Re: [libreoffice-design] Specifications for present UI and Graphics (was: Design Tenets Proposal)

Hi Rafael, hi Bernhard, all!

Bernhard, thanks for the CC :-)

Am Samstag, den 09.07.2011, 23:05 +0200 schrieb Bernhard Dippold:
> Hi Rafael, all
>
> just taking a very small part of your mail to reply, because this is a 
> different topic that shouldn't be hidden at the end of a long mail.
> Rafael Rocha Daud schrieb:
> > [...]
> >
> > Talking of what, who do we need to talk to to get some directions on the
> > capabilities of our current graphical libraries? Is there a
> > specification, and someone who might be able to explain it if I get
> > stuck? I want to continue working in the Styles and Formatting window,
> > but I don't know what graphical elements I can throw in, explore etc.
>
> The best one to reply here is Christoph - but let him some time to reply 
> as he is in parental leave (even if he is more and more active again...)

Starting today, our little son has some vacation some hundred kilometers
away. So, for approx. two weeks that will lead to,
a) missing him (already),
b) spending some time for LibO (already) ;-)

> As the UI is nearly unchanged from the OOo UI, you should have a look at 
> the OpenOffice.org specifications. I found this index:
>
> http://specs.openoffice.org/ui_in_general/index.html

Hard questions - since LibO is platform neutral you'll find any kind of
behavior within the system. Given the today's capabilities, assume that
the "intersecting set" of the UI elements of Windows, Mac and Gnome are
supported. So, this leads to only few elements being available per
default. And, that led to a UI design that is a "mixture" of all the
platforms (just have a look at grouped UI elements ...).

Besides these items, there are some more elements specifically designed
for LibreOffice - e.g. the Task Pane in Impress that was initially
planned to be added to other LibO modules as well (already somehow
obsolete interaction design). Or, a rather recent addition, the new
drop-downs in Impress to change the slide layout.

Unfortunately, some of these "custom elements" have been built for
special cases only - so expect local solutions to pop up everywhere. One
example are windows. Missing a layout manager, windows are usually not
resizable. But, the go-OOo folks managed to add layouting capabilities
to some windows - e.g. the Find & Replace dialog (it seems this patch
isn't applied to LibO). And there are hand-made solutions - e.g. the
resizing of the Printing dialog.

Please don't get me wrong - there will be specific solutions all the
time, but we have far too many "almost identical" solutions being
different (in terms of code).

Moreover, there are some technical solutions available in the LibO
platform being "less obvious". For example, there is a thing called
"Drawing Layer" that is used to e.g. draw the Notes in Writer or the
Selection Marker in all the applications. I really depends on the use
case whether this thing can be used ... or not :-)

So my proposal is to "mentally" cluster UI items in four groups (if
anybody comes up with a better naming scheme, please go ahead *g*):
      * Platform: Ready to use and more or less equivalent to the ones
        used on the operating system (e.g. buttons, menu items, context
        menus, combo boxes, ...)
      * LibO: Ready to use and specific to LibreOffice.
      * Local: Available in LibreOffice, but "hand-made" and thus not
        (easily) re-usable.
      * Unavailable: Simply missing ...


For the "Platform" items, the most complete list might be the "UI
Elements" list (Specification Template, Spec Project, OOo):
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/UI-Elements

For "LibO" solutions, some specifications are available in the
specification section (the link Bernhard provided). For example, task
panes, menus, ...

For "Local" artifacts there might be descriptions being part of selected
specifications - but I hardly think that there is something. So we
should expect to reverse engineer these items (UX wise).

For "Unavailable" items, Bernhard (as far as I remember) started some
list to collect proposals:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/UI_Elements


To be really sure, it'll be great if someone could ping the development
to get e.g. a API documentation what's available and what's not. I've
never checked that thoroughly.


@ all: Mmh, does this collection sound reasonable? If yes, it would be
cool if somebody could "conserve" this info in the wiki - to extend it
bit by bit. Unfortunately, I have a huge stack of things I have been
pushing forward for weeks ... so I won't be able to do this :-\

@ Rafeael: Did that help somehow? In my point-of-view, the requirements
for the Styles dialog are more important that what's available in terms
of UI elements. Personally, I'd say that if the Design Team comes up
with a good solution, there is some chance to convince some developers
to tweak "Local" items or to add "Unavailable" ones.


Cheers,
Christoph


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