Re: [libreoffice-design] New Layout Concept

2011/4/20 Scott Pledger <scottpledger2005@gmail.com>:
> Hi all, this is my first time proposing something to such an important Open
> Source project, so I hope I'm doing this correctly.
> I've had this idea for a while now and I wanted to see what everyone here
> thought of it, so here it goes!
>
> Its based on two simple premises.  First, I noticed that monitors are
> getting wider but the documents we type up are still vertically oriented.
> Secondly, I find floating toolbars to be extremely cumbersome.  So I decided
> I'd try to tackle both of these issues in a simple, easy-to-use manner.
>  Attached to this email is the concept that I currently have (or at least
> the beginnings of it).  So, here's my plan:
>
>   1. Have a single toolbar at the top that contains actions that can be
>   used no matter what application you're using.
>   2. Move any additional toolbars to the right hand side and organize them
>   into groups based on what the user currently has selected.  So let's say
>   you're editing a Writer document and you have some text selected that is in
>   a Table.  You would have 3 primary categories (at the top of the right-hand
>   part of the screen): Document, Table, and Text.  'Document' is always
>   present and handles document-wide settings.  Table might contain
>   subcategories of Row, Column, Cell, and Display.  All of these would contain
>   toolbar items to modify aspects of these subcategories.  Text then, might
>   contain Font, Paragraph, and Section as subcategories.  And so on and so
>   forth.  I also had the idea that hovering over a primary category or a
>   subcategory might emphasize what would be affected in the main document area
>   by shading everything else, but I also know that that would not be a
>   necessity.  For the purposes of the design, this right-hand area can be
>   called the context tool panel.
>   3. Move the menus to the left-hand side, placing them above whatever is
>   typically the left side of any given LibreOffice application. (Impress/Draw
>   -> Slides, etc.).  Clicking one of these would then cause a panel to be
>   displayed categorizing items in the same manner as the context tool panel
>   which would contain the different actions the user can take.
>   4. Possibly: Allow for LibreOffice to run everything from a single window
>   by having a tab row at the top of the screen.  (I'm still not sold on this
>   idea, so let me know what you think.)
>
> When it came to actually designing this new layout, I tried to pull from the
> current LibreOffice icons as much as possible, mainly because I think they
> are absolutely awesome!
>
> Also, I do want to be forthcoming - I'm no UX or Design professional.  I'm a
> Computer Science major in the US, but I think that this kind of layout can
> not only give LibreOffice one of the most unique and (in my mind) usable
> User Interfaces on the planet, but I also think that it can help LibreOffice
> to be the very best office suite on the planet.  Also, let me know if this
> was the wrong place to post - like I said, I'm new to this particular
> project!
>
> Thanks!
> Scott Pledger

This mailing list do not allow attachments, so if you sent one we
cannot see it ;)
The concept you present is quite similar to calligra suite interface:
http://www.calligra-suite.org/
which, I agree, has very good concepts and a great potential.

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