Bug 135501 - Change the default UI

I keep getting messages about "Bug 135501 - Change the default UI” which has raised a question for me and would like some opinion on this.

Being one of the volunteers writing the user guides, would it mean that I have to completely update and change the user guides to suit a Notebookbar UI ???

I would like more information on this change to the UI so that I know what is going to happen. The comments in the bug report do not really help.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

Hi,

I do not know about the future, but the TDF board should inform the teams
(esp. the documentation team) at least one version prior of such a change
(if being planned for 7.5/(=8.0?), the LO teams should be informed by the
time of the 7.4 release) - so everyone can prepare accordingly (maybe the
Documentation team will then decide to not work on 7.4 guides but start
rewriting the online help and the chapters of the guides for 7.5/8.0 with
that change in mind - the default gui does not change the functionality
itself, just its accessibility and requires many changed screenshots in
guides, so a lot of work can be done even before 7.5a1 is available, even
today).

And another thing - there will be a lot of opposition to such a change - so
maybe when released - there should be a guide/wizard at the first start of
the suite to offer and explain/visualize the *two* (not 6 or 8) options -
classic vs. notebookbar. But I can't even imagine the fuss this would
create with help content and documentation, always mentioning the two
possibilities when describing the access to toolbar icons/items ...

Peter, I understand you - but I think it is inevitable that such a change
would come. And many changes to documentation as well.

Lp, m.

napisala:

Hello Martin

I understand your thoughts and do agree that things must move on. However, the idea of having a Notebookbar UI does worry me a little.

Apple brought out a Touch Bar on some of the Macs, which was a physical option not software, but software was involved. Apple are now rethinking the Touch Bar, according to the news pundits, and it may be completely dropped because it was not all that successful. Using this reasoning, I think that a Notebookbar UI may also not be that successful.

The Standard UI is great to use.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

Hello, Peter,

Regarding the Touch Bar:
- if I buy a computer with it (and spend more money), I expect it to bring
much joy to the use of my new laptop;
- if I am not satisfied with the Bar, I cannot remove it physically from
the computer, it stands there and lights up every once in a while,
reminding me how well I spent my money;
- I could use the 30-day money-back guarantee option, but that one might
not be available in my region (and requires some additional effort and
potentially even cost on my side).

Regarding the LO UI-type change:
- I haven't spent any money on the new UI, it is already present in
previous versions, maybe I even played with it before (or have it enabled)
and it is already described in all of the documentation;
- if I do not like the new interface, I can switch back to the old one (OK,
some users with basic computer knowledge might have a problem with that, so
they need to be assisted in some way by a wizard or some UI tool);
- *if I am not mistaken* - this would only change for users without a user
profile, i.e. without previous versions of LO installed - all others would
get the UI they used with the old/previous version of LO? So if they are
not used to LO and come from MSO, the notebookbar might seem a more logical
choice for starting the software for the first time.

Of course, there will be users fighting about which UI is better, but ... de
gustibus non disputandum est.

Lp, m.

napisala:

Hi Martin, Peter, everyone,

- *if I am not mistaken* - this would only change for users without a user
profile, i.e. without previous versions of LO installed - all others would
get the UI they used with the old/previous version of LO? So if they are
not used to LO and come from MSO, the notebookbar might seem a more logical
choice for starting the software for the first time.

From the marketing side: as I'm watching our social media channels, I'm seeing more and more requests to make the NotebookBar the default user interface. Of course, social media is its own "special" world, so there are many other factors in such a decision, and of course it'd be a lot of work for the documentation community...

Mike

Hello Martin

I can only agree with your comments. It is just that I am concerned about what changes are involved to the user guides.

One thing I would like to know is how do I set my LibreOffice to using the Notebook Bar. I have switched on experimental features and opened View - User Interface on the Menu bar, but there is no Notebook Bar offered as an option. Yet, in LibreOffice > Preferences > LibreOffice > View > Icon Size the Notebook Bar is there as an option. Some help please.

One thing that I think should be carried out is a spelling correction. Change all instances of Notebookbar to the correct spelling of Notebook Bar. Definitely does not look good when there are spelling errors in the user interface.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

Hi Peter

To use the Notebookbar, you have to choose the option Tabbed.

Regards, Kees

Peter Schofield schreef op 22.05.2022 09:47:

Thank you Kees

Will try it out and see how it all works.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

This is not entirely accurate. There are 8 variants and Tabbed is one of them.

Before we make a decision about the default UI, I would like to see designers come up with improvements on how styles are presented in all the UIs: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149230

I will be actively pointing new designers to this task until a satisfactory solution is found.

Ilmari

In the last 2 days I changed the UI to the Notebook bar.

Naturally, I found myself dizzy like a drunk cockroach(*).

The access to style is obscured and I could not find the full Search and replace dialog, except by typing Ctrl+H.

I'll keep trying, anyway.

Regards
Olivier
(*) local idiomatic expression