Difference between revisions of "Printerpullpages"

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Revision as of 10:17, 13 June 2009

Introduction

A new printing UI should give us better performance, more ease of use and overall more customer satisfaction. New features like the instant preview in a print dialog as well as unified N-Up printing for all applications will bring OOo's print experience more up to current standards. Additionally system integration can benefit by making use of native print dialogs (for which the MacOSX implementation will be the prime example). The development is done in the CWS printerpullpages.

Comments, questions or feedback is welcomed on the ui@ux.openoffice.org mailing list.

Please note that the wiki page is under heavy development. We hope to provide more information (requirements and constraints, specifications, mockups, ...) in the next few days. Thanks for you patience!

Role Name E-Mail Address
I-Team Lead Philipp Lohmann (PL) Philipp.Lohmann@Sun.COM
Developer

Philipp Lohmann (PL)
Andre Fischer (AF)
Thomas Lange (TL)
Niklas Nebel (NN)

Philipp.Lohmann@Sun.COM
Andre.W.Fischer@Sun.COM
Thomas.Lange@Sun.COM
Niklas.Nebel@Sun.COM

Quality Assurance Hasan Ilter (HI) Hasan.Ilter@Sun.COM
Documentation tbd tbd
User Experience

Christoph Noack
Frank Löhmann

christophnoack@openoffice.org
Frank.Loehmann@Sun.COM

Requirements

Scope of the Work

tbd

Current State of Printing in OpenOffice.org 3.0

Features and Options Revisited

Currently, there are many options in OpenOffice.org with regard to printing. When looking at the technical constraints (e.g. native dialogs vs. system independent dialog, application settings vs. operating system settings), the space restrictions, ... it seems to make sense to have a look at the current options. Is each option really necessary, can it be well understood? Most of the data is currently provided in several Calc documents which get (hopefully) updated regularly.

  • File:Current Dialogs ListOfAllPrintDialogElements.ods: List of all printing dialog elements and options with regard to their meaning, understandability and necessity. It also includes developer comments, which I have to thank for. Worth reading and commenting ;-)
  • File:Current UserFeedbackData Impress PrintingAnalysis.ods: Based on the very first first User Feedback Data there is a short analysis considering Impress. Please note that the User Feedback system still has the drawback that some of the sources of function requests can not be identified. Since OpenOffice.org works very efficiently, some of the function calls are handled independent from the module (e.g. the number for Printing Dialog function calls is for all modules, not only Impress). The rest of the application specific data (e.g. "Print: Page name") is specific for e.g. Impress and Draw. I hope that I'm able to provide similar documents for the other modules (Writer, Calc) in the near future.


Screenshots

This section is intended to show some of the places where OpenOffice.org provides functionality or options concerning printing. You may see that it is not just related to the printing dialog, so that we have to keep an eye on consistency. And if you look very closely, the current user interface isn't that consistent and (maybe) understandable, so please refer to #Features_and_Options_Revisited

Print Dialogs

Writer Print Dialog
Calc Print Dialog
Impress Print Dialog
Draw Print Dialog
Math Print Dialog

Print Options Dialogs

Writer Print Options Dialog
Calc Print Options Dialog
Impress Print Options Dialog
Draw Print Options Dialog
Math Print Options Dialog

Various Printer Dialogs

Printer Setup Dialog
Printer Properties Dialog (Paper)
Printer Properties Dialog (Device)
Tools - Options... - OpenOffice.org - Print Sub-Page
Warning Print Options Dialog

PDF Export Dialog

PDF Export Options Dialog (General)
PDF Export Options Dialog (Initial View)
PDF Export Options Dialog (User Interface)
PDF Export Options Dialog (Links)
PDF Export Options Dialog (Security)

Competitive Analysis

General

Please note that although we do competitive analysis, we won't publish too many information here, e.g. screenshots. If you are interested in a special program, then try to search for images in your favorite internet search. In 99% of all cases, you will get some pictures and a first idea how it looks like ... and most presumably how it will behave.

Another good approach is to have a look at the official documentation of our platforms:

  • Apple User Interface Guidelines, The Print Dialog
  • Microsoft Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines, Common Dialogs (scroll down a bit, since the print dialog is not listed in the TOC)

Acrobat Reader

Notice that you can set the arrangement of the pages on the paper sheet in drop down list 'Page Order'. That might be interesting for OOo, because OOo is used in different language and some users writing in e.g. Hebrew or Asian languages might have other preferred arrangements.

Notice also the glider under the preview. There you can "scroll" through all sheets to see whether they are printed as desired.

The 'page scaling' drop down list contains also the option 'brochure'. The fields beneath change according to the 'page scaling' choice.

The sheet orientation is taken from the printer properties. That is more comfortable in OOo, where you set landscape or portrait in the printing dialog.

Provided by Regina ... thanks!

Printing Dialog in Acrobat Reader on WinXP

Native Printer Driver Dialog on WinXP from HP Color Jet 2605

Advanced Options
Paper
Effects
Finishing
Color
The pictures show details of a native printer properties dialog of an HP Color Laser Jet 2605 on WinXp. The printer itself can do a lot of things, which can be set in OOo printer dialog. But this is a modern printer with an actual driver. I doubt that older printers or drivers for Linux allow all of this settings.

Even in this modern driver an option for customize N-Up arrangement is missing, the feature for n identical pages on one sheet is not available and the N-Up does not allow margins and spacing.

Provided by Regina ... thanks!

Definition of Terms

tbd

Design Proposals

tbd

Status and Roadmap

tbd

Current Development Status

The development happens since quite a few months. Recently, UX jumped in and will try to further improve the dialog and the overall working steps concerning printing.

Development Versions and Stuff

Mockups and Screenshots

Print Dialog (system independent)

Printerpullpages nup current.png

Current state of the N-Up page


Online Discussion, Press Coverage and Comments

Personal tools