[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Libreoffice] Suggestion and patch for "Confirmation of save format" dialog

[Christoph Noack]

Hi guys,

sorry for being a bit late - our little son required some time, and the
remaining time was filled with conference/hackfest preparation. I also
removed the LO-dev list ... I don't want to feel them being spammed ;-)

@Josh: Just saw the export_format_v3.png --> great!

Am Donnerstag, den 11.08.2011, 21:59 +0930 schrieb Josh Heidenreich:
> Hi All,
> 
> > I think, that does not solve the "keep" problem. The document, the user is
> > working on, _is_ in ODF Format. So saying "Switch to ODK Format" makes no
> > sense to him. The user relates (or might relate) the button caption not to
> > the target file format but to the source file format. So the wording should
> > avoid anything like "Switch", "Keep", "Stay with" or so.

I see this different - although the internal representation of the data
model might match (closely) the ODF formath, it is different from the
user's point-of-view:
      * the document might be unsaved yet, so there is no "ODF"
      * when the dialog pops up, then the user explicitly chose to use
        WhateverFormat (non-ODF)
So it is a "Switch to..." although we might debate about the
understandability of the "Switch".

> "Use"
> 
> At least it would match the other one
> 
> [Use WhatEver Format] [Use ODF Format]

True, but I missed something in my last mail - the issue that the user
has selected something already. If should aim to provide him a clue what
this was (without reading the full text) - with all the issues like
translation and length. As you know, there have been several proposals
like: keep ..., use ... anyway, switch to ODF. So if we know about the
length for the "WhatEver" entry, I'd like to think about that again -
given all the statements so far, the "use ... anyway" (left) and "use
ODF format" might work.


CANCEL ISSUE

Astron, I feel free to reply in this mail concerning the "Cancel" issue.
I guess the original design wanted to avoid the following issues:
      * avoid a too wide dialog (we have no layout manager, so it will
        become quite large - I just say "Spanish and Netbook" *g*)
      * avoid the issue what "Cancel" means --> it is a workflow of
        "Save As dialog" and the upcoming "mind the non-ODF trap"
        message. Will it abort the full save process, or will it just go
        back to the "Save As" dialog?

So, I'm unsure, what should "Cancel" do? By the way, the "Closer" button
acts as Cancel and goes back to "Save as" - tested this some days ago.


ALTERNATIVE

Since I'm a UX guy, I sometimes try to step back ... and I noticed that
this issue could be solved differently if we had "non-modal
messages" [1]. Without a good reason, it is not much fun to break the
user's his workflow. So my proposal is to go ahead as soon as
possible ... and discuss such non-modal dialogs we need (and miss) quite
frequently. In our case, it could be saving to WhatEver format and then
telling him afterwards (for a few seconds) that ODF might have been the
better format.

[1] http://luxate.blogspot.com/2010/11/non-modal-messages.html


THANKS

Josh, a big thank you! :-)


Cheers,
Christoph