2009/8/7 AG <[email protected]> > M Henri Day wrote: > >> I think most of us can agree that the OOo GUI is getting a bit long in the >> tooth, but I'm not sure that everybody wants a needed update to tread the >> primorose path taken by Microsoft Office. List members can judge for >> themselvs on the following site (http://preview.tinyurl.com/mobp2y ) and >> post comments to the Sun developers.... >> >> Henri >> >> >> > Thanks for the alert Henri. Obliged. > > I've left my comments on the blog page - and it seems that I am weighing in > with many other commentators: > > 1. Use resources (scarce everywhere) to make the entire suite as bug-free > as possible: i.e. get it to really work before wasting (again, scarce!) > resources on pretty-printing the UI, especially if this pretty-printing > comes at the risk of potential legal action and the waste of screen real > estate. > > 2. I neither find this so-called "ribbon"-look attractive nor ergonomic/ > intuitive. Why do the icons need to be so BIG for relatively minor > functions/ operations? Rather enable a better system to dock toolbars into > and make greater use of the side-frame, for example. > > At the very least, if the developers (Oracle/ whomever) are going to push > this, please allow the long-term user and supporter of OOo to retain the > plain, but eminently more functional and intuitive UI. I am not using OOo > because I want pretty UIs; I use it because it does what I want it to do in > a reliable way, which suggests to me that it is good code. Additionally, it > is Open Source which I ethically endorse, and poses a viable and functional > alternative to the Microsoft hegemony, which I support. > If the OOo UI developers feel so strongly about an update on its > appearance, provide it as an optional "skin", in which standardise the > controls or symlink them or whatever magic you amazing coders can weave, but > it ain't broke so please don't "fix" it! > > Pretty please with a cherry on top?! > > AG
This must be one of the least typical discussion threads ever posted on this forum - all the respondents seem to be agreed (!) on the need for OOo to concentrate scarce resources on crunching bugs and not on a general GUI remake - substance before surface as it were (just the opposite of the legacy suite). This is not to say that modifications to the GUI are not needed ; as someone who often has to use different languages in one and the same document, I'd very much appreciate being able to switch languages, spell checking, etc, directly in a little box on the toolbar (as can be done on the 1997 - 2003 versions of Windows Word), rather than the present, rather cumbersome procedure. But we certainly don't need any ribbons ! Hope the developers will keep in mind the points of view expressed here, rather than dismissing them as the meanderings of geeks resistent to change.... Henri
