How development develops ... (was: Re: [libreoffice-design] citrus)

Hi Andrew!

I lack a bit time, so I'll try to comment what's most important to me at
the moment. Okay?

Am Mittwoch, den 07.09.2011, 13:20 -0400 schrieb Andrew Pullins:
> > It depends on the point-of-view ... currently I'd say there is no chanceto
> > completely revise the UI in one-shot (for several reasons).
>
>
> I know that this would be hard to do in one shot, and I like that he made up
> some baby steps to get the citrus UI implemented.  I think that we need to
> start on these baby steps. other wise the dev team will just keep adding
> more and more features and fixing bugs till there face is blue, and at the
> end of the day the software still looks like crap and no one will use it
> because the UI is from 10 years ago.

Oh, its 20 years already ;-)

[...]

> Instead, it would be good to focus on manageable improvements for Design,
> > Development, QA, ...
[...]

> > There have been regular posts on what is wrong with details of the UI -
> > it just needs somebody to take care of that (e.g. the zoom slider which
> > has been mentioned some days ago).
>
> but are they getting dealt with. a moth or two ago we where talking about
> the aperence menu and how it should be changed. is that getting worked on or
> at least on the todo list.

Really? Does anybody specified the Zoom slider or the appearance menu
behavior? How many people assisted developers to define, document and
test the issues in the bug tracker? Or any other change?

I think there is a big misunderstanding, since the community isn't yet
that close together as I would like it to be. For example, there are
many new developers who try to deal with the code - which is incredibly
difficult. Many of the features / changes are not (reasonable) perfect
yet ... there is no (simple) way to request improvements.

Maybe this presentation sheds some light on how developers currently
address changes:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fosdemtalks?gl=DE#p/u/8/-Olx3EvJMl0

I don't share all the views. But, to me, small improvements are a chance
to work together with the individual developers and to make them aware
of user needs. That also means that UI changes (step by step) are
implemented.

[...]
> I hope I did not sound mean or harsh. I just feel so out of the loop with
> all this, I don't know if any thing is getting done. hopefully the LO con
> will shed some light on this. I hope that they video it so that we who are
> not going to be there can see whats going on.  I would hate to read all that
> is going on there.

Mmh, its not that harsh but somehow understandable - and out of the loop
is very bad, so please ask questions. Everybody will benefit, I bet.

But if you are a designer with some understanding for development needs:
What can you do now to improve LibreOffice? There are so many topics
that could be addressed ... it is just picking them. Some of them are
more or less related to what Citrus addressed. Some are related to
artwork / branding improvements. Others are related to watch the
developers and their commit messages. Or to asking individual developers
to assist them - that brings you much closer than viewing conference
videos. :-)

So how can I help here?

Cheers,
Christoph



> On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Christoph Noack <christoph@dogmatux.com>wrote:
>
> > Hi Andrew!
> >
> > Am Montag, den 05.09.2011, 20:16 -0400 schrieb Andrew Pullins:
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > Does any one know what has happened to the guy designing the "Citrus UI."
> >  I
> > > have been trying to get a hold of him so we can collaborate on his UI
> > > designs. I am really interested in making LibreOffice look good, and his
> > > designs are great.
> >
> > Yep, there are some terrific ideas - he was (and I hope: is) with us
> > since quite some time. He also was so kind to join our ideas collection
> > when we've collected menu alternatives within the OpenOffice.org
> > Renaissance project. Here is his proposal:
> > http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Proposal_by_Miroslav_Mazel
> >
> > > It is something I would say that we need to be working
> > > toward.  What is going on with LibreOffice right now.  Other than bugs
> > > getting fixed, what else is going on?
> >
> > It depends on the point-of-view ... currently I'd say there is no chance
> > to completely revise the UI in one-shot (for several reasons). Instead,
> > it would be good to focus on manageable improvements for Design,
> > Development, QA, ...
> >
> > There have been regular posts on what is wrong with details of the UI -
> > it just needs somebody to take care of that (e.g. the zoom slider which
> > has been mentioned some days ago). That should help us to in a position
> > for larger changes.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Christoh
> >
> >
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