Notes2 Design Visualization of Focus

From Apache OpenOffice Wiki
Revision as of 22:25, 9 December 2007 by ChristophNoack (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

< Back to the Notes2 main page

Summary

tbd

Rationale

It should be possible for the user to clearly identify or to distinguish:

  • Notes Windows that belong to a certain Notes Anchor which is selected
  • a currently edited Notes Window
  • the currently edited Document Text

Assumptions

tbd

Proposed Designs

Proposal "Adjust Intensity of the Text Color"

The picture shows the visualization of the focus (e.g. when selected, edited) in simplified Notes Windows: The color intensity of the text in the left Notes Window is decreased to reduce the distraction of the user from working with the main document text in Writer.

The colors that identify different authors should not be altered, therefore no transparency is used for Notes Windows' background. The use of transparency for the Notes Windows background color could have a negative impact on the ability of the user to differentiate the - sometimes similar - colors.

Notes2 2007-09-04 ColorsForTheNotes FocusVisualization ForWiki.png

Proposal “Highlighting When Hovering The Anchor”

The following proposal show a moderate animation of the Notes Windows when the mouse pointer hovers the Notes Anchor. The goal of this kind of highlighting is to guide the view of the user towards the Note Window. So the user is not "forced" to follow the thin connector lines. This kind of highlighting is shown only one time.

Advantages:

  • The view of the user is guided towards the Note Window.
  • After showing the animation, the Note Window is shown in the common look.

Disadvantages:

  • Maybe some users will get a bit annoyed.
Please open the graphic to view the full animation

Proposal "Increased Shadow"

The following proposals show a slightly increased shadow at the Notes Window when the mouse pointer hovers the Notes Anchor or the Notes Window. To increase the effect of the shadow, another mockup adds a bottom border line. The general presentation of the focus, e.g. the drawn through Note Connector Line, a slightly changed Note Anchor and the more intense text, are kept in these examples.

Please use the graphics in the mockup section of the Notes2 main page for reference. The mockup "viewing the notes" can be used as reference for no focus. The mockup "editing the notes" uses a more distinctive shadow at the Note Window and removes the one from the document document page to visualize the editing of the Note Window.

Advantages:

  • It remains the color concept of the Note Window all the time (important for identifying the author)
  • It is a very subtle effect and fits into the concept of shadow for editing the notes

Disadvantages:

  • It is a very subtle effect and may be overlooked
  • The effect is only visible at the bottom of the Note Window. For long notes, the bottom may be hidden by the current viewport area. (This is true if we ignore changed connector line).
Sligthly more shadow
Sligthly more shadow and additional line at the bottom

Proposal "Simple Color Change of the Note Window Background"

Because of the low implementation effort, Max proposed another kind of focus visualization. If mouse pointer hovers the Notes Anchor or the Notes Windows, or the user edits the Note User Data inside the Note Window, then background of the Note Window is changed.

The following background colors could be used:

  • bright background color (e.g. change the yellow gradient of Author 1 to a bright yellow)
  • dark background color (e.g. change the yellow gradient of Author 1 to a darker yellow)
  • slightly darker background gradient

Advantages:

  • Is known by a large competitor (please refer to the comment below)

Disadvantages:

  • If the color is changed, the Note Window will not clearly represent the corresponding Author (Reason: Different background colors/styles in different Note Windows will refer to the same author.)
  • If a darker background is used, then it is more difficult to read the Note User Data (Reason: lower contrast between background color and foreground text color; please refer to the comment below)

Please note: The application Microsoft Word shows a rather bad behavior in this case, because it darkens the color of the notes background. That leads to less contrast in the case the note is viewed or edited by. This should be avoided under all circumstances.

Selected Design

tbd

Implementation

tbd

Code Changes

tbd

Outstanding Issues

tbd

Personal tools