along learning by accident.And, just in the way of introduction, I have been many things in my life.In one job, alone (that I held for 15 1/2 years), I was a self-taught AutoCAD operator, a self-taught webmaster and website designer, a brochure and flier creator, and the jack-leg systems administrator that answered such questions as how do I do this with this program (a program with which I was unfamiliar and didn't have installed on my machine), or how come my machine keeps slowing down/crashing (people just won't learn about viruses).I am looking forward to LibreOffice as the new freedom from Microsoft thinking.Craig A. EddyOn 11/04/2010 11:19 AM, Robert Derman wrote:Sebastian Spaeth wrote:On Wed, 3 Nov 2010 20:55:19 +0100, Johannes Bausch wrote:things concerning tables. We absolutely HAVE to make the user use thestylesheet stuff, and it must be so easy that they start to use it onone-paged documents.Removing the font chooser, and font-size selector would save lots ofspace that could be replaced with a simple style chooser :)Here I have to disagree, non power users are much more likely to use the font chooser and size selector than they are to have anything at all to do with styles. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Il 02/11/2010 19.13, animesh meher ha scritto: Has anyone considered the UI of IBM Symphony 3, its a step in the right direction . And now that most monitors have larger breath , we can use it to our advantage. Definitely, +1. Here are some screenshots taken from Symphony 3: http://www.lffl.org/2010/02/ibm-lotus-symphony-3-beta-2-ottima.html -- Gianluca Turconi -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Il 02/11/2010 22.58, Christoph Noack ha scritto: I would like to avoid the term ribbon in such discussions - if possible. I know that many people do have mixed feelings (sometimes very strong opinions) and sometimes require some more substantial knowledge what the Microsoft Fluent concept is about. Christoph, no offense intended, but those Renaissaince mock-ups were not *the* Ribbon, but they were really ribbon-like. And, as a 10 years OOo user, I usually don't talk about concepts (theory), but about productivity (reality). As long as I used the Ribbonized MS Office and IBM Symphony 3 (4 weeks both, for a programmed migration that didn't occurred), only IBM product didn't decreased my productivity. It was not perfect, but it was profitably usable for users different from newbies or MS Office adepts. -- Gianluca Turconi -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Le 2010-11-03 03:50, Gianluca Turconi a écrit : Il 02/11/2010 19.13, animesh meher ha scritto: Has anyone considered the UI of IBM Symphony 3, its a step in the right direction . And now that most monitors have larger breath , we can use it to our advantage. Definitely, +1. Here are some screenshots taken from Symphony 3: http://www.lffl.org/2010/02/ibm-lotus-symphony-3-beta-2-ottima.html I have mixed feelings on that. On one hand, if I absolutely have to have all my properties on screen then it makes a very good use of real estate. But there are many times I use the wide screen to my advantage by installing a second window to the right with either my source, internet references, other documents, etc. And in Calc/Excel, I would want an even wider sheet. So properties should either be displayed such as above or in its own window (like Styles and Navigation) that would be dockable. It would more or less follow the traditional OpenOffice / LibreOffice approach. One change I would do, however: if the box is docked, it should be displayed all the time; its content would change depending on whether it's paragraph properties, styles, etc. On the other hand, if it is a window, it should disappear when not needed to minimize screen clutter. Advantages of such a system ? - In Calc, the Properties could be displayed to the right or the bottom, to allow ideal use of real estate. - With dual screens, it is easy to put a window on a second screen. -- Michel Gagnon Montréal (Québec, Canada) -- http://mgagnon.net -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
I think all this dicussion on radically altering the UI is unnecessary. Well I think it is okay to have such discussions. You can say that you like the current UI as it is, but this doesn't make new ideas superfluous. One of the advantages of LibreOffice/OOo over MS Office is that the interface is familiar and easy to grasp. I don't get that. It's familiar because its similar to MS Office? But why is the easiness an advantage over MS Office if it is similar? Then MS Office is easy, too. But the question is: Is the quite similar, but not too similar interface of OO BETTER than MS Office? I don't think so. Menus still provide a familiar and easy to use method of organizing a large number of features. +1, I don't like ribbon interfaces neither, because you don't see your tools vanish. Greying out things is the better option, as long as they don't take up much space on screen. Given the large number of features and complexity of office suites, one needs to consider both use cases. Most of the time we only need a small number of features and we want these conveniently located. Thankfully Lo/OOo handles this nicely today with keyboard shortcuts and toolbar icons. Nobody I know knows any shortcuts besides ctrl+c, ctrl+v. Toolbar icons are misleading, over the half of which are permanently visible I couldn't even tell you that I have used them before. Only the tool-tip provides you with the necessary information. And the laundry list of other features can be found in the drop-down menus. Which, again, are not very present to the user. Most radical refactorings I've seen try to clean up the interface, but then hide most of the features. Not hide. The point is that today we HAVE more screen space, but at the same time (new) icons are of little or no help to a user (as I already said). They're hard to grasp. The essential point is that we want to reduce the click count to a specific feature by not only placing icons into toolbars but other things, too, such as a colour selector, options, checkboxes, you name it. We're asking users to relearn a familiar interface, but why? Because the current one has lots of space for improvement. Honestly. The office suites have looked the same now for over ten years. We're practically standing still. You cannot tell me that you're completely satisfied with how it looks at the moment. Very simple tasks get tedious, because nobody uses things like styles. How often do you sit before a document and have to select text, change one attribute, select another paragraph, change the same attribute, ... Office suites are cluttered with an enormous amount of features. Do you know Origin? OO begins to look like it. And while other companies (yeah, Microsoft) at least try to bring improvements and while other technologies such as HTML and CSS are evolving rapidly we do... nothing. Seriously, our current office suite looks like assembler in the age of python. The Office 2007/2010 interface looks nice largely due to nice use of color, gradients, etc. The Lo/OOo interface looks antiquated largedly due to a flat pallete. No. It's so not about gradients and colours. True, they are not perfect, but who cares about that? The problem is that nobody really groups features: this one belongs to text attributes, here is the place I look if I want to embed a picture, here (and only here) are things concerning tables. We absolutely HAVE to make the user use the stylesheet stuff, and it must be so easy that they start to use it on one-paged documents. Honestly, if we kept the existing system of toolbars and drop-down menus, wouldn't most of our users be happy? No, because soon they'll die out because no new users will switch to OO. That sounds drastic, but imagine the following: at the moment the office suites are (mostly) compatible and comparable in both usage and interface. They will be very different five years from now, if OO does nothing about it. Either we attract more users because we have the SIMPLER interface or we adapt to the one MS is offering. The third option is keeping an outdated (but working) interface which satisfies its current users. If they had to re-learn a new system, might it just drive users to Microsoft's office suite (if you have to re-learn, you might as well learn the system used by the masses)? Not if there's nothing to learn. Modern software should be easy to grasp, at least the simple features. I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are organized. Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc. Again, no, it's not about colour, icons or whatever. That's eyecandy. If anything, I think we should be going the opposite direction. Instead of chasing the Ribbon of 2007/2010, I think we should embrace the abandoned Office 2003 UI even more. Perhaps provide an option
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Hi Gianluca! Am Mittwoch, den 03.11.2010, 09:01 +0100 schrieb Gianluca Turconi: And, as a 10 years OOo user, I usually don't talk about concepts (theory), but about productivity (reality). Cool! We are definitively on the same side. What counts is usability and productivity ... it is less about if people (dis)like a rectangular area. Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
[tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
The OOo team has been working two years on Project Renaissance. And there is a long running thread here in the discuss archives of a UI prototype. While that particular prototype looks clean/sharp, I think all this dicussion on radically altering the UI is unnecessary. One of the advantages of LibreOffice/OOo over MS Office is that the interface is familiar and easy to grasp. And while the Ribbon interface has improved from 2007 to 2010, it is still unpopular for a reason. The core ideal of a dynamic interface that shows the most common features sounds good on paper, but occassionally you need the lesser used features and you can't find them. Menus still provide a familiar and easy to use method of organizing a large number of features. Given the large number of features and complexity of office suites, one needs to consider both use cases. Most of the time we only need a small number of features and we want these conveniently located. Thankfully Lo/OOo handles this nicely today with keyboard shortcuts and toolbar icons. And the laundry list of other features can be found in the drop-down menus. Most radical refactorings I've seen try to clean up the interface, but then hide most of the features. We're asking users to relearn a familiar interface, but why? The Office 2007/2010 interface looks nice largely due to nice use of color, gradients, etc. The Lo/OOo interface looks antiquated largedly due to a flat pallete. But the ribbon itself is an odd mish-mash of different sized icons that look like they were assembled at random. Honestly, if we kept the existing system of toolbars and drop-down menus, wouldn't most of our users be happy? If they had to re-learn a new system, might it just drive users to Microsoft's office suite (if you have to re-learn, you might as well learn the system used by the masses)? I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are organized. Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc. If anything, I think we should be going the opposite direction. Instead of chasing the Ribbon of 2007/2010, I think we should embrace the abandoned Office 2003 UI even more. Perhaps provide an option to all but completely mimic it. People forget, but Microsoft used this tactic themselves, allowing an option for Word users to use Wordperfect key-mappings, and provided specific help for Wordperfect Users trying to migrate to Word. Since we know most users coming to Lo/OOo are coming from Microsoft Office, shouldn't we do our best to ease that transition? It would also be considerably less work than completely redesigning the UI from scratch. That is more time that could be dedicated to improving the project in other ways. -- T. J. Brumfield I'm questioning my education Rewind and what does it show? Could be, the truth it becomes you I'm a seed, wondering why it grows -- Pearl Jam, Education -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
RE: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Has anyone considered the UI of IBM Symphony 3, its a step in the right direction . And now that most monitors have larger breath , we can use it to our advantage. Animesh Meher Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 13:05:38 -0500 Subject: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented From: enderand...@gmail.com To: discuss@documentfoundation.org The OOo team has been working two years on Project Renaissance. And there is a long running thread here in the discuss archives of a UI prototype. While that particular prototype looks clean/sharp, I think all this dicussion on radically altering the UI is unnecessary. One of the advantages of LibreOffice/OOo over MS Office is that the interface is familiar and easy to grasp. And while the Ribbon interface has improved from 2007 to 2010, it is still unpopular for a reason. The core ideal of a dynamic interface that shows the most common features sounds good on paper, but occassionally you need the lesser used features and you can't find them. Menus still provide a familiar and easy to use method of organizing a large number of features. Given the large number of features and complexity of office suites, one needs to consider both use cases. Most of the time we only need a small number of features and we want these conveniently located. Thankfully Lo/OOo handles this nicely today with keyboard shortcuts and toolbar icons. And the laundry list of other features can be found in the drop-down menus. Most radical refactorings I've seen try to clean up the interface, but then hide most of the features. We're asking users to relearn a familiar interface, but why? The Office 2007/2010 interface looks nice largely due to nice use of color, gradients, etc. The Lo/OOo interface looks antiquated largedly due to a flat pallete. But the ribbon itself is an odd mish-mash of different sized icons that look like they were assembled at random. Honestly, if we kept the existing system of toolbars and drop-down menus, wouldn't most of our users be happy? If they had to re-learn a new system, might it just drive users to Microsoft's office suite (if you have to re-learn, you might as well learn the system used by the masses)? I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are organized. Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc. If anything, I think we should be going the opposite direction. Instead of chasing the Ribbon of 2007/2010, I think we should embrace the abandoned Office 2003 UI even more. Perhaps provide an option to all but completely mimic it. People forget, but Microsoft used this tactic themselves, allowing an option for Word users to use Wordperfect key-mappings, and provided specific help for Wordperfect Users trying to migrate to Word. Since we know most users coming to Lo/OOo are coming from Microsoft Office, shouldn't we do our best to ease that transition? It would also be considerably less work than completely redesigning the UI from scratch. That is more time that could be dedicated to improving the project in other ways. -- T. J. Brumfield I'm questioning my education Rewind and what does it show? Could be, the truth it becomes you I'm a seed, wondering why it grows -- Pearl Jam, Education -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Quoting T. J. Brumfield: One of the advantages of LibreOffice/OOo over MS Office is that the interface is familiar and easy to grasp. And while the Ribbon interface has improved from 2007 to 2010, it is still unpopular for a reason. The core ideal of a dynamic interface that shows the most common features sounds good on paper, but occassionally you need the lesser used features and you can't find them. Menus still provide a familiar and easy to use method of organizing a large number of features. Very true. I changed from Office 2003 straight to 2010 and I sometimes find myself on the verge of violence when looking for some features, even fairly common ones (at least common in my work). Given the large number of features and complexity of office suites, one needs to consider both use cases. Most of the time we only need a small number of features and we want these conveniently located. Thankfully Lo/OOo handles this nicely today with keyboard shortcuts and toolbar icons. And the laundry list of other features can be found in the drop-down menus. It's said that most users of complex software use only 20% of its features. Unfortunately, not everybody uses the *same* 20%. (This is one reason why light versions usually fail.) One of my clients has over 10,000 PCs, almost all of which have MS Office installed. They had major problems with people adapting to Office 2007 from 2003. The Office 2007/2010 interface looks nice largely due to nice use of color, gradients, etc. The Lo/OOo interface looks antiquated largedly due to a flat pallete. But the ribbon itself is an odd mish-mash of different sized icons that look like they were assembled at random. Personally I'm not interested in eye candy and in fact I've turned off the Aero stuff on my Win 7 boxes to make them look like XP (and I did the same with my Linux systems -- the ultimate heresy!). Honestly, if we kept the existing system of toolbars and drop-down menus, wouldn't most of our users be happy? [snip] Since we know most users coming to Lo/OOo are coming from Microsoft Office, shouldn't we do our best to ease that transition? On the other hand, more and more users are moving to 2007/2010 and are getting used to it. People are expecting more eye candy and the old fashioned interface could well put them off, now that they've seen what wonders have come out of Redmond. [/sarcasm] I've had similar arguments with Linux fans who argue for a return to a command line on the grounds that it's easier and quicker. Well, no it isn't. Put one in front of the average office worker (to whom a computer is nothing but a tool for getting work done) and watch him/her freeze in horror. It was bad enough back in the DOS days... It would also be considerably less work than completely redesigning the UI from scratch. That is more time that could be dedicated to improving the project in other ways. If by improving the project you mean bug fixing, then of course. If you mean adding yet more features, well, just how good does a word processor or spreadsheet have to be? Is there a limit to the number of new features that can be added without causing feature overload? In 30+ years in the computer business I've seen any number of cases where something has been done purely because it can be done, regardless of whether it's of any use to anyone. Just a thought. P. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
On 02/11/10 12:05 PM, T. J. Brumfield wrote: The OOo team has been working two years on Project Renaissance. And there is a long running thread here in the discuss archives of a UI prototype. While that particular prototype looks clean/sharp, I think all this dicussion on radically altering the UI is unnecessary. snip I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are organized. Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc. If anything, I think we should be going the opposite direction. Instead of chasing the Ribbon of 2007/2010, I think we should embrace the abandoned Office 2003 UI even more. Perhaps provide an option to all but completely mimic it. People forget, but Microsoft used this tactic themselves, allowing an option for Word users to use Wordperfect key-mappings, and provided specific help for Wordperfect Users trying to migrate to Word. Since we know most users coming to Lo/OOo are coming from Microsoft Office, shouldn't we do our best to ease that transition? It would also be considerably less work than completely redesigning the UI from scratch. That is more time that could be dedicated to improving the project in other ways. -- T. J. Brumfield +1 Thanks T. J. for putting into words what I was thinking about the UI redesign. I concur with this thinking. Why re-invent an unpopular feature. This kind of idea was brought up when OOo unveiled a ribbon-like interface. Just because we can redo the UI doesn't mean we should. Can we avoid the bikeshedding and chasing after the cool kids, please? I vote for the application of the K.I.S.S. principle. Scott Furry -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
A big +1 That's why I started the thread about better defaults: this will help a lot more than a new, shiny but unknown interface. OOo/LibO interface IS modern and flexible (contextual toolbars, dockers... everything customizable), but it have horrible defaults values. A couple of fixes here and there (some toolbars do not work well when vertical) at it will be just perfect. 2010/11/2 T. J. Brumfield enderand...@gmail.com: The OOo team has been working two years on Project Renaissance. And there is a long running thread here in the discuss archives of a UI prototype. While that particular prototype looks clean/sharp, I think all this dicussion on radically altering the UI is unnecessary. One of the advantages of LibreOffice/OOo over MS Office is that the interface is familiar and easy to grasp. And while the Ribbon interface has improved from 2007 to 2010, it is still unpopular for a reason. The core ideal of a dynamic interface that shows the most common features sounds good on paper, but occassionally you need the lesser used features and you can't find them. Menus still provide a familiar and easy to use method of organizing a large number of features. Given the large number of features and complexity of office suites, one needs to consider both use cases. Most of the time we only need a small number of features and we want these conveniently located. Thankfully Lo/OOo handles this nicely today with keyboard shortcuts and toolbar icons. And the laundry list of other features can be found in the drop-down menus. Most radical refactorings I've seen try to clean up the interface, but then hide most of the features. We're asking users to relearn a familiar interface, but why? The Office 2007/2010 interface looks nice largely due to nice use of color, gradients, etc. The Lo/OOo interface looks antiquated largedly due to a flat pallete. But the ribbon itself is an odd mish-mash of different sized icons that look like they were assembled at random. Honestly, if we kept the existing system of toolbars and drop-down menus, wouldn't most of our users be happy? If they had to re-learn a new system, might it just drive users to Microsoft's office suite (if you have to re-learn, you might as well learn the system used by the masses)? I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are organized. Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc. If anything, I think we should be going the opposite direction. Instead of chasing the Ribbon of 2007/2010, I think we should embrace the abandoned Office 2003 UI even more. Perhaps provide an option to all but completely mimic it. People forget, but Microsoft used this tactic themselves, allowing an option for Word users to use Wordperfect key-mappings, and provided specific help for Wordperfect Users trying to migrate to Word. Since we know most users coming to Lo/OOo are coming from Microsoft Office, shouldn't we do our best to ease that transition? It would also be considerably less work than completely redesigning the UI from scratch. That is more time that could be dedicated to improving the project in other ways. -- T. J. Brumfield I'm questioning my education Rewind and what does it show? Could be, the truth it becomes you I'm a seed, wondering why it grows -- Pearl Jam, Education -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived *** -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Hi T.J.! Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 13:05 -0500 schrieb T. J. Brumfield: I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are organized. Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc. Many people asked itself whether some tweaks might make the current UI more usable in the long-run. To make a long story short: no. To address some of your points: * Visual Design: New icons / gradients / gloss doesn't improve the interaction quality, people rely on. We might only get a short positive effect, but no improvement. People will notice that :-) * Cleaning: When designing functionality for the UI, one will notice that the menus itself are the problem. We have far too many small atomic features combined with workflow related topics. Here, our UI doesn't scale (The where to put problem comes up quite regularly). Thus, in the meantime (e.g. the Renaissance Team) improves selected workflows that will finally lead to a better menu structure (because you won't need some of the options any more). But after all, too many features and the (for this kind of application) wrong interaction concept. * Defaults: There is work done on that - the Renaissance team works on Better Defaults already and RGB ES did also propose to work on better defaults (as he also mentioned). This is a very good start - defaults and templates are two dark chapters ;-) * Step-by-step improvements: I hope that we'll be able to improve many things - besides the menus. For example, Mirek put in some nice ideas ... Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Quoting T. J. Brumfield: As someone who uses both MS Office and OOo on a daily basis, I find the OOo FAR MORE USABLE for an advanced user. Every day there are tasks I want to accomplish in MS Office, but I can't find the appropriate option in the Ribbon interface. It drives me nuts. It drives me nuts, too. I've been adding stuff to the Quick Access Toolbar but that's getting rather crowded. Also, I moved from a Spanish language version of 2003 to an English version of 2010 and I still keep on hitting CTRL-G for Guardar instead of CTRL-S for Save. I have a language mix here -- Spanish and English versions of Win 7, with both types of machines running Spanish and English language software. I'm therefore particularly sensitive to programmers relying on operating system texts: an English language program will ask me to click on OK while the button on the screen says Aceptar. Sloppy work, IMHO. I'm now downloading the LO beta and I'll be looking out for this! :) P. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented
Hi T.J.! Am Dienstag, den 02.11.2010, 16:27 -0500 schrieb T. J. Brumfield: Restructuring the menus isn't the massive drastic change many people have talked about. I'm fine with restructuring the menus, and encourage it. However, all the Renaissance mock-ups/prototypes I've seen seem to mimic the Ribbon UI. What kind of specification used for implementation you talk about? All of the mock-ups (by the core team) I know about, did include the application menu. So this seems to be different to what you describe. I would like to avoid the term ribbon in such discussions - if possible. I know that many people do have mixed feelings (sometimes very strong opinions) and sometimes require some more substantial knowledge what the Microsoft Fluent concept is about. For example, most people don't know that the often requested live previews part of the ribbon. And to be honest - it is very likely that any good interaction concept that will be proposed will include these live previews, too. Is this bad? The previous paragraph was just my attempt to ask for having a look at the core problem. Many people proposed to clean up / reorganize the menus - this always sounds good, but assumes that it really works (really includes that it is validated with users). We tried, and we found that there are quite inevitable limitations. So I'd like to ask all to also consider something which might imply changes - without the need to clone Microsoft Fluent. That's it for now ... first, let's get a working project to continue such thrilling discussions ;-) Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
