Re: [Libreoffice] [PATCH] Removes data sources button from standard toolbars in Calc and Writer

Thanks, Christoph!

I would never advocate removal of the data sources feature entirely. I
agree that it's a useful feature.

I was thinking about some of the things you mentioned...I believe that
Mozilla had some kind of testing where they (with the user's
permission) took data on which buttons were used the most often in the
various Firefox 4 testing builds. Maybe we could do something similar
with LibreOffice, to find out what buttons are used the most and when?
(The UX team might find that kind of data interesting.)

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as trying to force changes on everyone
else. I was just looking for stuff to do that was within my skillset,
saw that someone had mentioned this idea, and offered the patch in
case anyone else wanted to take a look. I have no idea if this would
get included in the default build or not, but I figure that it's
always better to have more patches available than less, as the
official team can always choose which patches they want to include.
I'll send a message to the UX list later today asking what they think.

Samuel Cantrell

On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 5:08 AM, Christoph Noack <christoph@dogmatux.com> wrote:
> Hi Alex, hi Samuel!
>
> Am Sonntag, den 12.06.2011, 10:22 +0200 schrieb Alexander Thurgood:
> > > The data sources explorer is still accessible from the View menu,
> > and
> > > my patch didn't affect that.
> > >
> > > I agree that data sources are useful. I don't necessarily agree that
> > > it's necessary to have an extra button on the standard toolbar that
> > > users have to decipher its meaning so they can find the buttons they
> > > want.
> >
> > Often a clearer or more significant icon will do wonders, but that is
> > just my opinion, I'm not an UI designer.
>
> I think what the author of the original idea (remove that button) meant
> was, that most people simply don't use that functionality - in such
> cases a more significant icon won't help (then, we would need approx.
> 500 more significant buttons). Quite the contrary, since such changes
> might interfere with the more often used features.
>
> Of course, this is not the only hypothesis - maybe the functionality
> doesn't work well and people don't use it, maybe people don't know what
> it is for and miss it, maybe ...
>
> > This is not a gripe at you in particular, but I have this terribly
> > awful
> > sinking feeling that Base is being slowly pushed back into a state
> > where
> > it will be soon of no use to anyone. UI changes are one of the first
> > most visible signs of such a slide IMHO. First, we remove the buttons,
> > then people think, oh, you can't do db stuff from the spreadsheet or
> > wordprocessor, so just forget the db thing, etc, etc, well you get my
> > drift. I apologise if I appear paranoid here, and like I say, this is
> > not directed at you in person, but this is a real fear that I have,
> > and
> > so far my fears have not been allayed.
>
> I understand your "fears" - but this is the problem having a software
> that intends to solve the "one size fits all" issue (which won't be
> solved ever). Thus, its crucial to make wise decisions for the
> LibreOffice core product - target users and data can help here.
>
> Concerning the recent change - I'm also a bit worried, since nobody
> discussed it in advance (at least I wasn't aware of). That's the crux
> for people like you Samual, really wanting to improve things ... but
> having individual voices asking for changes. So, for such stuff, I
> propose to ping the mailing list "libreoffice-ux-advice" [1] that has
> been set up by Thorsten. Maybe we can sort this out together.
>
> Cheers,
> Christoph
>
> [1] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-ux-advise
>
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