> Menus are a tool for browsing through the functionality of an > application and rearrangig the menu elements is counter productive. But > for other UI elements, especially those that consume more screen space, > it is a useful concept to reduce clutter. >
The first thing that I do on a new OOo install is adjust the toolbars to my liking. If something needs to be described to me, it is much easier to say "Edit -> Paste" then "the ninth icon on the second toolbar from the right". > But even with this preselection of toolbars there are still too much > toolbars in some situations. Consider the case of a user editing a list > in a table cell. Here it might be possible to either work on the text > attributes, the list attributes or the cell or table attributes. Showing > toolbars for all of them all will create the toolbar mess whe currently > have in OOo. Showing only one of them will create another problem: which > of them might suits the user best is pure speculation. So the program > must select one by educated guessing, but it's essential to allow user > invervention to overrule this decision. > > In OOo 1.x we showed the table toolbar by default in that situation, but > we had a small blue triangle at the right end of the toolbar where the > user could "rotate" the toolbar content between the three possible sets > (text, list, table). As a "special service" the last selected set was > remembered and restored in case the user again entered this context. > Why not let them all show at the user's discretion? Maybe the user is working with both the list and the table, in an effort to get the formating just right. Also, I often find new functionality from the toolbars. I would like to see what options I have. > So, please cool down and think about the concept that shall be > implemented, not how it looks in a prototype that is barely more than a > fake. > What exactly are the arguments against the Microsoft Ribbon? If we know what the currently-perceived negative connotations of the Ribbon design are, then the OOo Ribbon could be engineered to avoid those pitfalls. -- Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
