[libreoffice-design] Minutes from the UX/design meeting 2023-Aug-08

[Patrick Luby]

Hi Eyal,

I was wondering when you would turn your focus to the developer list. I have been watching your posts on the board discussion mailing list and, frankly, I still have no idea what you do except complain about literally everything.

Look man, I’ve been working with the LibreOffice (and its predecessor  OpenOffice) for 20+ years and I’ve seen a parade of pushy people like you swoop in, tell us we all suck, and then demand we all conform to your wishes. To quote Michael Meeks, you are good at identifying problems but very poor at resolving any of them.

There are a thousand or more things I’d like to improve. But here’s the deal:  TDF doesn’t actually have any developers. Heiko doesn’t have an army of developers waiting for your insight. He relies on volunteers like me to figure out what can change without pissing users off. Problem is that volunteers like me don’t really like dealing wth overbearing people like you.

I admire Heiko’s patience and professionalism. He’s in a difficult spot with zero funding. I get it, shouting and belittling TDF staff is your way of trying t get people to do what you want. But, like most users, you provide absolutely nothing to hire the staff that you really want. I for one have decided that I just don’t like you and will ensure that I never work on your wants in the future. 

Patrick

> On Aug 8, 2024, at 5:42 PM, Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz1 at gmx.com> wrote:
> 
> Come on, Heiko and Cor! Another example of not giving proper attention
> to the discussion on the bug page.
> 
> On 08/08/2024 16:36, Heiko Tietze wrote:
>>  * "Text direction" in page style dialog, with both Asian and RTL-CTL,
>>     is inconsistent and confusing
> 
> you left out a key part of the title: "doesn't always set the actual
> direction".
> 
>>     + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162200
>>     + agree with Regina on keep status but write better help (Cor)
>>     => WF
>>  * Table > Properties > Text Flow > Text Orientation is misphrased and
>> confusing
>>    + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162201
>>    + better "writing mode" (Regina)
>>  => follow the expert's advice
> 
> First, let us return to a point that I thought was already settled:
> Changes to help/documentation text are not a solution for problems with
> the LibreOffice UI. If a control or a label is confusing or
> inconsistent, that needs to be improved in the app itself, as best we
> can; and whatever the UI has - the documentation is for elaboration in
> greater detail, with more context and examples.
> 
> Second, we're past confusion or poor wording: We have "Text Direction"
> control, which, for vertical writing modes - does not set the text
> direction (!) and - there isn't another control in the dialog which sets
> it, either. (For horizontal writing modes, the control does set the
> direction.)
> 
> Finally - there are concrete suggestions for some improvements, and
> they are not even all dependent on each other. The design meeting
> minutes do not list any argument regarding why any of them are a bad
> idea (and Regina's comments do not argue against these suggestions either).
> 
> Let me rephrase the suggested changes briefly, here:
> 
> * Split off writing mode control from direction control, using
> consistent and clearly-phrased labels.
> 
> * Improve the preview graph to illustrate how lines look and progress.
> 
> 
> Eyal
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>>  * STYLES pane -- duplicate style (an additional option beside the
>> existing
>>    new style from selection
>>    + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162209
>>    + WF'ed before on bug 152189
>>    + duplication would be like new but on the same level in the hierarchy,
>>      support the request (Cor)
>>    => do it
>> 
>>  * Terrible usability of AutoText dialog when creating new AutoText
>>    + https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52607
>>    + Source > Clipboard (added newly) should not be done as the AT
>>      needs to be verified in the context (Cor)
>>    + preview window: zoom slider for preview (Gerry)
>>      + disagree; the actual issue should be fixed (Heiko)
>>    + AutoText dialog should be amodal
>>      + agreed (Cor, Heiko)
>>    + does it make sense to modify the category while creating a new AT
>> (Cor)
>>      + we should carefully avoid mixing individual attributes from one AT
>>        with information on the list of ATs such as categories and path;
>>        therefore these are split out of the AT dialog/s (Heiko)
>>    + is "Create AutoText out of selection" (directly) possible? (Gerry)
>>      + requires a category and unless we just add all new content to
>>        some "Standard" it needs this selection first (Heiko)
>>    => wait for volunteers to implement
>>