Revision as of 21:09, 8 September 2007

Introduction

Notes2 is a new project started as one accepted project in Google's Summer of Code 2007 (GSOC). It will be also worked on after the GSOC is over.

Notes 2 addresses the revision of the notes functionality in OpenOffice.org Writer to improve its usability and accessibility. Main goal is to resolve the main issues of the current implementation, which are reported by users. Furthermore, the notes implementation should at least provide the functionality of the competitors in the same class. In long term considerations, it is intended to consistently implement the notes functionality in the other OpenOffice.org modules. The main target audience is the Small-Business-User.

Please note that the information in this Wiki is work in progress and may change.

The team working on the feature (in alphabetical order):

Requirements

Scope of the Work

• Provide direct and easy editing of notes to get rid of the old notes editing window.
• Establish good accessibility for disabled users by providing keyboard shortcuts or using appropriate colors.
• Integrate the new functions in the existing functionality, e.g. the OpenOffice.org Navigator.
• Respect the needs for advanced text editing, e.g. spell checking, rich-text formatting or sorting/filtering of notes.
• Create both fresh and usable visual design of the notes.

More detailed requirements have been collected and will be published here later.

Issues and Requests for Enhancements

The work will address the issues and request for enhancements: 767, 1981, 4964, 5487, 6193, 9776, 23465, 32232, 45788, 48150, 62625, 63759, 74157, 61644 and 80135.

You can use a Issue Tracker query to see all issues.

Competitive Analysis

During the development we did some investigation on software applications of competitors.

MS Word 2003	Microsoft Word 2003 (word processor) "White paper background" gets extended; doesn't look nice. Allows to attach notes to a text selection. Allows spell checking in comments. Round corners.
Apple Pages	Apple Pages 2 (word processor) Nice looking color, color gradient makes it even nicer. Connectors partially barely visible, no anchors; this together makes it hard to see where a note is attached to. Has at least some rich text editing capabilities. Author/Date above the text, closer looks disturbing. Notes can also be attached to pictures. Notes have a "sidebar" like common background in light gray; darker than the document and lighter than the typical window background. This reduces the contrast and mediates between the different areas.
TextMaker 2006	Softmaker Textmaker 2006 (word processor) Word clone but separates the "notes" area better from the text.

Other Ideas

(Do we have any other ideas we like to share? Navigator, Send via E-Mail, ...)

Proposals/Discussion

Look of the Notes Area of the Document Window

(proposal will be provided soon)

Design and Look of the Notes Itself

(proposal will be provided soon)

Look of the Connectors and Anchors

(proposal will be provided soon)

Layout algorithm for Overlapping Notes

(proposal will be provided soon)

Colors for the Notes

Color sets have been compared with existing ones (OOo Redlining, MS Word 2003, Galaxy palette for new OOo icons, Chart color palette). Checked criteria:

• unobtrusive but appealing colors that (as a set) go together well
• how distinguishable are the colors for people with visual impairments (inabilities or weaknesses in seeing some particular colors)
• how readable is text written on a background using one of these colors
• how do the connectors and borders look in contrast to the note itself

Roadmap

The functionality will be implemented step-by-step. A first release of the revised notes functionality is planned for OpenOffice.org 2.4 around February 2008. A first release of a specification draft can be expected at the end of August 2007.

Functionality Expected in the First Release

The basic functionality which is present in the current version of OpenOffice.org will be available in OpenOffice.org 2.4. It is planned to implement:

• Viewing and editing notes next to the document page
• Accessibility support
• The functionality which is already available in current version of OpenOffice.org
• Improved integration with the Writer change tracking feature (e.g. use the same colors for the authors of the document)
• Time information for the notes (besides the already available date information)
• Online help
• Support for the OpenOffice.org Testtool

At risk for the first version:

• Rich-text editing (e.g. bold text, numerations)

Functionality Expected in Later Releases

• Improved printing
• Search for text inside of notes
• Improved integration with the OpenOffice.org Navigator
• Improved PDF export of notes

Status

The following table lists the topics currently worked on.

Implementation Considerations

Choice of Implementation

The implementation has to be able to handle at least the following items:

• scrollable

• able to handle richtext to include text with attributes

• spell checking

• different position, sizes and background colors

• able to be drawable inside the right margin

After discussion with several people, there seem to be two different possibilities:

Both implementation will use the EditEngine as well as an OverlayObject for a connection line from anchor point to the note itself

Update: Decision was made to go with a seperate window first

Collection of Topics to be Considered

Several questions related to the appearance and usability have to be decided:

• main color of notes
  • Suggestion: natural color of physical postit notes)

• when to show vertical scrollbars if all notes need it due to a full page: if we show them,it could be confusing to the user and could look alien, if we don't, user might not be aware of the full length and miss text

• what about meta information such as date and author
  • permantly inside the note
  • in the tooltip
  • inside the navigator
  • titlebar

• different colors or intensity when editing a certain note

• appearance of connection line from anchor point to note
  • could be a dotted line turning into a full line while editing or always a full line
  • flashing object

Further Thoughts

There are several items which are nice to have, but will eventually not make it into the first release:

• attaching comments not only to a text position, but also a selection of text. As the ODF format for notes does not allow this currently, there are two possibilities:
  • use ODF metadata, if version 1.2 is approved
  • in collaboration with other ODF implementations, change the format of notes inside the ODF format
• improved printing of notes, including print preview

Mockups and Screenshots

File:Notes mockup001.png Notes with "point" type anchor	Mockup also shows: spell checking display of author and date scrollbars for large notes different colors for different authors moving of notes if they would overlap at their default positions
File:Notes mockup002.png Notes with "selection" type anchor	Mockup also shows: rich text formatting visualization of currently edited note
First prototype in Writer	It shows: rich text formatting visualization of currently edited note spell checking context menu for editing the text

Decisions Made

The following list covers some of the decision which may be of general interest:

• Naming: We will keep the name "notes" instead of using the term "comments" which is used in Microsoft Word.