Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] Mirek's visit in SUSE :-)

Hi all,

> > > Here, I would like to propose two things:
> > > * make Insert mode harder to trigger, for instance, by having to use
> > > Shift+Ins (instead of just Ins)
> > > * remove the inidactor wholesale
> > That is actually an interesting idea :-)  The cursor changes to a block
> > one when the overwrite mode is activated, so together with making it
> > harder to trigger, it might be OK.
> >
> > Anybody against this?
>
> I would prefer if the shortcut was kept as "Insert", as that's the shortcut
> used by virtually every other application that allows overwrite mode.
> Also, could the cursor stay a block even at the end of the line, so that the
> user knows he's in overwrite mode?
> Alternatively, I've seen some applications use a red cursor instead of a
> block, which would be more effective at communicating to the user that he's
> in overwrite mode.
Right, so I've looked around a bit on the internets/in LibreOffice:
* I found one page that claimed Overwrite mode had no practical use
today, I didn't find any that listed any uses of it.
* The only use case I can imagine is filling out order forms that are
comprised of ASCII text only (with "...." as placeholders) – it's safe
to say that no one does that any more since PDF's are reasonably easy
to generate.
* I've found enough pages that describe how utterly
confusing/frustrating Overwrite mode is to many people, due to it
being so easy to trigger

* In Word 2007+ you need to enable the Ins key in the options before
you can use it
* Thunderbird/Firefox/Evolution/Google Docs/Apple Pages don't have any
Overwrite mode at all
* Gedit still has it (and it's turned on/off with Ins)

* Shift-Ins currently does the same as Ctrl-V (paste) – so that
particular accelerator won't work, but Ctrl-Ins isn't taken yet
* As always, accelerators are configurable, so if anyone really needs
Ins, they can just set it up this way
* I noticed that unlike with the Selection modes there's no menu item
for Overwrite mode... which is bad, because it also means that people
won't notice when we've changed the accelerator.

Conclusion:
* I personally wouldn't mind seeing Overwrote mode go entirely, I
don't know what other people think – but as Thunderbird/... prove:
it's been done
* If we want to keep Overwrite mode alive, but without a status bar indicator:
##1 do it like MSO does it – add a preference that's turned off by default
##2 add a menu item "Overwrite mode" to the "Edit" menu, which would
obviously mostly serve to advertise our new accelerator
** Mirek's proposal of a red caret seems very good to me if we go with
either of the above two ways (but a red block would be even more
descriptive methinks)


> > > > - more helpful STD/BLK/... etc. selection statusbar indicator
> > > Do we really need indicators for the selection modes at all? They are
> > > sufficiently hard to trigger and a sufficiently minor use case to
> > > ignore them in the main window, I think.
> > Too late, I've implemented that in the meantime :-)
Looks nice anyway. And saves quite a bit of space, so fine with me.
Thanks, you two.


> > If you mean what is in master now, that is only a proof-of-concept of
> > drawing into the non-client area, unfinished work.  But I'd like it to
> > be a bit different, I'll start a thread on the design@ list about that.
Mirek has already started a thread related to that... "Play with the
Windows look", it's called.


Astron.