[Libreoffice-ux-advise] style selector / abandonware ...

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Michael,

cool, looks like a _very_ promising start :-)

Am Dienstag, den 14.06.2011, 11:04 +0100 schrieb Michael Meeks:
> Hi guys,
> 
> 	I have to task switch for a week or so now, so I just dumped my latest
> (hackish) re-hash of the style preview / selection pane I was working on
> here (click the navigator paint-can):
> 
> http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-06-14-style-preview.diff
> 
> 	It looks like this:
> 
> http://people.gnome.org/~michael/images/2011-06-14-style-preview.png

Okay, so at the moment it is "just" a matrix like preview in a separate
window. Each of the previews seems to render the name of the style in
100% size, centered. Correct?

> 	I had a few questions:
> 
> 	a) ux guys - would you like a side-bar a bit like this ?
> 	   could we make that a 'mode' of the style navigator ?
> 		+ what interaction modes would work well here:
> 		  mouse-over style preview ?

Some QuickThoughts (tm):
      * Toolbar Drop-Down for Paragraph Styles (m x n matrix instead of
        a plain list)
      * Paragraph Styles in the Stylist (preview for each list entry,
        for all modes but hierarchical view)
      * Character Styles in the Stylist (preview for each list entry,
        for all modes but hierarchical view)

Of course, the devil is in the details - we want to keep this list
manageable (size, number of items), the styles (easily) editable, the
stuff accessible (keyboard nav etc.).

So, these thoughts are a start, I think.

> 		+ context specific style/palette adaption ?

Mmh, what do you have in mind - we already have some (more or less
working) context specific context adaptations in the Stylist.

> 
> 	b) any more thoughts on that ?
> 

> 	c) since this is essentially a stolen (re-factored) 'preview'
> 	   widget from the existing 'style' dialog - I wondered ...
> 	   are there other easy-to-steal preview widgets that we can
> 	   re-use to make applying these things easier ?
> 	   [ perhaps border selectors ? ].

Mmh, don't know whether this fits technically (we'll need that anyway,
soon *g*), but how about the new toolbar drop-down selectors in Impress.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnfZlYU0SNc (interesting part starts
exactly at minute one).

Furthermore, the slide sorter preview, or the master slide preview might
be other candidates.

> 	d) Do we have an enterprising hacker wanting to play with
> 	   creating a more attractive navigator / style pane here?
> 		+ it is slightly complicated due to the shared 
> 		  nature of sfx's style code between all components
> 
> 	Thoughts ?

Hackers? :-)

Cheers,
Christoph