Platform UI Differences

Contributors

• Mox Soini: Mox

Introduction and History

This page is still a stub. Will fill later

Complementary and Related projects

The possible future UI Layout work is complementary and not overlapping with:

• UI Layout
• Graphics Rendering re-work: OOo Canvas
• UNO Runtime environment
• ODF Toolkit and
• OOo Runner Separate Apps on Mac OS X

Goals

Document the differences in Platform specific UIs (e.g. Aqua/Mac OS X, Aero/Vista, Gnome/Linux, KDE/Linux Win32/Windows XP).

The focus is in stuff expressed in GUI guidelines (e.g. Aqua HIG, Aero xxx, Gnome UI SG,...) and stuff that is standard or preferred way of doing things, as exemplified by high quality applications on each platform (e.g. Apple Pages (iWork) on Mac OS X, MS Word (Vista Office), Abiword on Gnome)

Differences

The following lists the typical applications used on various platforms and the comparison screenshots from OpenOffice.org. The aim is to show that while there are similarities in these platform-specific applications, and much of the actual functionality is quite similar, the actual UI (i.e. how you accomplish those functions) has differences both on surface and in deeper levels.

Stuff to add (Mac OS X):

• ok/cancel buttons: ok on the right side
• ...

Platform specific UI differences

	Mac OS X (Aqua)	Windows Vista (Aero)	Ubuntu Gnome Linux
Application Menu
Location Where the menu is located	System wide menu in the top of the screen. Contents of the menu depend on which is the active window	Vista Office (Ribbon UI): Merging of menus and toolbars, resulting in tabbed toolbars. Vista (Aero): In the top of the application window.	In the top of the application window
Icons	No icons in the menu	Ribbon: No (regular) menus. Aero: No icons in the menu	typically(?) icons in the menu
Preferences Where the settings are located and what they are called	Preferences... in the "Application menu" e.g. Pages -menu, accessible with CMD-,	Options... in Tools -menu??	Preferences in Edit -menu
Toolbars
Icons The default setting	10-15 icons (large: 30x30px) with text underneath	Ribbon: three sizes. Amounts per tab - Main actions: 3-11 icons, (large: 35x35px) with text underneath. Important actions: 3-19 icons, (small: 20x20px) with text on the right side. Other actions: 0-29 icons, (small: 20x20px) without text.	10-15 icons (large: 30x30px)? with text underneath
Customization How the toolbars are customized	Main toolbars are customizable through right clicking, selecting Customize... and then drag-and-dropping. Much of the toolbar functionality in Inspector -tool instead.	Ribbon: Main toolbars are NOT customizable. The Quicklaunch toolbar is customisable from its toolbar and from "Customize" in ??? > Options -menu. Shows a dialog.	Not editable / occasionally the same style as Mac OS X. NOTE: Also in Mozilla applications
Style What the toolbar icons/buttons look like	No surrounding 3D "button" around the icon, colors used sparingly, as few metaphors as possible. Icons have subtle shadow.	???	No button borders, richer colors, icons in 3D perspective
Highlight What the toolbar icons/buttons look like, when clicked	No highlight No visual change in the button	Light-bulb highlight buttons look like they are shining	Highlights with dark color to show the full button area
Dialogs (and Sheets)
Customize Toolbar What kind of UI is used?	Opens a Sheet	Opens a Dialog	N/A or Opens a Sheet
Workflow (Task vs. other)
Interaction styles
Design goals
Target users What kind of people are the applications designing for?	Normal people who want to do well designed documents with good layout. Not just word processing	Word processing for the average Joe, lots of functionality	Usability important, cleaned up UI
Templates What is the purpose of the templates?	To learn/get ideas for good style/design, professional quality	To have all the templates for all the possible occasions	Get the templates you want from the internet repositories