Re: Proposal by Daniel (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] Budding Android UI proposal)

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Daniel,

before even more time passes by ... I'll try a short reply.

Am Freitag, den 18.11.2011, 23:09 +0100 schrieb Daniel Steyer: 
> Hi Christoph!
> 
> And thanks for the words of welcome.
> Wow, that's a long list of thinks, that are important for a design update.
> I thought, that it is much. But as much as here?
> You write "The interaction concept has to be worked out (at least 80%)."
> What do it means? That not everything works?

Yes and no at the same time. An interaction concept - even for small
part of the UI - can be really tough. You have to consider all operating
system platforms, different kinds of users and use cases, accessibility
needs, technical constraints (currently LibO is quite limited), and also
resources devs are able to spend.

>From experience I'd say: starting to code a concept when having only 30%
of required information is hard, since you'll have endless recursion
loops (fine for prototyping, but not developing). On the other hand,
defining 100% will keep us busy for a long time ... if you will ever
achieve 100%. Trust me, I've tried it several times and failed ;-))) So,
aiming for 80% and refining with the development was something that
worked very fine.

A good example for such an approach was:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboard/Writer_SpecialIndicators

Please don't get me wrong, that shouldn't hinder us to start working on
something ... I'd just like to point out that ideation with mockups is a
great thing, but we need more for the development.


> I think the hardest is - but IMHO one of the most important -, to make a
> interface, which is unique, and one which has recognition. Okay, bad
> example, but Windows Office have a more or less good, but unique design.

:-)

Personally, if we can get uniqueness amongst (more important to me)
productivity, then we deliver something being awesome.

> The icons of LO looks so glad, but on every PC or Mac it looks diverent.
> Probably I imagine it still too easy. What can be a first step, I can do?
> Make more thumbnails or write changes down?

I noticed that you've got some more ideas what to work on on the German
list :-) So if you're still interested, the best thing would be to pick
one specific idea (most probably an idea a developer would be interested
in, and we can agree on) and work it out in more detail. Then, chances
are much higher to get some people involved.

Ah, and Daniel, you might be interested in some of the recent activities
with the developers:
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-ux-advise/2011-November/thread.html

Cheers,
Christoph

> 2011/11/18 Christoph Noack 
> 
> > Hi Daniel!
> >
> > Did I already say "welcome to this list", I don't think so. So, "Welcome
> > to this list!" ;-)
> >
> > Am Freitag, den 18.11.2011, 21:38 +0100 schrieb Daniel Steyer:
> > [...]
> > > I see the android version from Mirek. It looks similar.
> > > I wonder, if there are plans in your team for make a new outfit for
> > desktop
> > > pcs or everything remains as it is now in general?
> >
> > That is an often raised question ... and the answer is not easy.
> >
> > First, if you look at LibreOffice 3.5 (the development version) there
> > are already some tiny but helpful / nice changes in comparison to the
> > recent OOo.
> >
> > For example:
> > http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/blog/archives/monthly/2011-06.html
> >
> > Or:
> > http://cedric.bosdonnat.free.fr/wordpress/?p=818
> >
> > And many more ... but of course that is not a complete new user
> > interface that greatly improves usability and visual design. Basically:
> >  * You need to know what users you have and what they want to do.
> >Currently, a first user survey has been done ... others may
> >follow.
> >  * The interaction concept has to be worked out (at least 80%).
> >You'll find some ideas (like yours) on this mailing list or in
> >other sources. But working it out, needs lots of care.
> >  * The concept needs to be tested / verified somehow (no _good_
> >idea how to do this whilst limiting the effort).
> >  * Before implementation, you need to remove clutter from the
> >today's LibreOffice. That's the "tiny things" I've talked
> >about ... and there are many more.
> >  * You need to "divide" the UI concept to make it possible to
> >handle the changes. Both for the development and for the
> >designers.
> >  * You need developers being able to work on such large changes
> >(and having enough resources). As you may know, many news devs
> >currently start with smaller tasks ... it takes time to do
> >larger changes.
> >  * Same for the visual designers ... only changing / updating all
> >the icons will take ages, since there are thousands of them.
> >
> > So, yes, we are thinking about improvements. But from my point-of-view,
> > we'll need to address to address smaller issues first. That cleans up
> 

Re: [libreoffice-design] Some Feedback on Citrus.

[alexander.wilms]

Hi,

since I just received Kévins mail, I now took the time to browse Mireks 
proposals more deeply and I have to agree, that's just what I'd like to see :).

There are many great things in those drafts, but I especially like are the 
color codes and the command reorganization. In addition to the new handling of 
headers this would make LOs UI much more comfortable to use. 

Another aspect I'd like to see integrated are those style groups, but in my 
opinion a little previw like in Word would be nice, maybe as a popout or that 
the styles get applied when hovering over each of them. In my opinion, there 
should be two selections though, one for the group style used (e.g. "My 
favorite selfmade style") and one for the formatting that gets applied (e.g. 
Heading 1, Table etc.). I'm not sure but maybe you've already adresses this 
aspect.

I generally like the idea of focusing on actual writing and letting the 
formatting be automated or taken care of, thats why I like the ability to 
export them and the new template manager, which could maybe even being 
integrated with the online repository, just like the fonts.

Still, there are some issues like flickering icons when hovering over them or 
flshing black background colors when editing a text in Impress. Those aren't 
immediately related to this proposal, but I hope this could be eliminated, too. 
Or have these issues already been adressed in the current development branch?

I am personally looking forward to the command reorg, hopefully we can start 
working this out very soon :)
Cheers

Alex

 On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:07:06 +0100 Kévin PEIGNOT 
 wrote  


2011/10/30 Astron 

> Hi everyone,
>
> a few days ago, Andrew asked for feedback on Mirek's Citrus proposal.
> So, here, I want to start a thread on what I/we like and what I/we
> don't like (about the desktop/laptop proposal), in the hope that it
> helps Mirek to refine his proposal. Please note, I am not a regular
> reader of Mirek's blog and my assumptions are based on the short
> descriptions from the wiki, so if anything on this list seems wrong to
> you, feel free to correct me.
> Here we go, structure is as on Mirek2's wiki page:
>
To gain time, I choosed to use the same structure.

>
> * Ellipsis menu:
> I like the idea and it looks much better (cleaner) than it does
> currently; for executing commands it is also more functional.
> Here's what I don't like: that you can customise your toolbar via
> drag-and-drop is not made visible at all; for users of accessibility
> solutions there seems to be no way to add or remove something.
>
I must say I agree with this. It's a great idea. Here a proposal of
solution : At the end of the toolbar, after the menu button, menu,
integrate an ellement with a "?" button. When a user click on it, a pop-up
appear with the tip, saying that drag'n-dropping is the way to proceed

* Page/slide handles:
> I like the idea (so much I opened a bug about it – fdo#38597). There's
> a lot to discuss, though, before this can be implemented (how it
> zooms, how it acts, etc.). Also, the proposal doesn't work at all for
> Calc (which Mirek explained, he uses so seldomly that he didn't
> include it in his proposals).
>
 Honestly I don't really see what is the point there. Do you have a
detailled article/page somewhere, I didn't find (I suppose I didn't
searched in the right place)


>
> * Continuously scrollable slides:
> Not a bad idea for the read-only mode. When editing a document,
> however, there will sometimes be the case that an image or other
> element would overlap into the next slide. What should LibO do then?
> Push the slide further below? Cut the element off in between the two
> slides? I'm sceptical.
>
I agree, I usually have some parts of my slides that are "out of the
slide", sometimes below, because it can be a movable picture that come half
from the bottom  SO personally, I think it's a bad idea.



> * Add page/slide:
> I can see this being very useful in Impress and Draw, but in those
> programs, I would probably put this button into the sidebar.
> For Writer, it would be similarly useful, but we'd also need more
> complexity: it'd need at least a "Add page" and an "Add Section"
> button (unless there is any way in which we can make those two
> commands the same).
>
> It's just great as it is in the mock-up. It's simple, and exactly were you
need it. But I think that even if this is a great point, It should stay in
the left insert toolbar too. (some people will search it there I think)


*Float bar:
>
I'm absolutely in ! Then in the case the element you select take all the
screen, maybe putting the in the top of the element : On the right by
default, with a button that switch it to the left if you want it there (or
maybe by "drag and dropping" the float bar from right to left ?). I don't
have time to make a mockup, but if you want one just ask I will try during
the week-end



> * Insert bar:
> T

Re: [libreoffice-design] Some Feedback on Citrus.

[Kévin PEIGNOT]

2011/10/30 Astron 

> Hi everyone,
>
> a few days ago, Andrew asked for feedback on Mirek's Citrus proposal.
> So, here, I want to start a thread on what I/we like and what I/we
> don't like (about the desktop/laptop proposal), in the hope that it
> helps Mirek to refine his proposal. Please note, I am not a regular
> reader of Mirek's blog and my assumptions are based on the short
> descriptions from the wiki, so if anything on this list seems wrong to
> you, feel free to correct me.
> Here we go, structure is as on Mirek2's wiki page:
>
To gain time, I choosed to use the same structure.

>
> * Ellipsis menu:
> I like the idea and it looks much better (cleaner) than it does
> currently; for executing commands it is also more functional.
> Here's what I don't like: that you can customise your toolbar via
> drag-and-drop is not made visible at all; for users of accessibility
> solutions there seems to be no way to add or remove something.
>
I must say I agree with this. It's a great idea. Here a proposal of
solution : At the end of the toolbar, after the menu button, menu,
integrate an ellement with a "?" button. When a user click on it, a pop-up
appear with the tip, saying that drag'n-dropping is the way to proceed

* Page/slide handles:
> I like the idea (so much I opened a bug about it – fdo#38597). There's
> a lot to discuss, though, before this can be implemented (how it
> zooms, how it acts, etc.). Also, the proposal doesn't work at all for
> Calc (which Mirek explained, he uses so seldomly that he didn't
> include it in his proposals).
>
 Honestly I don't really see what is the point there. Do you have a
detailled article/page somewhere, I didn't find (I suppose I didn't
searched in the right place)


>
> * Continuously scrollable slides:
> Not a bad idea for the read-only mode. When editing a document,
> however, there will sometimes be the case that an image or other
> element would overlap into the next slide. What should LibO do then?
> Push the slide further below? Cut the element off in between the two
> slides? I'm sceptical.
>
I agree, I usually have some parts of my slides that are "out of the
slide", sometimes below, because it can be a movable picture that come half
from the bottom  SO personally, I think it's a bad idea.



> * Add page/slide:
> I can see this being very useful in Impress and Draw, but in those
> programs, I would probably put this button into the sidebar.
> For Writer, it would be similarly useful, but we'd also need more
> complexity: it'd need at least a "Add page" and an "Add Section"
> button (unless there is any way in which we can make those two
> commands the same).
>
> It's just great as it is in the mock-up. It's simple, and exactly were you
need it. But I think that even if this is a great point, It should stay in
the left insert toolbar too. (some people will search it there I think)


*Float bar:
>
I'm absolutely in ! Then in the case the element you select take all the
screen, maybe putting the  in the top of the element : On the right by
default, with a button that switch it to the left if you want it there (or
maybe by "drag and dropping" the float bar from right to left ?). I don't
have time to make a mockup, but if you want one just ask I will try during
the week-end



> * Insert bar:
> This is an idea from Ooo 1.0, I think. I'd love to know why it was
> abandoned, then, because it probably is a good idea..?
>
Personally I always use it, and in the left of the screen, just as in your
proposal. Too useful ! So I don't see why it has been abandonnated. Maybe
it wasn't used enough according the "clic-map".



> * Live preview:
>
If it means updating the whole document I think it's a bad idea (I suppose
it would need too much resource). But if it's in a "preview box", then, I'm
in. One think that I don't like today is that in the format toolbar, the
fonts are described by there name, no preview. This is the little start of
a "live preview".



> * Color-coded icons:
>
Good idea, I think your color scheme proposal is great. Then, I think we
should brainstorm about it : for me, Red means *"Hy, I need attention" *,
so maybe this color shouldn't be used ?

More of that, I'm not sure that this is so useful : The icons concerning
text shoud appear only when text is selected, same with images, videos...
what do you think ?

PS : Re thinking the thing : I was wrong : you can select zones with both
pictures and audio



> * Reduced standard toolbar:
>
I almost agree, except that I don't understand where you would put
print/export in this case ? I personnaly use these two options every time
(I export to PDF every 30 minutes because of problems I had with odt files
in the past)



> * Drop-down buttons:
>
No special thought. To be honest I don't know if it's a good or bad idea.



> * Sorting out commands:
> Good principles, basically, but probably too rough to be usable in
> their current form. Point two (no greyed-out buttons) is contradictory
> to the reasoning