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

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Kohei!

Thanks for the feedback ... Markus, Astron ... please read this mail as
well. I'd like to decide with you on that issue.

Am Donnerstag, den 27.10.2011, 18:30 -0400 schrieb Kohei Yoshida:
> Hi Christoph,
> 
> On Thu, 2011-10-27 at 23:15 +0200, Christoph Noack wrote:
> 
> > In such a case, what's the impact we talk about? I simply don't have a
> > clue ... it could be 100 ms ... 10 seconds per update on an average PC
> > (whatever average means). Would it be possible to get such a file?

[...]

> I've seen re-calculation take from just a fraction of a second, few
> seconds, 10 seconds, up to more than a minute in an extreme case.  And
> that can also vary with other factors such as the speed of your CPU,
> what functions are used (some functions are more expensive than others),
> whether a chart needs to be updated etc.

Okay.

> But just for the sake of the argument, let's say the re-calc takes on
> average 5 to 10 seconds in a moderately worse case scenario.  This
> means, on every name update, the user has to wait for 5 to 10 seconds
> for the re-calc to finish, during which time the dialog becomes
> unresponsive (because we are single-threaded).  This scenario is not far
> removed from reality especially with some of the moderately large and
> complex documents that I've seen.
>
> Now, we could still argue that those worse case scenarios are rare
> enough that we could dismiss it.  The fact that I've seen them doesn't
> mean they are common.  I'm just stating that they can happen.

I really appreciate that you take the time for that explanation ...
perceived speed and response times are really important for good user
experience.

In our recent case I'm asking myself:
      * If we offer modal dialogs, then this also takes time for people
        to handle those ... so I think we need to look at the
        calculation time plus the dialog handling time. The easier /
        quicker the dialog handling, the less problematic the
        calculation time.
      * Whether people change a bunch of names or whether they prefer to
        only change one name or whether they change a bunch of names at
        once. (Unfortunately, we don't have usage data for that ... what
        a pity).
      * The ratio of rather simple documents (requiring 1 ... 2 s calc
        time) and complex ones (> 2s calc time). I assume that the
        majority of documents are rather simple ones, so the majority of
        uses would benefit from more direct dialog access.
      * Whether people know that "autocalc" is available ... if these
        are more advanced users, they might know that deactivating
        "autocalc" will speed up large documents. Since the manage names
        dialog is non-modal, it should even be accessible from there.

So, having no further data, I tend to go with the recent proposal
providing direct access.

@ Astron, according to your latest mockup [1], names would still be
handled one after another. So the time issue for the Modify Name is the
same like for the "Update Name after Leaving the Edit Field" proposal
(my mockup). Right? If yes, then I still suggest to go with the direct
editing via the edit fields below the table ... I think it really helps
our users to be able to quickly edit name / range of the selected item.

By the way, I like the progress bar idea (2b), if things take time. But
shouldn't it be shown in the Calc status bar (as usual for
re-calculations)?

So, I'll be away this weekend ... and having a holiday in our federal
state, I'll be back Wednesday. (Although I try to read mails, of
course).

Thank you all :-)

Cheers,
Christoph

[1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Names2-modal-astron.png