[Libreoffice] [Visual Design] Request for Icon Artwork (was: Re: [UX] LO status bar annoyances)

[Christoph Noack]

Hi all!

I forward this request to the LibreOffice Design Team, okay?

Guys, Kohei asks for two icons to improve the current behavior of the
status bar. More detailed, it is about the little "Document Modified"
icon that appears if ... hard to guess ... a document has been modified
and is not yet saved.

There are some issues that might be resolved by having the current
indication (that looks a bit too frightening, having a red exclamation
mark ...) look like:
      * Document unchanged: Very (!) subtle document icon
      * Document changed: Subtle document icon having a kind of yellow
        star to indicate something is "new"

Details below ...

It would be great if somebody could pick that up and either publish it
in our wiki (suggestion: in your user page), or directly send it to the
developers mailing list for review. Thanks in advance! :-)


Maybe large parts of the discussion took place on the "wrong" mailing
list, so you'll find the request by Kohei below (and a link to some
initial design drafts). Some more hints:

      * My original comments concerning (also other parts of the) status
        bar can be found here. It also contains the rationale to come up
        with the document style icons:
        http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2010-November/003712.html	

      * Kohei also sent the current files (one being empty, but this
        should be changed, of course):
        http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2010-December/003777.html

      * The design of the currently used "Zoom slider icons" (by Stella)
        is available here for inspiration (to get an idea about the size
        and the currently used style):
        http://ui.openoffice.org/VisualDesign/OOo_icons_zoomslider.html#iconszoom


Concerning the latter - the challenge is to create icons that
communicate the "status information only" character. There is nothing
executed in contrast to the zoom slider icons being also located in the
status bar (please don't ask why it then is still called a status bar
*g*).

Thanks a lot in advance!

Cheers,
Christoph


Am Mittwoch, den 01.12.2010, 16:00 -0500 schrieb Kohei Yoshida:
> On Wed, 2010-12-01 at 08:16 +0100, Sebastian Spaeth wrote:
> > Part 2 on the Changed icon part.
> > 
> > On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:31:44 +0100, Christoph Noack wrote:
> > > DOCUMENT CHANGED INDICATION> 
> > > A solution should:
> > >       * just work
> > >       * be unobtrusive (don't catch attention if it isn't required,
> > >         don't waste space)
> > >       * be self-explanatory (if possible)
> > Right
> > 
> > Ideally, we would not need that status bar and change the "Save" icon
> > depending on whether there are changes that can be saved or not
> > (e.g. overlay it with a yellow asterisk or so). I am one of the persons
> > that agree that the save button should always work. But that doesn't
> > mean that the save button cannot convey information on whether it is
> > currently sensible to do so. (Alternatively gray it out if unmodified,
> > but still allow it to be pressed). This would be my favorite
> > solution. Putting that aside, let's work on making the status bar icon
> > non-annoying, our ideas are pretty much the same.
> > 
> > > But the current solution isn't perfect, of course. Current issues:
> > >       * The extended help tip still mentions the '*' for a changed
> > >         document.
> > 
> > Right, tiny issue
> > >       * For unsaved documents, the normal tool tip mentions "The
> > >         document has not been modified since the last save." (Small
> > >         issue, may not be changed).
> > I don't have a problem with that, except that I have to mouse over an
> > apparently empty are to see that toolbar. Why not always have an icon
> > that changes appearance?
> 
> That was my initial idea, but the icon author apparently had a different
> idea.
> 
> This is what it looked like originally:
> http://kohei.us/2009/07/27/hackweek-minor-polish/
> 
> which was a bad rip-off of the current save icon, hence updated to the
> current, new, originally authored icons.
> 
> Now, as I said in my other post, I would very much like to have someone
> with good artistic sense to help me come up with new images to replace
> the current ones.  I'll try to find the current images and post them to
> the list shortly.
> 
> Kohei
>