Re: More general stuff (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout)
Hi all, just a short question ... did anybody pick the shadow topic in the meantime? Still people interested in doing that (which would be great...) If not, I'll offer to start working on that within the next days. Cheers, Christoph Am Dienstag, den 08.03.2011, 21:53 +0100 schrieb Sébastien Le Ray: I think we should close the shadows chapter before starting on notes. Do I implement a 4 borders shadow or may I apply the same design to Draw and Impress (we have to maintain some consistency between modules, I don't think it's a good thing to have a specific shadow for Writer). -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: More general stuff (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout)
Christoph Noack wrote: To be honest, I'm currently relying on released versions. I heard that it is planned to establish nightly builds, but I fear this work isn't finished. I also know that there is some tinderbox, but - again, as far as I know - it just continuously checks for compiler issues. At OOo, we could use buildbots to create installsets on demand for certain Child Workspaces. Hi Chris, all, this is indeed being worked on - we have nighly builds for one platform (Mac) already, stay tuned for the other: http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/MacOS/master/ Cheers, -- Thorsten -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout
Hi Thorsten, all, On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:25:32 +0100 Thorsten Behrens t...@documentfoundation.org wrote: Bjoern Michaelsen wrote: For a developer interested in working on a certain topic it would be easier to get a final voting like The Design Team asks you to add a 8 px wide blurred shadow in grey transparency to all borders of the document. If the zoom factor reduces the space between two sheets to less than 16px, the overlapping areas of the shadow should be cut off. This should apply to every area of LibreOffice, where document borders are visible, namely Writer, Impress, Draw, XML forms [others not yet searched for]. I am afraid you are very wrong there. It is not at all easier -- it is a lot harder -- and a lot less fun (the stuff that motivates volunteers). Speaking for myself here - I'd consider it *helpful* to get direction on those details. For me, it's not telling me how to code, but what to put into all those magic constant values needed for UI - I'd otherwise would need to trial-and-error those out, which is non-fun (for me). Yes, of course working together is best. What bugged me here is that the bug on fdo was reopened before there was actually a consensus on how it can be done better. And the discussion about the bug was not even linked there. Keep in mind that closing a bug is a great boon for the developer -- dont take it away from him two days after he proudly closed it without a clear message on what to do better. Besides, at least those bike-shed-color issues, are usually trivially fixable after-the-fact ... ;) Exactly. Christoph applauded Sébastien for staying calm through all of this. I have to agree and ask others to follow his example: If you see some changes on master that you do not like: dont panic, create a well founded argument and then come forward with it. Best Regards, Bjoern -- https://launchpad.net/~bjoern-michaelsen -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout
Hi Björn, all, Bjoern Michaelsen schrieb: Hi Michael, Christoph, designers and developers [...] However, it is a such a common issue, that it even has a name Parkinson's Law of Triviality or colour of the bikeshed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality So we should not be ashamed that it happens, only be prepared to handle it well. For developers this means that you cant make everybody happy and you should not dispair if not everybody loves your implementation on first sight. I agree with you that the design modification here is an example of lower priority. But the way one of the main developer seems to disregard non-coding community members is independent from this question. This is nearly the same position Oracle developers showed when handling proposals and requests by the rest of the community. I can't stand this attitude any longer - sorry. Best regards Bernhard -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: More general stuff (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout)
Hi Sébastien! Am Mittwoch, den 09.03.2011, 07:57 +0100 schrieb Sébastien Le Ray: Does one of you have a test build of LibreOffice or do you use released versions only? Since I'm going to make some more modifications to the design, I think this would be easier for us if some of the design team members had a master build to test modifications and give feedbacks. Screenshots are not always the best way to get a good feeling. To be honest, I'm currently relying on released versions. I heard that it is planned to establish nightly builds, but I fear this work isn't finished. I also know that there is some tinderbox, but - again, as far as I know - it just continuously checks for compiler issues. At OOo, we could use buildbots to create installsets on demand for certain Child Workspaces. So, do you know another kind of access to the master build? Or is there the need to build it on our side ... personally, I have a VM installation to run any Linux build (usually betas). Might this help somehow? Mmh, it seems I delayed investigation on that issue a bit too long ... Thanks for your help! Cheers, Christoph -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout
Hi Bernhard, On Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:16:48 +0100 Bernhard Dippold bernh...@familie-dippold.at wrote: Hi Björn, all, Bjoern Michaelsen schrieb: Hi Michael, Christoph, designers and developers [...] However, it is a such a common issue, that it even has a name Parkinson's Law of Triviality or colour of the bikeshed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality So we should not be ashamed that it happens, only be prepared to handle it well. For developers this means that you cant make everybody happy and you should not dispair if not everybody loves your implementation on first sight. I agree with you that the design modification here is an example of lower priority. Priority is not the point. Please have a look at that wiki page. It is more about that this (most small design issues) are something most people have an opinion about, regardless of if they are designers, developers, both or neither. But the way one of the main developer seems to disregard non-coding community members is independent from this question. No, I dont think that it is correct to put it that way: This is _not_ an developer/nondeveloper issue. We currently have a very open model for contributors on master and as I understand it, we want to keep it that way to allow others to join in easily -- this is one of the foundations of TDF/LO. This is not only the case for design issues, but for all topics. If somebody has something he thinks of as a great improvement, he can commit that to master. If it breaks stuff, it will be reverted. If it improves stuff, even if it does not make things perfect it stays in. If there is a plan how to make things even better, that of course should be done -- but you will not ever force volunteers to do it. It just wont work (unless you pay them). Nobody -- developer or nondeveloper -- should be able to block anybody from doing a Good Thing(tm), just because he wants a Better Thing(tm). And dont think that developers are so much more special than nondevelopers: Even if I had twenty fulltime developers at my disposal (in addition to myself), I would not get everything done I would love to see changed. There is always more. I see commits fly by every day that I would have done different. But the only relevant question is: Is it at least better than before?. From your other mail: For a developer interested in working on a certain topic it would be easier to get a final voting like The Design Team asks you to add a 8 px wide blurred shadow in grey transparency to all borders of the document. If the zoom factor reduces the space between two sheets to less than 16px, the overlapping areas of the shadow should be cut off. This should apply to every area of LibreOffice, where document borders are visible, namely Writer, Impress, Draw, XML forms [others not yet searched for]. I am afraid you are very wrong there. It is not at all easier -- it is a lot harder -- and a lot less fun (the stuff that motivates volunteers). To give you a car analogy (which are always broken, but anyway), the statement above would be like telling a taxi driver not where you want to go, but which route to take, when to changes lanes, when to go faster or slower and when to change gears. You can do that with a taxi driver, but he likely will not like it. You better should not try it with a driver, who volunteered to get you where you wanted to go. On the first ride, you should mostly just go along with what he does (unless he drives you of a cliff). Before the second ride, prepare to suggest improvements to him. If he is a reasonable guy, he will listen to you -- esp. if you have a record of being right about these things. Best Regards, Bjoern -- https://launchpad.net/~bjoern-michaelsen -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
[libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout
Le Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:59:19 +, Michael Meeks michael.me...@novell.com a écrit : Hi Sebastien, On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 23:42 +0100, Sébastien Le Ray wrote: Here is a complete patch for fdo#31251. It adds a smooth shadow to the page. Wow - it is really pretty indeed :-) I just pushed it. Nice work ! can you confirm is it LGPLv3+/MPL ? Incidentally, it would be lovely to have the post-it notes, not only to have a border, but to have curved corners at the bottom, but not the top, so they really look like sticky notes. ie. take a sticky note an stick it flat on your desk, and you see the effect [ both bottom corners curl slightly ] ;-) possibly that will require some (manual?) re-coloring action of the bitmaps, which might be slightly painful, though I guess it is just a matter of keeping a constant AlphaMask bitmap around, and merging it into a BitmapEx with a Bitmap (of the same size obviously) 'Erase'd with the correct color for the note. During its development, I found that SwRect::_Intersection (used in page margin painting) returns negative height/width if the two rectangles do not overlap. I don't know if it is the expected behavior or a bug. If it's a bug I guess I can provide a patch. Ho hum - probably a difficult one to audit for, to check every location to ensure they are not depending on this. Possibly it makes the impl. faster too (?). Well worth documenting though in the API. Thanks ! Michael. Hi, this simple shadow patch has generated a long discussion on Libreoffice-design. Some people don't like the color, some people don't like the amount of blur, some people want no shadow at all, some people want a 4 borders shadow. So here is a second patchset that tries to address the first three critics : - It adds a configuration option (in Appearance category) to set shadow color. It currently defaults to gray but I'm sure design team will find a more sensitive default : - It adds a configuration option to disable shadow; - It doesn't use bitmaps directly anymore but an alpha mask, so if people want to try another blur effect, they just have to edit images.zip:/sw/res/page-*-shadow-mask.png These are black white image. Black amount determines transparency, white being fully transparent. Here again, I'm sure that design people will find a better default. Only constraints are 1x10px for bottom shadow, 10x10px for corner and 10x1px for right shadow. I'll let design team play and discuss with that, when they agree on a default, I'll provide an additional patch to take it into account. Note: I had to perform a make dev-install for settings to be correctly saved. Regards Sébastien -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
[libreoffice-design] Re: [PUSHED] fdo#31251 - Improve default page layout
Hi Sebastien, On Tue, 2011-03-08 at 09:09 +0100, Sébastien Le Ray wrote: this simple shadow patch has generated a long discussion on Libreoffice-design. Some people don't like the color, some people don't like the amount of blur, some people want no shadow at all, some people want a 4 borders shadow. So here is a second patchset that tries to address the first three critics : So - firstly, this -sounds- like an interaction disaster :-) I hope it is not of course, but it looks like this: We finally get a competant, enthusiastic, motivated developer - actually fixing our horrible user interface problems: and he does some great improvement - and our design guys apparently emit a long stream of complaining left and right ! That, if true, is hard to excuse. We need to greet new guys with a torrent of encouragement instead I think. I hope I'm wrong - I don't read the design list because I can't interact there [ Reply-To: mangling sucks ;-] - but this paragraph smells problematic. I think we need to remember that the perfect is the sworn enemy of the good - so lets get good across the code, before we get perfect. Perhaps we should move all programmer interaction on design / UI topics onto this list, or a new Freedesktop one - and leave the 'design' list as more of a 'discuss' type forum. Sebastien, I hear the complaints; and I read your nice patches (and just pushed them[1]), but did you really want to do all of this ? If not, I'll revert what you don't like. Personally, I would have preferred you to move on to some other fun / high-impact win, rather than getting bogged down in random details here ;-) You did a great job learning how the .src / etc. madness works though :-) good stuff there, it is not completely obvious. - It adds a configuration option .. - It adds a configuration option to disable shadow; In my experience of user interaction - adding configuration options is a cowardly, and silly way to deal with disagreements about defaults :-) [ not your fault, the design team's issue; check out the settings dialog in any Apple product ]. IMHO we badly need to hide / remove tons of our pointless configuration options - which incidentally also slow down program execution, slow down our startup, bloat our user interface, make testing harder, and thus our code buggier and so on. [ At least, I'm willing to argue that in detail but ... ;-] Personally, I liked what Sebastian did originally - it was sufficiently better to be really nice; was there any real need to bloat the feature, further complicate the code, and discuss this minutia to death ? do I really need a green page shadow ? I'll let design team play and discuss with that, when they agree on a default, I'll provide an additional patch to take it into account. Thanks for your patience Sebastien, I'd just recommend moving onto something else at speed ;-) Note: I had to perform a make dev-install for settings to be correctly saved. Ah yes - this is a mis-feature of linkoo - that we don't link the configuration data (possibly we cannot if it is processed in some way - but perhaps we can do better; cf. solenv/bin/linkoo). Anyhow - nice patches; but a pain to commit (lots of modules) can you go through the process here and mail me the bug # please ? then hopefully you can push your changes yourself: http://freedesktop.org/wiki/AccountRequests Thanks ! Michael. [1] - I'd still feel happier if we could have the bitmaps as member variables somewhere, rather than -- michael.me...@novell.com , Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
