Difference between revisions of "User Experience/ToDo/Competitor Software"
Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
* Apple iWorks | * Apple iWorks | ||
* Microsoft Office | * Microsoft Office | ||
+ | * IBM Lotus Symphony | ||
* various web-pages | * various web-pages | ||
* specific controls: | * specific controls: | ||
Line 83: | Line 84: | ||
If more toolbar-like UI is desired, then there's [http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/mac/iwork/2007/features/iwork_features_contextualformatbar_20070807_r640-10cie.mov Contextual Format Bar] (Quicktime) | If more toolbar-like UI is desired, then there's [http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/mac/iwork/2007/features/iwork_features_contextualformatbar_20070807_r640-10cie.mov Contextual Format Bar] (Quicktime) | ||
− | + | === Extension Manager === | |
+ | Firefox 3's extension manager has a search box, so the user can search and install a extension direct for the program. This is very easy to use and very productive. | ||
[[Category:User Experience|To-Do/Competitor Software]] | [[Category:User Experience|To-Do/Competitor Software]] | ||
[[Category:To-Do|Usability]] | [[Category:To-Do|Usability]] |
Revision as of 01:25, 23 June 2008
|
---|
Quick Navigation Team Communication Activities |
Contents
Intro
The aim of this page is to provide an analysis of useful features from competitor software.
Competitor Software
- Adobe InDesign CS3
- Adobe Acrobat Professional
- Apple iWorks
- Microsoft Office
- IBM Lotus Symphony
- various web-pages
- specific controls:
- Adobe Type Manager: group fonts
- ... please expand
Useful Features
Table Styles
Virtually every table on the net uses the following specific design:
Design
- header row: a background color is set
- table-rows:
- two alternating backgrounds
- usually NO hard-borders, but usually light borders
- highlight current row: interactive programs (aka web) implement this feature, too
- slightly rounded corners: sometimes a pretty cheap but visually pleasing effect
Competitor Software
- virtually every web table, including the OOo and Mozilla issue-lists use these web-proven designs.
- Adobe InDesign CS3:
- Be more productive -> Full featured tables paragraph:
- flash demo: see the whole demo
Usability
- Writer: implement such a table style (NO issue yet filed)
- Calc: implement a Spreadsheet-Table View, see issue 78181
- including different header style, alternating background for data-rows and highlight current row
- Impress: highlight current row/ current area, see issue 79882
Styles & Themes
- iWork: professional looking styles & themes out of the box
- MS Office 2007: also professional looking styles & themes out of the box
- Using these two products you have to almost struggle to create ugly documents
- No confusion caused by multiple simultaneous pragmas (strong manual editing support vs styles based)
- Themes format styles automatically, which means extremely easy switching of the whole look
- OOo is very poor on this area!
Side-by-Side Difference between 2 Documents
Many web-programs allow displaying side-by-side differences for 2 text-streams.
Design
- compute differences between 2 versions of a document (or even 2 completely different documents)
- choose difference-sensitivity: text-only, other-objects, formats, ...
- display the 2 pages side-by-side, when issue 1598 gets implemented.
Competitor Software
- Adobe Acrobat Professional implements this feature
- it does a great job (including +/- formatting), even though pdf is such a poor format when it comes to page structure
- various web-programs/diff's: including mediawiki/wikipedia and many more
- various text-editors
- the BLAST-program: see the ncbi BLAST page
Usability
See issue 81526 for further details.
Context sensitivity
- Please add... !
Toolbars and tool dialogs
Inspector (Apple iWork)
Apple's iWork has a concept of "Inspector", which is context sensitive, but with static set of tabs/controls.
It's not a toolbar, but a floating window with tabs. See formatting document movie (Quicktime)
So for example you can select one or more graphical shapes (and tex boxes) and set from the inspector their X/Y position on page or their width and height. Also colors for any object (border/fill) can be changed etc.
Contextual Format Bar (Apple iWork)
If more toolbar-like UI is desired, then there's Contextual Format Bar (Quicktime)
Extension Manager
Firefox 3's extension manager has a search box, so the user can search and install a extension direct for the program. This is very easy to use and very productive.