[Libreoffice] [UX] LO status bar annoyances

[Kohei Yoshida]

On Tue, 2010-11-30 at 16:42 +0100, Regina Henschel wrote:
> Hi Thorsten,
> 
> Thorsten Behrens schrieb:
> > Kohei Yoshida wrote:
> >>>    b) We warn when closing a modified doc anyway, so there is no need to
> >>>       always warn me and use up precious space. I propose to just do away
> >>>       with it.
> >>
> >> Sorry I have to disagree there.  I'm the one who put that icon there,
> >> and the reason for that was to have a visually obvious way to tell
> >> whether or not the document is currently modified.
> >>
> > Hi Kohei,
> >
> > ok, but maybe there are other means to get that info across? The
> > status bar, generally, uses up precious horizontal screen real
> > estate, for very little benefit.
> 
> I too think, that this info can be removed from the status bar. But if 
> the save icon in the symbol bar is always enabled, a new place is 
> needed. Many applications on WinXp set an asterix in the title bar. Is 
> that possible on other OS too?

I too think that the title bar would be the most logical place to put
this info if we were to find a replacement location.  But I'm not sure
if it can be easily identified by those users who currently rely on the
save icon status.  The save icon is big and obvious, whereas an '*' in
the title bar is not as equally obvious.  Also, not all Windows apps
follow this practice, the most significant one being MS Office, though
in MS Office's case, it doesn't show document modified status *at all*,
anywhere.  In fact, none of the standard apps in Windows 7 (notepad,
wordpad, paint etc) show asterisks at all.  The only app that still
shows asterisks are Vistual Studio 2010, though not in the title bar but
in the file name tab.

BTW, I guess I'm the only one who thinks that the status bar is the most
logical place to put the document status info?  To me, some of the other
tools currently on the status bar are not logically placed, but I do
find the document status logically fit in there.  Plus it's the smallest
of all the controls currently on the status bar.  Removing that would
not radically improve the real estate of the status bar.

Kohei

-- 
Kohei Yoshida, LibreOffice hacker, Calc
<kyoshida at novell.com>