[Libreoffice] [libreoffice-design] Change application background [was: How to contribute ?]

[Christoph Noack]

Hi Rahul, hi community!

Am Samstag, den 08.01.2011, 02:05 +0100 schrieb Bernhard Dippold:
> Hi Rahul, all,
> 
> Rahul Prasad schrieb:
> > [..]
> > *
> > I was thinking of a nice background instead of a static colour.
> > You can find some of my design here
> > http://rahulprasad.com/public/libreOffice/writer/
> > Although design is not very appealing, but I am sure people will come come
> > up with better design.*
> 
> This idea has already been presented some time ago in the OOo UX 
> project, but has not been implemented by now (AFAIK).
> 
> I can't find the proposal right now, but I'm quite sure, Christoph knows 
> where to find it.

"That's one small step for developer, one giant leap for LibreOffice."

Well, maybe ;-)

Bernhard, you are right, this idea has been discussed several times -
and I also have some ideas how we can bring LibO forward and make a
really thrilling community driven branding. But, this requires some
developer support ...

The very first step is, indeed, to know how much effort it required to
show graphics (whatever kind) on / instead of the application
background.

Here is the mail by Johannes Eva, who collected some information on that
(2009-07-31, ux-discuss list):

> Hi everybody!
> 
> Some weeks ago I started to write an article about the application 
> background in OOo. I had time to finish it yesterday night, so here it
> is!
> 
http://www.johannes-eva.net/2009-07-new-application-background-ooo
(Christoph: Updated link, since blog engine has been changed.)
> 
> 
> Here are the two related issues:
> 
> Change the OpenOffice.org Background Color
> http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=75049
> 
> Use bitmaps/patterns/pictures as Application Background instead of
> plain 
> color only:
> http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=103915
> 
> Best regards,
> Johannes


When we talked about the StartCenter, Ivan (who is currently busy by
shaping the visual design for the revised LibreOffice website) brought
up the following idea:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/File:Ivan_StartCenter_Proposal_wireframe.png

In context, it is on "our" proposal collection page for the StartCenter:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/User_Experience/StartCenter#Mockups


[... explanation concerning LibreOffice development ...]

> I don't know if this feature is easy or hard to implement, but perhaps 
> it can be added to the list of "easy hacks":
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks

Ouch! Some time before (2007?), I have been told that changing anything
which is beyond the document border is pretty hard. I would be more than
happy if anything can prove this to be wrong ;-)

This (for example) is the reason for not having shadows on the right
side for the Writer comments/notes (instead, we live with 80's style
shadow for the pages).

[...]

Regards,
Christoph