Hi Oren, all!
Dear designers, I had to moderate Oren's mail and already included a
quick reply with a proposal from some time ago (see below, please).
Am Dienstag, den 25.10.2011, 22:29 +0200 schrieb Oren Barnea:
On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 22:09, Christoph Noack
<christoph@dogmatux.com> wrote:
[...]
Concerning your idea ... yes, we had some similar proposals
some years
ago, but we didn't get that far to consider it / implement it.
If you
like, please have a look at:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Proposal_by_Andreas_Schuderer#Keyboard_Command_Invocation
[...]
Thank you for the link to the proposal from a few years ago. It's very
well written and quite convincing IMHO... Do you happen to remember
why it didn't even get considered? I read somewhere that after the
split from OO.o, the development of LibreOffice became quicker and
more flexible - do you think there's a chance that the idea that got
rejected back then might be getting a warmer welcome now?
It didn't get considered, since we brainstormed about new ways to access
functionality ... first, we needed improved menus (the command
invocation was something optional), then it was prototyped, then it
became clear that before any changes OOo needed to be cleaned up first,
then we got the first results in Impress, and then ... well the story of
LibO :-)
Surely, the LibreOffice development became quicker and more flexible ...
because many developers are free to decide on their tasks and time. This
means we need to find someone who likes this idea. One, who may start
doing a simple proof-of-concept via an extensions (or something like
that). In this case, it needs asking them ... any developer around who
might know whom to ping?
Some years ago, I also thought a bit about such an issue ... for example
something like an "Awesome Bar" (see Firefox) for OOo/LibO.
* Enter a word ... it's a term in the document as well? Then show
the function to search / jump to that word.
* Enter a number ... it's a heading? Then resolve it to a
cross-reference.
* Enter a function ... maybe the user needs help as well. Offer to
go to the help topic.
* ...
You'll get the point ;-) But first, let's have some room for the others
as well ...
Cheers,
Christoph
Am Dienstag, den 25.10.2011, 10:11 +0200 schrieb Oren Barnea:
Hello,
Here's an idea aimed at helping with the long-standing problem of the
huge
number of commands, options and menu items in office suites, and their
low
discoverability. It's more of an adaptation of existing ideas, actually.
Desktop application launchers (Gnome-Do, Katapult, Synapse and their
likes)
have been around for years and IMHO are a very convenient way of
executing
applications, launching files and so on. Recently they have gone more
mainstream, as Windows 7, Gnome Shell and Unity all have similar
functionality built into their interfaces. I think an office suite could
benefit from having a similar interface as a way to improve the
efficiency
of work and the discoverability of the commands and options available to
the
user, since the traditional menu structure and the newer Ribbon style are
both lacking in this.
As a first step to implement this idea, I think it might be possible to
create an index of the texts in the localization files of LibreOffice,
which
include all the commands, options and word in dialog boxes that a user
might
want to execute. Once the index exists, a plug-in can be written to
launch a
search box that lets the user type what they want to do, search the index
for the typed text, show the user a list of items that fit that text and
execute the selected item.
I don't know how difficult or easy it would be to do this. Maybe the
suggested way of implementing this idea is not even possible (I'm
actually
not sure there is a way to map the indexed words to the actual commands,
and
if there isn't one, what would it take to create it.)
I have to say that I'm not a software developer and I know almost nothing
about the structure of LibreOffice. Everything I wrote about the
implementation of this idea might be totally wrong. I know that some of
the
things I talk about don't even belong to this specific mailing list, but
I
think this is the right place to suggest this idea.
I would be very happy to hear your opinions about this idea and if it's
worth pursuing.
All the best,
Oren
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