Re: [libreoffice-design] Improving printing UX

Hi Heiko, all!

Thanks for the comments. I feel free to answer your mail in chunks...

Am Dienstag, den 25.08.2015, 13:09 +0000 schrieb Heiko Tietze:
> Hi all,
>
> as an average user or rather Benjamin like beginner I'm quite 
> confused. What I expect is a good preview which feds back what is 
> being sent to the printer. In particular if my footnotes fits onto 
> A4, whether all columns are shown in landscape view, or if my color 
> cartridge is really not used.

I'm with you. LibO falls short here, since e.g.:
 * Page Preview (File menu) does not consider most of the settings
   (e.g. print text as black, brochure mode, notes printing)
 * Print Preview (Printer dialog) is inadequate to check details (e.g.
   default too small, no facing pages view)

Thus my recommendation to remove the first one and integrate missing
features into the latter one.


> In case of letter size I want the printer to either scale my document
> or print as it is. This option belongs to LO: [x] Scale output
> depending on paper size (depends on printer capabilities).

Well, even if that's an option, the user might still be unaware of
different page sizes (in document, in printer). Thus my recommendation
if we find such issues (and e.g. autoscale the printout as done today).


> Landscape vs portrait is just a rotation question to me - sounds
> pretty easy to achieve.

I agree that most stuff should "just work" out of the box. Still, for
many documents it appears to be difficult. Let's look at how this
information gets to the printer:
1. Document (Page Format) -> 2. Printer Settings -> 3. Printer Driver

When working on "printerpullpages" we discovered some issues when
information was provided from 2 to 3 - partly because of the different
feature set of the OS the software runs on. Let's assume the world
moved forward and remaining issues can be fixed. Then ...

... the printer settings still consider one setting: either "landscape"
or "portrait". But, the document can still contain different page
orientation settings. In Writer, page orientation is defined per page
style. In Calc, page orientation per sheet. Thus, a single printer
settings conflicts with that.

Katarina also mentioned tdf#92676 - so it might be helpful for users to
have the document setting temporarily "overwritten" according to the
user's print range selection.

Hence, my proposal to (at least) extend the given printer setting by
"Automatic" and align settings of 1 to 3 to make it "just work".


> In general I would make the application rather easier to use than
> adding more features and expceptions (by default; there might be
> expert settings hidden somewhere). So removing the additional printer
> settings as well as harmonizing the previews sounds like a good idea.

Plus, your suggestions to improve the printer dialog further :-)


> About save and restore printer settings with the document I guess you
> have in mind that documents are shared and handled on different
> workplaces. So settings made once might not be relevant the next
> time. It's more important to have the printer settings stored for a
> particular workplace, let's say at home I want to save color so
> printing should be done in always b/w. And that might be also the
> reason for the second printer settings although it has to be done in
> the configuration dialog.

I was rather talking about existing functionality that (at least I
thought so) has bugs. So print settings are currently being saved and
loaded - for whatever reason (or use case). At least all related
settings should behave the same.

With regard to the printer settings. As commented in [1], we've
identified that users rather have a few print use cases (thus settings)
per document. A made-up example: "Draft" when still working on it
(print notes, show placeholder, printer draft mode) vs. "Final" when
finished (no review markup, good quality). Hence the idea in the
printerpullpages wiki to think about managing pre-defined settings. One
step back, we even hardly support such cases for working on the
document ... but that might be another topic ;-)

Bye,
Christoph

[1] http://pad.documentfoundation.org/p/UX-PrintDialog

> Cheers,
> Heiko.
>
> Am 20.08.2015 15:39:57, schrieb Christoph Noack:
> > Hi all!
>
> And, Katarina, great to "hear" you again :-)
>
>
> Am Mittwoch, den 19.08.2015, 13:48 +0000 schrieb Katarina Behrens:
> > Hello world, 
> >
> > I started this discussion, so it's about time I also contribute
> > something to it:
> >
> > > [...]
> >
> > The main issue I have with status quo is this duality between "File
> > -> Printer settings" and "File -> Print -> $some_printer ->
> > Properties". In other words, settings of the printer and
> > document/page-specific settings that can be (and often are)
> entirely
> > different.
>
> Some trouble can be avoided, some can't (but nevertheless there are
> ways to better support our users). Since printing is that complex,
> I'd
> like to break down the issues (so please bear with me).
>
>
> > An equivalent of "File -> Printer settings" doesn't seem to exist
> in
> > MSO, for example (or it does but I'm not so very good at
> searching).
> > When I asked on IRC why it exists in LibO, I was only told that it
> > sets up some stuff that can't be set up elsewhere *grin* 
>
> As far as I remember earlier discussions, it exists for two
> "reasons":
> 1. Change printer / document print options without actually printing
> something (e.g. for getting access to printer trays in page format
> settings for non-default printers).
> 2. Access to document related print settings if OOo (at that time)
> used
> the print dialog of the OS instead of showing the built-in dialog.
> Similar (but not identical) settings are available via "Tools -
> Options - $component - Print".
>
> Word handles/handled that a bit differently. However, also Word runs
> into issues if e.g. the document page layout is different to printer
> settings. Here is an interesting article by Microsoft:
> The printer settings are ignored when you print a Word document
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/904805
>
>
> > Then, things like tdf#92676 
> > (https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=92676) happen 
> --
> > user goes to printer settings, sets something up, saves and thinks
> > this is how his document's going to be printed, but it ain't the
> > case, because the document/page settings will be used instead.
>
> Thanks for the pointer. I think such use cases need special
> treatment,
> since Calc works technically correct - but users expect different
> behavior. Unfortunately, the (usually great logical structure) of
> LibO
> makes the page orientation setting hard to discover.
>
>
> > There's of course this "use only paper * from printer preferences"
> > checkbox that makes it possible to override document settings with
> > printer settings, but how many users know about it?
>
> It rather makes me think of: why should they? I quickly tested the
> use
> case above (changing the page orientation in the printer preferences)
> but Calc's output was unusable (because being cut-off).
>
> So, finally, breaking down the issues of printing (omitting OS
> printing
> dialogs)...
>
>
> === 1. LibO Printing UI ===
>
> The LibO printing UI is cluttered and distributes (similar)
> functionality within different dialogs. Aim: One print preview,
> simplified access to print options.
>
> To me, this clean-up would require:
> * Harmonize the document Print Options (e.g. "Print text as black")
> from the printing dialog ("File -- Print... -- $option) and LibO
> options dialog ("
> * Remove "File -- Printer Settings...". Plus, to enable access to non
> -default printer trays, add printer selection capabilities to the
> page layout dialogs ("Format -- Page -- Page: Paper Tray").
> * If possible, remove "File -- Print Preview...". Move required
> functionality (e.g. display facing pages) to the print preview in
> the print dialog.
>
>
> === 2. Document Page Settings vs. Printer Page Preferences ===
>
> As the article by Microsoft suggests, we may not address all issues
> related to page layout. Especially since LibO offers the capability
> to
> define numerous page layouts in the document - the printer
> preferences
> just offer one definition per print job.
>
> I miss the real needs by users, so I haven't a clear solution
> preference - just options:
>
> Option #1: Remove page size and portrait settings from the printer's
> preferences.
> * Pro: Easy to achieve
> * Con: Things can still go wrong (e.g. printer settings by OS). We
> need
> to make users aware of issues we can identify (e.g. wrong page
> format)
> and inform them -> see idea of Info Bar in print dialog
>
> Option #2: Extend #1 by access to document page layout options (like
> "Format -- Page...") via e.g. button
> * Pro: Direct access to document options
> * Con: Different page layouts different to understand
>
> Option #3: Re-arrange print dialog to directly contain and use (e.g.)
> page size and portrait settings.
> * Pro: Improved WYSIWYG
> * Con: Technical feasibility? Effort?
> * Details (examples for a UI control for page orientation):
> * If the document print range contains only "Portrait" pages, pre
> -select "Portrait".
> * If the document print range contains only "Landscape" pages, pre
> -select "Landscape".
> * If the document print range contains both Portrait and Landscape
> pages, show "Automatic". (Document settings are used)
> * If the user changes the setting, the new setting is applied to
> the whole print range (as if the user would have changed the
> document page layout, and its aligned with the printer setting).
> Per default, this setting is valid for the given print dialog
> session only. Per user demand, the setting can be applied to the
> document settings (image something like a "make setting sticky"
> appearing after the user changed the default selection).
> * Special case for Calc ("Print Selection"): "Automatic" will pre
> -select the orientation that makes most sense for the given
> selection.
> * Examples
> (Landscape used in print range)
> +-------------------------------------------------------+ | LANDSCAPE
> |
> | Uses format of document page layout |
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
>
> (Different orientations used in print range)
> +-------------------------------------------------------+| AUTOMATIC
> |
> | Uses format of document page layout |
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
>
> (User manually changed setting)
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
> | LANDSCAPE |
> | Temporarily applied to all printed pages |
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
> [ ] Save selected orientation for whole document (i)
>
> * Details (for page size, needs further refinement): The UI control
> might show "Automatic" if all document defined sizes are available.
> If not (e.g. pages need to be scaled down), the UI control might
> provide an additional hint/warning.
>
> (Different page sizes in print range, supported by printer)
> +-------------------------------------------------------+ | AUTOMATIC
> |
> | Uses format of document page layout |
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
>
> (Only page size A4 in print range, supported by printer)
> +-------------------------------------------------------+ | DIN A4 |
> | Uses format of document page layout |
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
>
> (Different page sizes, partly unsupported by printer)
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
> | AUTOMATIC |
> | /!\ Paper size mismatch! Some pages are scaled down. |
> +-------------------------------------------------------+
>
>
> Mmh, finally looking at it, Option #3 makes most sense to me. It
> provides WYSIWYG with regard to the print output, it allows temporary
> changes (it even has some smartness when looking at printing selected
> cells), it provides to save the values, and the UI itself might be
> quite understandable (a guess, of course).
>
> By the way, recent MS Office versions let the user also select
> printer
> settings (e.g. page orientation) in the printer dialog ("backstage
> view") and will apply changes automatically. I didn't test it
> (missing
> software), but read it - so I don't know behavior details.
>
>
> === 3. Enable Proper Saving and Loading of Document Print Options ===
>
> As previously explained, once the document print options are sorted
> out, they should be properly saved and loaded. (see your separate
> mail,
> maybe I'm unable answer today...).
>
> [...]
> > ... and what would be the right thing to do instead? Just take
> user's
> > settings and override document settings with those, even if it
> means
> > the document will come out cropped/distorted (due to paper size too
> > small, wrong paper orientation etc.) ? I guess this is what MSO
> does,
> > but didn't really test ....
>
> So, lots of information and ideas. Most of them don't "interfere"
> with
> the ideas to make the print dialog more understandable.
>
> Comments highly appreciated ...
>
> Cheers,
> Christoph


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