[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Libreoffice] [PATCH] Make the toolbars not popping-up randomly

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Christoph,

On 2011-11-18 at 23:56 +0100, Christoph Noack wrote:

> Well, since I wanted to try out other features as well, I've installed a
> recent daily build and here are some comments. Before I start, I really
> have to say that the concept derived from OOo has its disadvantages
> (whether the toolbars are floating ones or docked).
> 
> According to my tryout:
>       * If toolbars appear at the bottom, they might not be noticed
>         easily recognized (not within the "primary area of focus").
>         Especially since there is a connection "click on the object" ->
>         "toolbar appears" which enables learning for the user.
>       * Toolbars are "horizontally stacked". Thus, on my VM system
>         (medium resolution display) working in a table (toolbar #1) with
>         bullets (toolbar #2) is hard. Only two buttons from toolbar #2
>         are available. Thus, I fear that some people might not even
>         notice its existance. (There may be other examples.)
>       * If users have rather large screens, then the mouse travel
>         distance is increased.
>       * When we've presented some proposals within the OOo Renaissance
>         project, people "mentioned" that vertical space is valuable due
>         to widescreen displays.
> 
> Consequently: Whilst I'm thinking that its better for users who know
> OOo / LibO well, it may make things tough for new users.

Thank you for testing this!  These are very good points, though I don't
think it is that bad even for the new users - the new users are / have
to be more careful about what is happening when they are doing
something, so it is much more probable that they won't miss it.

Also, most of the tools available in the popping up toolbars are for
advanced use; the basic stuff like bullets on / off etc. are available
already in the standard toolbar, so not that big deal if they overlook
the toolbar for the first use.

About the mouse travel - with a random position of the mouse, top of the
document is equally far as the bottom in average; of course unless the
users tend to let their mouse cursor at some specific location with
higher probability.  I am not sure, maybe that's actually the case?
Though I assume it is more natural to keep both the mouse and the text
cursor close together - then your cursor travel depends on whether you
are at the top of the page, or at the bottom.

> Unfortunately, I have no better solution at the moment - without
> changing the concept that much. But maybe the points I've raised help to
> judge the impact ... maybe there are also other ideas around.

I have something in my mind, which would be a change of concept, and
definitely not doable in the 3.5 timeframe; but I'll present it here
anyway ;-)

When you are in a table / numbering / ... (with your text cursor),
instead of popping up a toolbar, just show the icons to the left to the
object, as part of the document area, nearly transparent, and make them
behave so that the closer the mouse cursor is to that, the more opaque
they get.  When the mouse cursor gets over the icon, behave like a tool
in the toolbar (with the mouseover effect and whatnot).  This would
solve the long travel to the toolbar (assuming that it is more natural
to have both the mouse as well as the text cursor close together - which
happens when you eg. click in the text), as well as it would be
reasonably visible, though not annoying.

Something like this:

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/ideas/context-toolbars-only-icons.png

But I am sure you have something in your mind too?

Regards,
Kendy