[Libreoffice-ux-advise] some thoughts on the Sidebar

[Cor Nouws]

Hi Mirek,

Mirek M. wrote (18-09-13 22:03)

>     OK. And maybe, when visible in the other modules, remove some
>     formatting toolbar?
>
> I'm not sure if I said it in this post, but I look at the Properties
> panel as the replacement for modal dialogs -- like the Inspector in Mac
> applications. Thus I imagine it not acting as a replacement to the
> toolbar, but as a supplement.

I understand that. But the controls on the formatting toolbar act as 
such too.

> When you're writing, you want your workspace to be clean, uncluttered,
> so that you can focus on the task at hand. The toolbar serves you quick
> formatting options, but generally stays out of the way (at least when
> you remove or streamline and move the Standard toolbar). When you happen
> to need an advanced formatting option that you rarely use, that's when
> you show the Properties panel. It shouldn't be on full-time (unless you
> refuse to use styles and constantly have breaks for using advanced
> formatting options while creating content; that's not a use case we
> should encourage, though).
> Since the user won't be using the panel full-time and since the

Won't many people have the side bar visible all the time, just as the 
tool bar?

> Show/Hide button for the panel should be part of the contextual toolbar
> itself, it would be good to keep the toolbar visible even when the
> Properties panel is shown to not disorient the user.

That is what I mean with my objection: it serves direct formatting :(

>     Those ideas for panel behaviour look sound to me. But less important
>     in my view then the items I brought forward .. ;)
>
>
> They're very important to me -- I can't stand the odd duplication we
> have going on, with two Navigators, two Galleries, and two Style panes.

I agree that it is important to solve that.
But most important is proper use of documents and formatting. Thus I 
would first focus on improving the use of styles via the side bar.

> If you're using the Sidebar, you have to launch a separate Navigator in
> case you need to use two panels at once.
> And that might be hard to discover how to do, since it's not clear what
> View -> Navigator or the Navigator icon in the toolbar will do.

That is nothing different from now :)
And when we talk about our new users: let's pls offer them great style 
handling :)

>         As for the Properties panel, I'm hoping it will gain Style dropdowns
>         like those in the toolbar (Kendy's working on this). I see no
>         reason to
>         fill the Properties panel with styles, though, as we already
>         have the
>         Styles panel for that.

By the way: the styles panel is outdated, ugly, hides information and 
actions...
No problem for me. But how much better could it be if the possibilities 
in the side bar were used to make that modern etc.
(Just see the post of Olivier on ux-list - great idea to work out.)

>     It would be my strong, very strong, preference to make controls for
>     direct formatting hidden, far hidden, and clearly show styles in a
>     useful way.
>
>
> Despite favoring styles, I wouldn't dismiss the usefulness of
> hard-formatted bold/italic/underlines -- they're much simpler to apply
> than styles and they're as easy to replace (using Find and Replace).

We can't hide the key B and I for the users, alas ;)

> I would love for the font picker and font size picker to be
> deemphasized, though, given that these two should almost exclusively be
> applied through paragraph styles.

Should yes. The same for indent, alignment, ... all direct formatting 
controls on the tool bar and in the side bar.

> GMail had fonts under an icon-only drop-down before its redesign. [1]
> Many mobile word processors do the same [2][3] (although Drive [4] has
> the text label "Fonts" instead of an icon).
> I would love for the font picker to use an icon-only drop-down as well.
> That would not only deemphasize the font picker, it would also emphasize
> the style picker, which would now be the widest element in the toolbar.

Like that idea as a good step.

>     I like the idea of seeing a life preview. On the other hand,
>     applying a style and hitting Ctrl-z or the undo button, or the other
>     style when it's not what is wanted, isn't a big deal too.
>
>
> Of course. That's what the Styles panel is for. (That said, that panel
> should really use single-click for applying styles -- double-click is
> unnecessarily strenuous.)

You cannot change that click behaviour without other changes. (And read 
what I wrote above about that panel...)


>     PS See you in Milan?
>
>
> Yes, I hope so. :)

:) - good to continue part of the conversation while looking at the screen!

thanks & best,
Cor


-- 
  - Cor Nouws
  - http://nl.libreoffice.org
  - The Document Foundation Membership Committee Member