Minutes of the Design Hangout: 2014-11-19

* Present: Ahmed, Jay, Heiko, Kendy, Stuart
 
* Completed Action Items:

    + Kendy: Switch Sifr to be the default icon set on OS X
    + Jay: Check if the toolbar is not too wide after the recent changes
    + Jay: Gallery tooltip reverted
    + Jay: Sync the track changes shortcut with MSO + change the edit
      mode shortcut
    + Jay: Collect problematic .uno: commands in Draw/Impress (where
      slides are called pages and vice versa)
    + Ahmed: Get access to the new Sifr github repo
 
* Pending Action Items:
 
    + Kendy: Create Easy Hack for images.zip layering (if it does not
      exist yet)
        + And also Easy Hack for downloading additional themes?
    + Kendy: GSoC task (or so) for converting "Manage Changes..." to 
      sidebar (instead of non-modal dialog)
    + Kendy: Adjust alignment and spacing in line spacing drop down -
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83076#c11
    + Kendy: Sidebar - hide the decks, but keep the sidebar (only the
      icons) there.
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85935
        + might make sense to do the same thing in Calc - Styles button
          is gone in the toolbar too
    + Samuel: Add Close menu entry in the sidebar's menu that acts like
      View -> Sidebar toggle
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85937
    + Jay: Tweet / G+ / ... about the conference logo need
    + Kendy: Do / find someone / easy-hack-ize automatic opening of the
      Track changes toolbar when we are tracking changes
 
* UI changes integrated the last week:
 
    + More fixes to Calc toolbar (Jay)
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85594
    + Additional fixes to Impress toolbar and new revamp of Draw (Jay)
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=84909
    + Swapping increase and decrease buttons in Sidebar (Jay)
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85776
    + Default to Sifr icon set on OS X (Kendy)
    + Many Sifr icons updated and added (Papamatti, Jay)
    + Improvements in various dialogs (Adolfo)
    + Addition of new and updated tango icons (Alex, Jay)
 
* Last week's discussions that need a resolution:
 
    + Merge Document being outside of the Track Changes submenu (Jay, Cor)
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85046
        + there was no disagreement in the meeting, but then Cor updated
          the etherpad that he does not agree :-)
        + tried this feature, and actually it is either broken, or
          really bad from UX point of view (Kendy)
            + got the explanation from Jay
            + and seems pretty much misnamed :-) (Jay, Kendy)
        + Sophie agreed with the change in comment 34
        + Cor stated he'd file an official protest and reverted the
          change in another bug report
          https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86252
        + suggestions of other names for the feature (Jay)
            + Merge Other Changes... (Jay)
            + Import Other Changes... ? (Kendy)
        + leaving it for another time, needs more work anyway (Jay)
 
    + Placement of header and footer (Jay)
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86440
        + different places in all Writer / Calc / Impress!
        + suggests under Insert (Jay)
        + or Edit (Cor)
            + but not View
        + one more option: Format (Stuart)
        + competitive analysis: MSO (Word, Excel) has it in 'Insert',
          Calligra in 'Create', Pages don't have that in the menu,
          WordPerfect has it in 'Insert'
            + apparently they have it tight to the creation/insertion
              functionality
        + would change the behavior a bit (Heiko)
            + yes, functionality is different across apps (Stuart)
        + conclusion: let's be consistent with the other apps out there (Kendy)
AI          + please move Impress & Calc entries to Insert to be
              consistent (Jay)
        + overall, using this functionality from the menu is not ideal (all)
            + too confusing - why a submenu? (Heiko)
 
    + 'Character' or 'Font' (Jay)
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86302
        + apparently Word really leads to a dialog that only sets the
          font (Kendy)
        + but here we allow to set more - all the character properties
        + conclusion: Let's leave it as it is
AI          + close bug 86302 as wontfix (Jay)
 
* Survey to revamp Calc toolbar (Jay, Heiko)
    + http://user-prompt.com/how-do-you-want-libreoffice-calcs-toolbar-configured/
    + results - 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A0-40WnOk4099N3DPiQs36d5Od9Bxuc3cCpIhIb6Qe8/edit?pli=1
        + shows that the biggest area of improvement needs to be of
          style and having predefined ones
        + alignment, font size etc. used quite a lot
        + border color used a lot too
        + many people do not know about styles in Calc
            + and people don't use that much
        + suggestion: more prominent setting for styles
        + some buttons can be removed: open gallery for example
        + freeform notes:
            + make the styles more visible
            + do the UX changes in smaller chunks between versions
            + standardization: some features in toolbar, some in sidebar
    + how hard would it be to use the same dropdown as in Writer? (Kendy)
        + better to use the Styles dialog in sidebar (Jay)
        + the key is to have the preview in the Sidebar too (Jay)
           + https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=109138
             https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86039
    + we have too few styles in Calc currently (Jay)
AI      + brainstorm about some nice / more styles for Calc (Ahmed, Jay)
    + would be useful to have more split buttons in the toolbar (Jay)
        + otherwise has hidden things that are not used
    + will publish the blog tomorrow after Jay proofreads (Heiko)
 
* Sifr Icons (Ahmed)
 
    + https://github.com/libodesign/flat-icons - old, locked, reference
      only
    + https://github.com/libodesign/icons
    + script to generate the icons automatically (Kendy)
    + has done some new icons (Ahmed)
        + will push shortly
        + some more coming soon
    + the storage a bit confusing (Jay)
        + be careful about conflicts (Jay)
        + please send me the info again (Ahmed)
          https://redmine.documentfoundation.org/boards/1/topics/35
    + OS X will use the Sifr as the default
        + syncing about what icons need to be done with Matthias (Jay)
 
* Blog post about the changes in menu & toolbar (Cor)
 
    + with all the (IMHO mostly great) changes in menu & toolbar, I
      would suggest to prepare a nice blog exlaining all, or major
      changes, or ... whatever, just to hand out to our users looking
      around in vain searching for their favorites ;)
      could ask on marketing@ ??
    + including that info in the blogs after surveys (Jay)
    + makes sense to talk about this (Heiko)
    + would be really useful around the release time (Kendy)
        + could even do a video "this leads to a dialog you've never
          opened" funny one :-) (Jay)
 
* Sidebar Issues (Jay)
 
    + What happened with large icons in sidebar matching large icons in
      toolbar?
        + I remember we discussed it and Kendy said he'd do something
          about it
        + maybe we should have a different drop down in Tools > Options
          to set the size of sidebar icons
AI  + not sure about the dependencies in the code, check (Kendy)
        + maybe have that as an additional setting? (Jay)
        + better not, too many settings already (Kendy)
 
* Impress / Draw code share problem (Jay)
    + uno commands have been found and listed -
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=84258#c2
      this fixes the toolbars and menus
        + Easy-hackize this (Kendy)
    + additional work is needed for the context menus
      Impress: Context Menu > Slide > Page Setup 
      Draw: Context Menu > Page > Slide Design
 
* Would TDF consider hiring a company to do an icon set (Jay)
 
    + It is a question that i've been thinking of and a survey commenter
      also suggested the same
      http://user-prompt.com/how-do-you-want-libreoffice-calcs-toolbar-configured/#comments (last 
comment by GT)
        + office icon sets that can be purchased
          http://www.top4download.com/office-style-icon-set/bjrststh.html
          http://www.perfect-icons.com/stock-icons/perfect-office-icons.htm
    + I'm not in the Board - better ask them (Kendy)
        + but guess it is hard to get somebody employed or hired to do
          icons only (Kendy)
        + the preferred way is to enable people to do things, not to buy
          a solution (Kendy)
    + then again - I believe a Design hackfest, or some design-related
      h/w (wacom pen tablet or so) for people already doing great things
      (enabling them to do more/better) might be possible (Kendy)
 
* Buttons with toggle issues (Jay)
 
    + Decimal and Standard Number Format buttons in Calc
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86119
    + Zoom Mode button in Impress/Draw -
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83572
    + syncing with Maxim already (Jay)
 
* Context menu access to styles (Jay)

    + adding paragraph applied and custom paragraph styles to context
      menu
      https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85940
    + seems that we have multiple things to improve around styles (Kendy)
        + GSoC task to improve usability & accessibility of styles (Kendy)
        + https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/GSoC/GenialIdeas
AI      + add a Styles usability improvements section + list the various
          things to implement (Jay)
            + styles previews in the sidebar etc.

* Easy access to line thickness options (Jay)

     + have simple preset drop down fields rather than manditory value
       fields (similar to sidebar)
       https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48622
       https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=59895 (page 5 and 6)
    + the thickness has a preview (Kendy)
    + adding an additional listbox would clutter the dialog even more (Kendy)
        + possibility to add it as a text that changes accordingly
    + not sure how to make this an actionable task...
        + GSoC task maybe? - this cannot be made easier just by an Easy
          Hack :-(
        + would be necessary to collect the requirements + various uses
          of this
AI          + talk to Milos (Kendy)