[libreoffice-design] Uncluttering the LibreOffice Writer menus

OS: Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric stable
Application: LibreOffice Writer 3.4.3

A user of LibreOffice suffers death-by-menu much like he or she did with
MSWord 2003 or earlier. It is possible to cut down the number of menu
entries.

Here's a few preliminary suggestions for reorganisation while staying within
the same menu design:
A. File:
1. Wizards and Templates should be bundled together, and both should be
displayed more prominently on the interface, because frankly, no one looks
even knows of their existence unless they search very carefully.
2. Reload should be struck out, and Versions bundled into Changes and
Compare Document under Edit.
3. Export and Export as PDF should be bundled together.
4. Send should renamed as Email, as all options seem to be regarding email.
Consider scrapping this, because most users use attachments in their browser
or mail client.
5. Printer Settings should go under Print.
6. Consider putting Digital Signatures under Properties.

B. Edit:
1. Changes and Compare Document should be merged with Versions into one
consolidated feature.
2. I don't see any point to Repeat. What feature are users likely to repeat,
other than possibly Paste, for which they can simply Ctrl-V again? It's
confusing and should be removed.
3. Paste Special must go. Regular Paste works with plain and rich text,
images and all other types. If not, it should.
4. AutoText should be moved to either AutoCorrect Options under Tools, or
Fields under Inset.
5. Editing footnotes, indices, hyperlinks, images, etc should be handled
contextually and should not be separate entries under Edit.
6. I cannot for the life of me figure out what the checkbox for Edit>Plugin
does.
7. Find and Find & Replace should be bundled together.
8. Selection Modes and Select Text should be scrapped.

C. View:
1. Print and Web Layouts should be checkbox entries under a consolidated
Layouts.

D. Insert:
1. Section should be removed. Manual editing with Headings works fine to
delineate sections.
2. Headers and Footers should be combined.
3. Consider Cross-References into Index.
4. Indexes and Tables should become one entry instead of a sub-menu. It
should be renamed "Indexes" or "Indices" to avoid confusion with the Tables
menu.
5. Consider putting Envelope under File>Templates.
6. Remove Horizontal Ruler. Not only is a user liable to confuse it with the
ruler on the top of the page, but it is useless (if it was intended to be a
section break) and ugly beyond all belief.
7. Remove Table, as it is a function repeated in the main Table menu.
8. Frame and Floating Frame should be consolidated into one.
9. The sub-menu Picture should be one option. Scan could be an option
included in the resulting dialogue, or it could be scrapped, as most users
do not perform the function in this manner.
10. The option File should be removed. I do not believe any users attach
files which are not covered in Picture, Sound and Video, etc to documents.
11. The options in the sub-menu Object should become separate options in the
parent menu (because the name is ambiguous, and the options within have far
clearer names), with OLE object (because users merely copy-paste
Spreadsheets, Charts, Drawings etc from the relevant application in the
suite or else create them within Writer itself) and Plug-in (because it is
unintuitive) scrapped.

E. Format:
1. Rename Character to Font for greater clarity.
2. Consider scrapping Paragraph. Its functions are performed more easily
without a menu option.
3. Remove Bullets and Numbering and introduce its options contextually when
a user creates a bulleted or numbered list.
4. Bundle Page and Title page together.
5. Bundle Change Case with Font.
6. Remove AutoCorrect and use AutoCorrect Options under Tools for its
functions.
7. Anchor, Wrap, Arrange and Group can be introduced contextually.
8. Remove Object, Frame/Object and Picture and introduce them contextually.
9. Consider bundling Columns with Page.

F. Table:
1. Consider removing Select. It does not require a menu option.
2. Remove Formula. It is covered under the Insert menu and, in any case,
does not belong under Table.

G. Tools:
1. Consider bundling Outline Numbering and Line Numbering with Bullets and
Numbering under Format.
2. Remove Gallery and introduce it contextually.
3. Remove Footnotes/Endnotes and introduce it contextually.
4. Remove Mail Merge Wizard and bundle it with Versions under Edit.
5. Remove the sub-menu Update and replace it with a single Update All
Fields.
6. Consider bundling AutoCorrect Options under Options.

LibreOffice Writer, while being the most feature-rich word processor on
Linux, is also often slow and accused of being disorganised and inelegant.
Even keeping to the existing look, a lot can be done to streamline its menus
and functions.

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