APP/Online LibreOffice

Okay, so I found out the other day that we are looking into making an online
office suit like Google docs and an android/iOS App of LibreOffice. This is
nice but there is one problem... our desktop programs still needs a lot of
work! Why are we spending the time making completely new Office Suits when
the main application that people are going to create documents is still
going to be on the desktop. Now I know that they said that it is supposed to
come out at the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013 but unless there is a major
overhaul on the desktop edition then it will out shine the current suite. Is
there any push to making a new UI for the desktop. It seems as though Mirek
and I are the only ones that are even interested in making the damn thing
look good.

LibreOffice has come a long way since I first downloaded OpenOffice many
years ago. It is faster, there are less bugs, but it still looks like crap.
If the UI does not change soon(as in two years ago) there is no point in
doing any of this. the banners, web design, icons all of the this stuff we
the design team do for the suite is all pointless unless people are
attracted to the Office suite and want to use it.

We have a better Office Suite but it looks like crap right now, and people
won’t give it a second glance because of this even if the suite is free or
not. We need to get the Dev team working in our direction, if we don't they
will just keep fixing bugs and adding feature that no one will even know is
there because its hidden in the background under some menu that no one even
bothers to look through.

It is my belief that this should be our one and only goal for the following
months. Very little should be done to LibreOffice until the New UI is
implemented. As of right now I think that we should be looking at Mirek's
"Citrus UI" as it is the most complete, looks good, and once you get it will
work better than anything that I have ever seen. Every single bit of
software should work like Citrus.

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Andrew

On Thu, 2011-10-20 at 22:11 -0400, Andrew Pullins wrote:

While UI issues are important, we need to address the Android/iOS market
or risk being marginalized in the long term. Also, there is no reason
that we can not work on both the desktop UI and other versions.

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Im not saying that it is not possible to make the new suites and update the
desktop UI all at once.  im saying that the desktop UI is more important
then these new suites and that it will never happen. I know that these new
suites are going to take a lot of work into making them run. some of our
code can be reused and some will need changed a little to work for theses
new devises but it will still take the attentions of the dev team to a place
that they need not be. if they start working on new projects then I fear
that the desktop UI will never be changed for the better.  we will have
three different possible UI's that all work nothing alike, which will just
confuse and frustrate the users, leading them to stay with
the propitiatory alternative. God forbid that the new Web and tablet suites
have the same UI as we do now.  if it stays the same then we are DOOMED
until it changes.

you say that if we do not act now that we will be marginalized. we are
already marginalized with our desktop suites. no one wants to use
LibreOffice to create documents. that take a look at it and ask why do you
have Micro$oft Office 2003 installed on your computer, you need to upgrade
your software. Like I said we have the better office suite, it just looks
like crap. once the software looks good enough for people to start noticing
it, they are going to want to use it. Micro$oft Office desktop is from $149.99
- $499.99 on the iphone it is $9.99 - $14.99. iwork desktop is *$79.00* and
on the iphone it is $10 for each app. we are going to pervide much better
FREE!!!! alternatives then they ever will. at first we will be marginalized
but it will not take long for people to see what we have to offer them.

once again until the UI changes we are DOOMED and will stay marginalized as
we are now.
On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 10:46 PM, planas <[hidden email]> wrote:

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Andrew,

As it was explained at the conference, the code used in one will be used in
the other, so we won't have two suites. As for UI improvements we need to
make them in an incremental way. No one will change the UI overnight, it
simply is not realistic.

Best,

Ch.
Le 21 oct. 2011 04:12, "Andrew Pullins" <[hidden email]> a écrit :

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Hi,

> As it was explained at the conference, the code used in one will be used in
> the other, so we won't have two suites. As for UI improvements we need to
> make them in an incremental way. No one will change the UI overnight, it
> simply is not realistic.

The problem is that mobile platforms use completely different UI
toolkits and also have completely different UI needs etc. For now, the
best I could imagine on mobile platforms would be a capable ODF
document viewer (unlike the existing viewers for Android).
Anyway, on the whole I'd agree to the notion that we need a mobile,
touch-oriented version of LibreOffice to stay afloat. Since porting to
new toolkits/new UI paradigms is a huge pain, I think the best would
be to see if there is a company stepping forward with a plan on how to
make money from free software here... I don't know if I see this
getting far without corporate support. I know that SUSE's heavily
involved in TDF already, but even if they went head-on into such a
project, the desktop product would probably stall and they'd still
need more developers.

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Hi Astron,

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:53:40 +0200, Astron wrote:
Did you attend Michael Meeks' presentation at the conference?
Michael said that LibreOffice Online (LOOL) uses HTML5 Canvas to
display the user interface, in other words, it does not use a user
interface toolkit.

Some background on HTML5 Canvas for those who are not familiar with it:
"The canvas element provides scripts with a resolution-dependent bitmap
canvas, which can be used for rendering graphs, game graphics, or other
visual images on the fly.

Authors should not use the canvas element in a document when a more
suitable element is available. For example, it is inappropriate to use a
canvas element to render a page heading: if the desired presentation of
the heading is graphically intense, it should be marked up using
appropriate elements (typically h1) and then styled using CSS and
supporting technologies such as XBL.

When authors use the canvas element, they must also provide content
that, when presented to the user, conveys essentially the same function
or purpose as the bitmap canvas. This content may be placed as content
of the canvas element. The contents of the canvas element, if any, are
the element's fallback content."
<http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/the-canvas-element.html#the-canvas-element>

HTML5 Canvas accessibility (i.e. lack of accessibility) has been
heavily discussed on W3C mailing lists.
HTML5 spec editor Ian Hickson has stated that creating an editor in
Canvas makes no sense:
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-canvas-api/2010JulSep/0024.html>.
If I remember correctly, he used this as an argument for not making
Canvas accessible.

However, specification editors cannot prevent HTML5 authors from doing
such things, and Richard Schwerdtfeger (IBM) used this as an argument
for making Canvas accessible:
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-canvas-api/2010JulSep/0040.html>.

Issues and discussions around Canvas accessibility have also been
collected at <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/wiki/AddedElementCanvas> (a wiki
used by the HTML5 Working Group).

When I asked Michael Meeks at the conference if LOOL was going to be
made accessible, part of his response was a question whether I knew any
Canvas-based applications that are accessible. Of course, I didn't. So
Michael is aware of the accessibility problem that Canvas represents.

Using a UI toolkit instead of Canvas would at least allow some level of
accessibility to screen readers: accessibility support is being added or
has been added to such libraries as JQuery UI, YUI, Mootools and a few
others. I believe that work on accessibility in UI toolkits for mobile
applications has also started, but I think this is far from mature.


> For now, the
> best I could imagine on mobile platforms would be a capable ODF
> document viewer (unlike the existing viewers for Android).
> Anyway, on the whole I'd agree to the notion that we need a mobile,
> touch-oriented version of LibreOffice to stay afloat. (...)

Work on making touch-based interfaces accessible is also under way, if
I am not mistaken.

Best regards,

Christophe


PS: The mails I send from Eudora don't get through to the list, so I am
trying webmail now.


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tel: +32 16 32 85 51
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Well, let's keep each topic separate here. The Android and iOS announcement
is very specific. We clearly state that what we are doing at this stage is
platform porting, not UI porting. That's for another stage. Beyond that
there are many different people, teams and companies that can develop UIs.
What I don't understand is all this pessimism. Nothing tells you either that
Suse does everything. Have you checked our development stats? :-)

No worries then, let's rather focus on what's needed now and incremental ui
improvements.

Best,

Charles.
Le 21 oct. 2011 21:54, "Astron" <[hidden email]> a écrit :

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Andrew, there is a thread that has just started, about a search bar for
commands (or command launcher). Since you do want to get this Citrus
thing started, what about a proposal in this one? Here's the thread, in
case you missed it:
http://www.mail-archive.com/design@.../msg03263.html.

Since this was put into discussion, you could help this going on. First,
since we don't have a command launcher, before we know how it would work
or look like, we need to know if this is a wanted feature. What do you
think? Please answer in that thread, if so.

Best regards./

Rafael

Em 27-10-2011 10:00, Andrew Pullins <[hidden email]> escreveu:
> Christoph and others, what about Citrus do you have a problem with. what do
> you guys see that can be started on.
> again we need to start on bits in peaces of the UI, so what can we start
> working on.

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