[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Header and Footers separators design

[Cedric Bosdonnat]

Hello Christoph,

On Sat, 2011-09-10 at 00:04 +0200, Christoph Noack wrote:
> I thought it is time to quickly check a daily build ... just (!) to have
> a look. But then working with the new header/footer indicators was so
> much fun, really! To me, Writer starts to look modern and fresh (having
> less borders, the rather new document shadow, the indicators).

Great to read that :)

> But, playing with it lets you notice some stuff, so here is a rough list
> of things - I hope the descriptions are somehow helpful:
>       * Issue: Changing to header/footer via keybindings does neither
>         activate the header/footer markup, nor the header/footer
>         separator with tab

Ok, I'll add it to my TODO list.

>       * Proposal/Issue: Having the cursor in the header and adding the
>         footer (via '+') should set the cursor in the footer (or the
>         header - depends on what's getting added). While playing with
>         different page styles, the cursor was set to the next page
>         header.

Yes, I saw that one already, but wanted to have the timer thing working
before hacking on it.

>       * Proposal: The whole button should act as a menu, so the vertical
>         divider can go --> greatly simplifies to "hit" the button (sorry
>         for mentioning that late)

Ok, let's do that... that'll require a few code changes... but nothing
too complex.

>       * Issue: No mouse over effects yet (hovering, activated button).
>         Unfortunately, the mousover effects for the Notes buttons are
>         also not fully implemented (grrr) - so it is only partly a
>         reference.

I'm working on the mouse-over thing to show the separators, and I still
haven't set any tooltip to the button.

>       * Issue: In certain cases, the cursor blinks at an unusual fast
>         rate and the graphic items start flickering. Cannot reproduce it
>         at the moment :-(

Yeah, I know there are some times where the Paint method is called way
too often. I still need to investigate this.

>       * Great!!!: The whole region of either header/footer or document
>         responds to a click and selects the edit mode for that area.
>         That's something I've missed to say :-)

Hehe, that was the first change I made ;)

> Cor, Astron - would be great if you could have a look as well. Whether
> it now works better ... and maybe you can tell whether the flickering
> happens also on your side.

The flickering is happening for me as well... but I still have no
solution to fix it: that painting code is still pretty complex to me.

> You've mentioned in your last mail that visual refinements should wait
> until the basic stuff works fine. Tell me when you're ready ... I've
> tried to refine the design a bit by not changing to much (to limit your
> effort).
> 
> Here is the recent visual representation (daily build):
> https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Uxe83GqlD7rY91kZYnaYqA?feat=directlink
> 
> Here is my proposal:
> https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/W5724xQQ7nZ7eWL006v4vw?feat=directlink
> 
> The changes (more details if you need it):
>       * Tab with a bit less height (28px -> 25px)
>       * Removed the vertical devider (make it a full button)
>       * Width of indicator line to 1px

Ok, noted

>       * Refined contrast by making a light blue / dark blue line -->
>         unusual line for LibO (means people might notice that it's some
>         markup)

I can't understand what you mean here... Can you give me some details?

>       * Added a gradient (top: #caebfe --> bottom: #a4dcfcff). Also
>         improves readability of the text a bit.

Don't forget that those colors are configured, is there any way to
compute one of the two colors form the other one?

>       * (Anti-aliasing due to my graphics program)

Hum, I'll try to play with the OutputDevice configuration, it may be a
bit to change to get it Anti-Aliased.

Thanks for your comments,

-- 
Cédric Bosdonnat
LibreOffice hacker
http://documentfoundation.org
OOo Eclipse Integration developer
http://cedric.bosdonnat.free.fr