[Libreoffice-ux-advise] new range name dialog proposal

[Astron]

Hi everyone,

New day, new proposal. See here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Names2-modal-astron.png

So, this time around, I stuck to Markus's advice to keep the "manager"
and the "definition" dialogues separate. Now there's a non-modal
Manage Names window and a modal Define/Modify Names window. Both are
based on much of what was previously discussed. I hope with this
design, a balance can be struck between usability and performance (for
the case of changing multiple names at once, re-calculations will
still be triggered more often).
Still, I am not giving up hope on the previous mock-ups yet.

Let me walk you through:

* The modal dialogues (2) and (4) are UI-wise the same, except for the
fact that one's titlebar reads "Define Name," the other one's reads
"Modify Name." With this, I hope we can ensure that the user knows
exactly where she is.

* (2) and (4) use a modified Windows button layout, where the
affirmative button is placed left of the negative button, so as not to
confuse the poor users. However, they also use the Gnome/Mac
convention of clearly labelling the affirmative button with a verb
instead of using the more generic "OK." (The new Print dialogue uses a
similar layout.)

* (2) and (4): "Type of area" should not be expanded by default.
Similarly to how this works currently, if the expander is used, the
window itself should also become longer or shorter.

* (2a): the notification bar shown could appear when clicking into the
Range input box. "Learn more" should lead directly to a syntax
overview. When this specific notification bar has been clicked away
once, it should never appear again (short of the user completely
deleting her settings).

* (2b) is an optional state that shows a progress meter, but still
allows cancelling. For the common case, a progress meter should not
appear. Here a proposal how it could be used:
 ** if an action takes over 1 sec: show a progress meter.
 ** if an action is less than 50 % completed after 3 sec: show a
progress meter and a time estimate

* non-modal dialogue (3) has two rows of buttons, the upper one
contains actions that modify the list above, the one below is for
buttons that contain actions relevant to the dialogue itself.

* (3) uses the terms "add" and "remove" as they are direct opposites.
Other possibilities would include "new" and "delete" or "define" and
"delete" (but I wonder if "define" would be clear enough in the
context of this dialogue.

* (3): the combined Undo/Redo button would do exactly the same as the
main window's Undo/Redo button would do. I am a bit unsure about their
necessity, but I think they can be useful. If the Undo/Redo actions
would consume the same time as changing a named range, it might be
helpful to also add a progress meter to this dialogue.

* (3): Paste would work exactly as in Christoph's mock-ups.


What do you think?

Astron.