Impress Guide version 7.0

Appendix B Toolbars for the Impress Guide 7.0 is now the Drafts folder ready for its 1st review and comment.

Creating this appendix has given me the opinion that toolbars have to be seriously looked at as to a toolbar’s purpose and usability. I do feel that some of these toolbars could be deleted. I would like some opinions on this topic.

Also, tool names should be looked at for correct spelling and capitalisation. These errors I cannot correct because I have no experience in editing software.

To close with, some of the names given in Visible Buttons list do not match the actual name given on the toolbar. This definitely needs fixing.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com

Hi Peter,

Thanks again for your efforts on this.

I will certainly download your draft, primarily to use as a model for the equivalent Calc appendix. That said, I'll let you know if I spot any issues with it.

Regards,

Steve

All,

I have spent the last couple of days drafting an equivalent appendix for the 7.0 Calc Guide. Like Peter with Impress, I have found issues with Calc’s toolbars. They would certainly benefit from a review by the LibreOffice Design and User Experience team.

I have concluded that at this stage, including such an appendix in the guide might do more harm than good. Consequently, my current intention is to progress the 7.0 Calc Guide without a Toolbars appendix.
Some of the issues with Calc’s toolbars are as follows:

1) Some of the toolbars seems to comprise a disparate grouping of apparently unrelated options. Are they all necessary?
2) Data Streams toolbar. This toolbar provides two buttons, both greyed out until the "Enable experimental features (may be unstable)" option is enabled at Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Advanced. Why is this toolbar available for display if the user has not enabled experimental features; surely it should be grayed, just like the Data > Streams option in the Menu bar?
3) The Image toolbar has an option installed which is blank (no text). Is this correct? What is the purpose of this?
4) The Media Playback toolbar also has an option installed which is blank (no text) when viewed in its Visible Buttons menu. Rather surprisingly if you select this nameless option, then a whole series of controls appear on the toolbar (Play, Pause, Stop, Repeat, Position, Mute, Volume, etc)!
5) The TSCP Classification toolbar appears unnecessary. I assume that the action of setting a document’s classification is not something that will be done frequently – wouldn’t an option in the Menu bar make more sense to avoid wasting screen space with a little-used option? It seems odd to me that this option appears to be available only through its own toolbar.
6) I have not noticed too many spelling and capitalization issues with Calc’s toolbars. However, I have noticed cases where the name of the tool installed on the toolbar seems to differ unnecessarily from the text of the tooltip that appears when hovering the cursor over the tool.

I intend to raise bug reports in Bugzilla to report the issues that I have found. After they have been progressed, maybe it will be worth considering again the possible inclusion of the new appendix in the Calc Guide.

Regards,

Steve

Hello Steve

Your comments I agree with totally.

At the moment the Toolbar Appendix could be a millstone around our necks, but I hope that it jogs the design and user experience people into action. I have come across the problems you mention about blank areas and no name. Also, I think there are too many toolbars and some are definitely over the top with one only contains TWO tools.

I will stick with the Toolbar Appendix for now and will probably create one for the Draw Guide when I start updating it to 7.0. The Draw Guide and Impress Guide are very closely related and there is a lot of cross information to handle.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com