Re: [libreoffice-design] Two-years plan

Hi All,

I don't know too much (khm. I don't know anything:)) about the internal structure of the LO code base. But the question is what I would like 
to see in 2 years so, if you don't mind, I let me go crazy and come up with wild ideas, regardless of how easy they are to implement.



I think it is a waste of the developer resources to redesign the user interface every fifth year, when the fashion changes. What did work 
very well in the past, is the add-on system of Firefox. I would like to see something similar in LibreOffice.

(I am talking about the first version of the FF addons, when there was a lot of freedom, not the newer model, when a lot of nice old addons 
don't work anymore.)


It would be great if there was a separate code base in LO which manipulates the document itself and a sharply separated other one which is 
responsible for the UI. They should communicate on an interface which makes it possible to write UI add-ons for LibreOffice in 
easier-to-learn programming languages, for example Python and/or JavaScript, not just C/C++/

In that case, the community would win a lot of competing UIs from enthusiastic developers and some of them would be really good. People, who 
are experts of UIs but don't necessarily want to learn the deep secrets of the LO code base, would be able to make their on add-ons, like 
thousands of Firefox add-ons made the browser really popular.

After this structural change, people who know LO deeper, can focus on new functions, performance improvements, better compatibility and 
other useful things while people, who want to make spectacular UI, can focus on just the UI, without knowing too much about the internal 
parts of LO.

There would always be one or two official UI packages which offers an acceptable balance between functionality, beauty and used resouces but 
people could choose 3rd party UI add-ons freely, from a LibeOffice add-on store.




Disclaimer: I am writing this idea without having any clue what the current structure of the code base is and how complicated this change 
would be. Take this just as it is. As an idea which can be ignored if it is totally useless. :)

Cheers,

Csongor




On 14/08/2020 06:45, Heiko Tietze wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> other communities such as KDE [1] plan the work for next releases. This idea
> also comes up repeatedly for LibreOffice; and while steering in a narrow sense
> is not possible, it make sense to have a common vision for the next two years.
>
> That's why Andreas Kainz suggested an IRC meeting. We should do this similar to
> the question what topics to foster for next year's GSoC [2]. An example for such
> a 2-year plan clould be to rework all property dialogs and to get rid of tabs in
> favor of a sidebar with text/icons (see tdf#113418; controversially discussed in
> the design meeting today).
>
> Please think about where you see LibreOffice in 2 years and what you want the
> design/UX group to achieve. I suggest to share the ideas first here.
>
> The meeting should be on Sep/02 at 6pm UTC / 20:00 CEST (Berlin) (replacing the
> usual weekly meeting). We talk on IRC #libreoffice-design (bridged to Telegram).
>
> Looking forward your thoughts,
> Heiko
>
> [1] https://community.kde.org/Schedules
> [2] https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/msg09343.html

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