Proposal by Michel Renon
Design Proposal:Tools on demand & simplified toolbars
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The following design proposal is part of the collection of design proposals for “Accessing Functionality”, which is part of Project Renaissance. You can find the other design proposals at: Design_Proposals_for_“Accessing_Functionality”#Design_Proposals_Submitted
Summary and Status
For a complete description, please download the pdf file : Media:Proposal_impress_ui_renon2.pdf.
In this file, you'll find precise informations about toolbars, their content, how to customize them, how they can be moved, attached, detached...
The fundamental idea is to focus on user's needs, specially the type of document and the associated tools.
Depending on the type of document I work, I need a subset of the tools available in OOo.
But OOo proposes only basic types of document : word processing, spreadsheet, slideshow, drawing...
OOo should propose more detailed type of documents, for example :
Writer
- 1 page simple letter
- business document
- scientific document
- Thesis
- mailing, labels, envelopes
- publishing
- web
- …
Calc
- financial document
- scientific document
- Canvas/ Grid – Editor (cf http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/)
Then OOo should propose associated tools in a very simple UI : the idea is to show only tools on demand through toolbars.
Each toolbar has few elements about a common subject. Tools shared by every documents would be macros, forms, media, drawing tools... For example, tools for Writer would be mailing, versions, indexes, headers & footers...
The element are actions, not properties.
There is a main toolbar for each document : she contains the basic tools for the document.
The user can add, remove, move, organize (horizontally, vertically, in tabs or beside) the toolbars (except the main).
An example of main toolbar with buttons shared by all types of documents :
An example of UI with several toolbars reorganized :
Note the “Click to add new functionality” : it's the entry point to add toolbars
Note the properties panel : it's an inspector :
- it is context-sensitive : its content change according to the selected object
- his content allow the user to change the properties of the selected object
As there is a hierarchy of objects, the properties panel show every properties of every object in the hierarchy.
For example, in Writer, if we usually have the hierarchy : Document/Section/Page/Paragraph/character, the properties panel looks like :
It is very common in others software.
I propose a variation : the properties panel show properties of only one object. We provide the user a way to select every object of the hierarchy : a “breadcrumb”. For example :
It's just an idea : I don't know if it'll be very user-friendly...
Proposal for Impress
Needs
From my experience with Impress, and with what I heard from other users, I suppose that most needed features are :
- add slides
- change background
- add images /videos
- add some simple transitions between some slides
Remarks on actual Impress
Here is what I find difficult with Impress :
- some terms are difficult to understand and/or are incoherent :
- the most important example is “master slide” : in the task panel, it's called “master slide”, and in the “view” menu, it's in a group called “mask”...
- the other example is “slide layout” : beginners don't find that very obvious
- the “Insert” menu is very complicated and has too many sublevels :
- to insert a spreadsheet, you have to select “Insert” then “Object”, then “OLE” and then select “spreadsheet” from a panel !
- Some very disturbing behavior (should define a bug report ?) :
- when you modify a mask, if you clic on the tab “handout”, what really happens ?
- when you modify a mask, if you clic in one “master page” or “layout” in the “tasks” panel, what really happens ?
- for beginners, it's not obvious that you can change default text size with the “mask”
Main toolbar for Impress
The first idea is to use terms “Background” and “Foreground” instead of “master/mask” and “layout”.
Then one button would give access to the backgrounds, and another to the foregrounds :
Menubar and tab for documents
One of the hottest subject in last months of refexion has been “tabs for document” : that is, reuse the concept of tabs introduced by Google Chrome.
One consequence is another question : what about the menu bar ?
About “tabs for documents” I already proposed to keep that optional, for power-users. Some of my friends are beginners with computers and I can tell you that they don't even know that tabs exists...and if I tell them “open that web page in a new tab”, I understand they get frightened !... It's already difficult for them to manage several windows, don't oblige them to use tabs for documents.
About the menubar... As a Mac user, I would say “there must be one” (every Mac app must have one, even if there are only the “application”, “File” and “Edit” menu) But after the frst refexions about toolbars, i'm not sure...
Status: Request for Comments
Mockup
PLEASE NOTE THAT THESES MOCKUPS DON'T TAKE CARE OF TRANSITION BETWEEN SLIDES OR ANIMATION OF OBJECTS
I'll work on theses questions if I have time and if it's necessary :-)
Note 2 : I had no time to define precise mockups, with right scales and dimensions. It would be the next step...
Default screen
Note that the Drawing toolbar at the bottom is just a copy of the actual drawing toolbar : the number of elements should be reduced.
Add a slide
Just click on the “Add slide” button in the local toolbar :
Modify background
Select “Modify current background” from the “background” button : just like today, you enter the “background modification” mode :
But there are some differences :
- 1 : Note that there are only 2 tabs in the content view
- “Background design” : you can draw, insert image, insert date and time fields...
- “Default Text Style” : you just can change the default text style
- 2 : Note the special information :
- there is a text that explains what is a background and what you can change...(and maybe a “more” link ?)
- and there is a button that “returns to slides”, it is equivalent to the actual “stop mask mode”, but this one seems friendlier
Insert image or video
Just select “Image” or “Video” from the “Insert” button : you'll be prompted the standard file dialog.
Detailed Description
This space is reserved for the detailed description of your design. Add anything you might find important for us to know. If you don't have any clue what this might be, then you will find some topics below.
For a complete description, please download the pdf file : Media:Proposal_impress_ui_renon2.pdf.
I started others ideas : a new style browser/editor, a UI to help resize table columns But i need time to polish them and that's what I miss...
Additional Material and Mockups
Please share everything you might think is important to better understand your proposal. Perhaps you also have other ideas which are not directly related to “Accessing Functionality”? You might add further documents, Internet links, or additional mockups - e.g. showing a workflow or different states of the software.
Author or Team Working on This Proposal
| Author / Team Member | Contact (OpenOffice.org login name, used for email) |
| Michel Renon | MichelR |
Comments
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Your space :-)
How are users going to cope with migration from current OpenOffice to this. They have nothing in common with the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance It would pay if people had read the meaning of this. Renaissance is looking to the past and improving on it. Not taking a leap of faith into a void throwing everything way to get there. Please think how users have any use for there old information to make the migration painless. --Oiaohm 23:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
