[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Mass changes to Impress animations - related to fdo#41572

[Michel Renon]

Hi Thorsten, Janit,

In order to work on that problem, I would like to have some technical 
advise about what can be implemented or not.
(just to avoid wasting time by designing things that can't be implemented)
Well this mail is mostly for Thorsten as you're the official mentor of 
Impress/Draw.

- Is it possible to implement some visual changes on objects in slides ?
ex : add some small widget beside (or inside?) an object to indicate a 
status or to show a popup to activate some changes. Or have a special 
border.
These widgets/borders would be shown via a menu command, or via a mouse 
hover, only while designing the slide.

Here is an example of such widgets in a RAD tool to build forms. On the 
left, the standard view, on the right, the widgets indicate the tab 
order of 3 textfields in form : 
http://michel.renon.free.fr/libreoffice/text_order_form.png


- Is it possible to implement some visual changes on every single line/ 
some lines of a textfield ? It's a detailed version  of the previous 
point : can a line in a textfield have some widget ? or be drawn with 
some special border ?


- today, the 'animation objects' are linked to object in slides, but is 
the reverse also true ?
ie if user modify a slide object, can the animation object be updated 
automatically ?


The answers may have 4 values :
-1- it can be implemented immediately, no changes required in VCL
-2- it can be implemented after some work in VCL (and other) ; the 
average delay is few weeks (< 2 months) of devs
-3- it can be implemented after a long work in VCL (and other) ; the 
average delay is > 2 months
-4- it can't be implemented, can't be done in VCL

well, if you find a fifth answer, tell me !


And two open questions :

- In this whole subject, what objects are linked to ODF format ?
(ie : what can be changed without changing the file format)

- what are the technical limitations related to animations in Impress ?



Thanks,

Michel