[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Bug 44216: Drag and Drop Slides distorts object's height/width ratio

[Stefan Knorr (Astron)]

Hi Christoph, Ivan,

>> Hmm, is there any possible alternative?

Yes, you could easily use the verbs "Adapt [Objects]" and "Keep
[Ratio]" or similar. Take a look at: [1]. Overall, I'd love if we
could do any new UI we have in a more Gnome-y way (I am a declared
Gnome fanboy, sorry). Labelling buttons with actual verbs that mean
something in context makes those dialogues skimmable for user that
don't want to read.

So, old message text:
"LibreOffice 3.*
The format of the new pages will be adapted.
Do you want to adapt the objects, too?
Yes/No/CANCEL"

(Cancel is the default button, thus it's capitalised here.)


Proposals for new message texts:
#1: "Object ratio
Do you want to adapt the copied objects to fit the new page size?

Keeping the ratio might lead to some objects being positioned off-page.
ADAPT OBJECTS/Keep Ratio/Cancel"

#2: #1: "Object ratio
Do you want to keep the ratio of the copied objects?

Adapting the objects to the new page size will keep all objects
positioned on the page.
KEEP RATIO/Adapt Objects/Cancel"

I believe, what we probably want is some intelligent behaviour that to
decide what the default button should be:
#1 if the size of the new page is much smaller than the old page (as
in that page the contents might land miles away from the page)
#2 in other cases (because either the old page fits nicely into the
new page, or the contents are only a little off page.)

Feel free to disagree, I have no real way of knowing this.


> This is - like in many other cases - a candidate for for the following
> scenario:
>      * The user does something which implies LibreOffice to respond in
>        several (almost equal) ways
>      * We don't know what alternative the user might prefer for his
>        special use case
>
> The message box asks the user before LibreOffice acts, but it might
> interrupt the user's workflow. So another alternative is to do
> "something" (hoping that we got it right) and to enable the user to
> decide afterwards. Microsoft Office does this via "Action Refinements".
> Some years ago, I've derived a similar solution incorporating some more
> use cases:
> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/User_Experience/DirectManipulationSnippets

You're right, of course. One of those non-modal information bars
thrown in and suddenly the user even has working undo/redo to switch
between both options.


> PS: Feels good to be back on the list again :-)

Feels good to have you back.


Regards,
Astron.


[1] http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.0/windows-alert.html.en#alerts-confirmation