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All at once?

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Andrew Pullins

All at once?

sean

> I know that the main UI devs are against sudden change to the UI, but
> there are somethings like this idea of
> changing toolkits for at least the gui side of things that DO need to be discussed
> sooner rather than later and it would certainly be easier to test new ui
> features and ideas by writing them straight into the new UI rather than
> have them in the old one.
>

why is a sudden UI change a bad thing. I know that we can not
just implement Citrus in one release but if we could why would it be such a
bad thing to do. was M$ Office changing there UI to their new ribbon UI
that big a deal. people are going to have to get used to it one way or
another. whether they get it one peace at a time like most FOSS people
will, we just change it on them all at once, or if they change from M$O to
LO. again not to say that we could, would or should do this. we just need
to get away from the 16 year or so old UI and make something new.

and besides its not like the Citrus UI is all that different from the
current one. it is very intuitive, just a little different. I mean what
could possibly be under the page menu... could it be things related to
page... the only thing that you need to get used to is the changing of the
UI. but once you relies that there is no longer any text options because
you have selected an image, and if you where to go back to a area in which
you can start typing they come back, it should all make seance.

and if you think that is strange and you have a M$ Office just go into word
and make a table. you will see a table tools, with new design and lay out
suddenly appear. they released that there are some tools that you do not
need all the time, and should only appear when you do.

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Charles-H. Schulz

Re: All at once?

Hello Andrew,

Le jeudi 08 décembre 2011 à 23:11 -0500, Andrew Pullins a écrit :

Not a bad thing imho, but rather not materially doable. However if you
found oil in your garden and you can pay a hundred of devs, let us
know :-)

> I know that we can not
> just implement Citrus in one release but if we could why would it be such a
> bad thing to do.

If we could? If I could I'd be pooping butterflies, but it turns out I
can't. Again, let's focus on what we can do, not what we could do if...

> was M$ Office changing there UI to their new ribbon UI
> that big a deal. people are going to have to get used to it one way or
> another. whether they get it one peace at a time like most FOSS people
> will,

Sorry, what does this even mean?

> we just change it on them all at once, or if they change from M$O to
> LO. again not to say that we could, would or should do this. we just need
> to get away from the 16 year or so old UI and make something new.

So, that is something *everyone* (even me!) agrees with. When we say "we
can't" it does not mean we don't want to. It means we can't. The
LibreOffice code is not just very big, it is also aging and very
complex. You can talk about how good it will be in the 4.0, but the
truth is, nobody knows how it will be. If you change one piece of code
it tends to affect twenty different other pieces of code, and therefore
that's what makes it so complex. Besides that, while there are many
developers out there, we don't have enough of them to take 10 million
lines of code and turn that into something better all at once.

Hence it's not bad will, it does rather come down to several factors:
- write UI specifications
- make sure there are palatable for inclusion (don't write spec for a
spaceship)
- make sure these UI specifications are for the most part implementable
within the existing UI (no complete rewrite) as it would mean a much
bigger code replacement than what we are able to do.

>
> and besides its not like the Citrus UI is all that different from the
> current one. it is very intuitive, just a little different. I mean what
> could possibly be under the page menu... could it be things related to
> page... the only thing that you need to get used to is the changing of the
> UI. but once you relies that there is no longer any text options because
> you have selected an image, and if you where to go back to a area in which
> you can start typing they come back, it should all make seance.
>
> and if you think that is strange and you have a M$ Office just go into word
> and make a table. you will see a table tools, with new design and lay out
> suddenly appear. they released that there are some tools that you do not
> need all the time, and should only appear when you do.
>

I don't doubt this, Andrew. I thus have a proposal for you: let's take
the Citrus menu bar. Can you see how it could be implemented in the
existing UI? Perhaps this could be a workable starting point?

best,
Charles.

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Andrew Pullins

Re: All at once?

Hi,

Not a bad thing imho, but rather not materially doable. However if you
> found oil in your garden and you can pay a hundred of devs, let us
> know :-)

Ok will do ;)

If we could? If I could I'd be pooping butterflies, but it turns out I
> can't. Again, let's focus on what we can do, not what we could do if...

Ooook : )

> > was M$ Office changing there UI to their new ribbon UI
> > that big a deal. people are going to have to get used to it one way or
> > another. whether they get it one peace at a time like most FOSS people
> > will,

> Sorry, what does this even mean?

Micro$oft Office changed their UI from pretty much what we have now to
their current ribbon UI all at once... well from 2003 to 2007, 4 years, so
not all at once but to the user it was all at once. it was something they
just had to get used to.

So, that is something *everyone* (even me!) agrees with. When we say "we
> can't" it does not mean we don't want to. It means we can't. The
> LibreOffice code is not just very big, it is also aging and very
> complex. You can talk about how good it will be in the 4.0, but the
> truth is, nobody knows how it will be. If you change one piece of code
> it tends to affect twenty different other pieces of code, and therefore
> that's what makes it so complex. Besides that, while there are many
> developers out there, we don't have enough of them to take 10 million
> lines of code and turn that into something better all at once.

I understand, its big and I understand that changing one part messes with
everything else. damn 10 million lines of code. I know that we can't do
this, was just wondering why people seemed so agents it. as if it was a bad
thing.

- write UI specifications
> - make sure there are palatable for inclusion (don't write spec for a
> spaceship)
> - make sure these UI specifications are for the most part implementable
> within the existing UI (no complete rewrite) as it would mean a much
> bigger code replacement than what we are able to do.

ok

I don't doubt this, Andrew. I thus have a proposal for you: let's take
> the Citrus menu bar. Can you see how it could be implemented in the
> existing UI? Perhaps this could be a workable starting point?

yes I do see how this could be implemented. one we already have the ability
to hide/change menu items already. two we also have code
that recognizes what part of the document we are in (e.g. the floatbar,
when in a table a floatbar appears.) we could take this bit of code
that recognizes that your in a table and make it so that when you are in
one that they menus would change, as well as the contextual tool bar. I
would write the sepcs needed but I don't know what it needs, I will try to
make something soon on this. I have been wanting to do this for some time,
just don't have the time.

Cheers
Andrew.

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Tobias Bernard

Re: All at once?

hi all

while we are talking about money: how much money would we need to get the
new UI done in, let's say, 2 years?
i think there are are many people out there who would donate a lot of money
if they knew they'd get a new UI anytime soon. we could, for example, start
a kickstarter campaign and raise money with one clear goal, such as: a new
UI in 2013 (example).

of course, the changes to the UI could be done gradually as mirek said
several times and some functions could be available earlier, but having a
clear goal would certainly change the way people look at the issue.

from the experiences other free software projects have had, i'd say it
would be possible to raise 200k or similar with such a campaign, if there
was enough media coverage. additionally we could also look for sponsors
(companies, governments, etc) to raise some of the money.

what do you think?

tobias

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Charles-H. Schulz

Re: All at once?

Tobias,

My own estimate would rather be north of 500k. But that's just me. If you
have a serious proposal and the full specs for citrus you could propose
this to the BoD.

Best,

Charles.
Le 9 déc. 2011 21:32, "Tobias Bernard" <[hidden email]> a écrit :

> hi all
>
> while we are talking about money: how much money would we need to get the
> new UI done in, let's say, 2 years?
> i think there are are many people out there who would donate a lot of money
> if they knew they'd get a new UI anytime soon. we could, for example, start
> a kickstarter campaign and raise money with one clear goal, such as: a new
> UI in 2013 (example).
>
> of course, the changes to the UI could be done gradually as mirek said
> several times and some functions could be available earlier, but having a
> clear goal would certainly change the way people look at the issue.
>
> from the experiences other free software projects have had, i'd say it
> would be possible to raise 200k or similar with such a campaign, if there
> was enough media coverage. additionally we could also look for sponsors
> (companies, governments, etc) to raise some of the money.
>
> what do you think?
>
> tobias
>
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>

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August Sodora

Re: All at once?

> My own estimate would rather be north of 500k. But that's just me. If you> have a serious proposal and the full specs for citrus you could propose> this to the BoD.

That brings up a good point that I have seen mentioned a couple of
times on this list. It is (virtually) guaranteed that nothing will
ever change without specs.

August Sodora
[hidden email]
(201) 280-8138

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Charles-H. Schulz
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Tobias,
>
> My own estimate would rather be north of 500k. But that's just me. If you
> have a serious proposal and the full specs for citrus you could propose
> this to the BoD.
>
> Best,
>
> Charles.
> Le 9 déc. 2011 21:32, "Tobias Bernard" <[hidden email]> a écrit :
>
>> hi all
>>
>> while we are talking about money: how much money would we need to get the
>> new UI done in, let's say, 2 years?
>> i think there are are many people out there who would donate a lot of money
>> if they knew they'd get a new UI anytime soon. we could, for example, start
>> a kickstarter campaign and raise money with one clear goal, such as: a new
>> UI in 2013 (example).
>>
>> of course, the changes to the UI could be done gradually as mirek said
>> several times and some functions could be available earlier, but having a
>> clear goal would certainly change the way people look at the issue.
>>
>> from the experiences other free software projects have had, i'd say it
>> would be possible to raise 200k or similar with such a campaign, if there
>> was enough media coverage. additionally we could also look for sponsors
>> (companies, governments, etc) to raise some of the money.
>>
>> what do you think?
>>
>> tobias
>>
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>>
>
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Andrew Pullins

Re: All at once?

where whould the money go??? I mean we all do this for free. who gets paid
or what would the money go to. its somthing that I have wondered about
donating to open source projects. id be glad to donate to some of them but
there are so many people working on this thing, where would it go. I do not
know.

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Camille Moulin-2

Re: All at once?

In reply to this post by Andrew Pullins

Hi All,

About the radical change of the UI toward a more efficient toolkit, you
might be interested in reading Michael Meeks' presentation for
OOocon2008 "Layout: towards a pretty UI"
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1470.pdf
I don't know if the technical side is still relevant, but the approach
still stands IMHO.

Camille

On 09/12/2011 05:11, Andrew Pullins wrote:

> sean
>
>
>> I know that the main UI devs are against sudden change to the UI, but
>> there are somethings like this idea of
>> changing toolkits for at least the gui side of things that DO need to be discussed
>> sooner rather than later and it would certainly be easier to test new ui
>> features and ideas by writing them straight into the new UI rather than
>> have them in the old one.
>>
> why is a sudden UI change a bad thing. I know that we can not
> just implement Citrus in one release but if we could why would it be such a
> bad thing to do. was M$ Office changing there UI to their new ribbon UI
> that big a deal. people are going to have to get used to it one way or
> another. whether they get it one peace at a timetechnical side like most FOSS people
> will, we just change it on them all at once, or if they change from M$O to
> LO. again not to say that we could, would or should do this. we just need
> to get away from the 16 year or so old UI and make something new.
>
> and besides its not like the Citrus UI is all that different from the
> current one. it is very intuitive, just a little different. I mean what
> could possibly be under the page menu... could it be things related to
> page... the only thing that you need to get used to is the changing of the
> UI. but once you relies that there is no longer any text options because
> you have selected an image, and if you where to go back to a area in which
> you can start typing they come back, it should all make seance.
>
> and if you think that is strange and you have a M$ Office just go into word
> and make a table. you will see a table tools, with new design and lay out
> suddenly appear. they released that there are some tools that you do not
> need all the time, and should only appear when you do.
>

Rushir Parikh

Re: All at once?

Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2 releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it, it is never going to happen.

On Dec 10, 2011, at 12:59 PM, Camille Moulin <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> About the radical change of the UI toward a more efficient toolkit, you
> might be interested in reading Michael Meeks' presentation for
> OOocon2008 "Layout: towards a pretty UI"
> http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/programme/friday_1470.pdf
> I don't know if the technical side is still relevant, but the approach
> still stands IMHO.
>
> Camille
>
> On 09/12/2011 05:11, Andrew Pullins wrote:
>> sean
>>
>>
>>> I know that the main UI devs are against sudden change to the UI, but
>>> there are somethings like this idea of
>>> changing toolkits for at least the gui side of things that DO need to be discussed
>>> sooner rather than later and it would certainly be easier to test new ui
>>> features and ideas by writing them straight into the new UI rather than
>>> have them in the old one.
>>>
>> why is a sudden UI change a bad thing. I know that we can not
>> just implement Citrus in one release but if we could why would it be such a
>> bad thing to do. was M$ Office changing there UI to their new ribbon UI
>> that big a deal. people are going to have to get used to it one way or
>> another. whether they get it one peace at a timetechnical side like most FOSS people
>> will, we just change it on them all at once, or if they change from M$O to
>> LO. again not to say that we could, would or should do this. we just need
>> to get away from the 16 year or so old UI and make something new.
>>
>> and besides its not like the Citrus UI is all that different from the
>> current one. it is very intuitive, just a little different. I mean what
>> could possibly be under the page menu... could it be things related to
>> page... the only thing that you need to get used to is the changing of the
>> UI. but once you relies that there is no longer any text options because
>> you have selected an image, and if you where to go back to a area in which
>> you can start typing they come back, it should all make seance.
>>
>> and if you think that is strange and you have a M$ Office just go into word
>> and make a table. you will see a table tools, with new design and lay out
>> suddenly appear. they released that there are some tools that you do not
>> need all the time, and should only appear when you do.
>>
>
>
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August Sodora

Re: All at once?

> Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2 releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it, it is never going to happen.

Do you think you could even completely spec the Citrus UI in 2 release
cycles? Because again, NOTHING will be implemented without specs.

August Sodora
[hidden email]
(201) 280-8138

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Rushir Parikh <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2 releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it, it is never going to happen.

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Rushir Parikh

Re: All at once?

What do you mean by spec? (I'm 14 :P, I just know design not terms)
~Rushir

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 2:56 PM, August Sodora <[hidden email]> wrote:

> > Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2
> releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it,
> it is never going to happen.
>
> Do you think you could even completely spec the Citrus UI in 2 release
> cycles? Because again, NOTHING will be implemented without specs.
>
> August Sodora
> [hidden email]
> (201) 280-8138
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Rushir Parikh <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2
> releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it,
> it is never going to happen.
>
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Kévin PEIGNOT-3

Re: All at once?

here are some examples of specs (I think) for two parts of ubuntu :

notification system : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotifyOSD

Other ubuntu examples : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CategorySpec

I hope it can help.

Then, I think we should find other specs examples (gnome, kde, firefox ?)

Maybe then do a sort of "spec template" ?

I wish I had the time to write one about a Citrus UI part that I would love
to see implemented.

Kévin

2011/12/10 Rushir Parikh <[hidden email]>

> What do you mean by spec? (I'm 14 :P, I just know design not terms)
> ~Rushir
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 2:56 PM, August Sodora <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > > Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2
> > releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about
> it,
> > it is never going to happen.
> >
> > Do you think you could even completely spec the Citrus UI in 2 release
> > cycles? Because again, NOTHING will be implemented without specs.
> >
> > August Sodora
> > [hidden email]
> > (201) 280-8138
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Rushir Parikh <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> > > Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2
> > releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about
> it,
> > it is never going to happen.
> >
> > --
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> > deleted
> >
>
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>

August Sodora

Re: All at once?

In reply to this post by Rushir Parikh

No problem. By spec I mean specification, that is a at least a
wireframe and behavioral description of some component. The page
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards contains links
to a bunch, some more complete than others. The idea is that as
specifications are created, developers will implement them and we can
iteratively work to approach some desired future.

August Sodora
[hidden email]
(201) 280-8138

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 3:00 PM, Rushir Parikh <[hidden email]> wrote:

> What do you mean by spec? (I'm 14 :P, I just know design not terms)
> ~Rushir
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 2:56 PM, August Sodora <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> > Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2
>> releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it,
>> it is never going to happen.
>>
>> Do you think you could even completely spec the Citrus UI in 2 release
>> cycles? Because again, NOTHING will be implemented without specs.
>>
>> August Sodora
>> [hidden email]
>> (201) 280-8138
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Rushir Parikh <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> > Really guys, come on. Just implement the Citrus UI, in like the next 2
>> releases you can release a beta of it. If you just keep bickering about it,
>> it is never going to happen.
>>
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Charles-H. Schulz

Re: All at once?

Hello all

I wanted to address two questions because I think they're important. One
will make some grit their teeth and the other will hopefully help to
understand how things work inside the LibreOffice project and in other FOSS
projects as well.

* The notion that somehow we should just "redesign" the whole suite and in
two releases we would get a beta obviously shows that someone does not even
take the time to read what others actually wrote on this list, and then
asking what a specification is also tends to point out that while opinions
can be shared, they won't all be helpful. In Free Software (but this could
be applied to several other fields as well) people contribute their time
according to their abilities and skills. Some are developers and develop
code. Some others test the software through various processes for quality
assurance. Some others work in the infrastructure (website mirrors, etc.)
Some others write documentation, while others localize (translate) the
software. For some projects (not all), there are marketing people who write
press releases, do market research, etc. And there are as well designers
and User Experience people; the former contribtue designs (generally it's
the logo, or help with the website, etc.) and when it comes to the User
Experience (UX for short) they study the whole usability of the software
and then propose changes. The way they propose changes is by describing in
full detail the change in question in a document called a specification.
The reason they do this is that they want to document what they actually
want so that others -the developers, the localizers, the documentation
writers, sometimes the QA people and even the marketing team- can
understand what they mean. The people who will be the most interested by
the document will be the developers because you can show lots of pictures
to a developer he's going to need a heck of a guidance to assess what is to
be exactly done.
If you don't have a spec, your wishes simply will not even be ignored; it
will be like talking a foreign language no one in the room is able to
understand. Thus, anyone who thinks we "just have to do it instead of
bickering" is not just wrong, he's also lacking respect to the actual UX
people trying to write specifications and to the developers. Unless
someone's here a genius who has gotten exactly what the two Alex, Mirek,
Kevin and others want and is able to code these changes right away, things
will not be working "just like that". If you want to code, go ahead and
pull the git. If you want to work on design, go ahead, join the team and
work with us. If you're just here for the sake of voicing your opinion then
please be aware that this is a specialized mailing list;
discuss@documentfoundation is much better suited to your needs.

* There was the question of volunteers/money. It's an important, yet a
tricky one sometimes. It was pointed out before that we're all volunteers;
that's for a great part true. Some of our most active developers are
actually employed by various companies (check our sponsors) for what they
do. In any case, the need has been seen, in some cases, that having
volunteers to work on specific tasks and projects might actually not be
enough, as these volunteers also have a day job. If they're skilled and
knowledgeable enough and that the task at hand is daunting, you want to get
the job done in a consistent way; or to put it simply: "it'll go easier if
some people just could stop wondering how to pay their bills and eat so
that they can dedicate their full time to the job here".So sometimes, you
can propose to raise funds for a specific task and pay a certain number of
people (actually in FOSS projects it's developers 99% of the time) to
complete one or several specific tasks. The whole point is that it's meant
to be temporary and exceptional (otherwise it could be argued you simply
need more volunteers). I hope it's helpful...

Best,
Charles.

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Sean White

Re: All at once?

Which is all why I didn't propose that we do it straight away. We all
agree that the UI needs an overhaul, and if there is a dedicated person/s
that work on a spec we can have a Citrus UI spec together relatively
quickly. the problem is that the majority of us have day jobs and other
aspects of lives to take care of to concentrate on writing such a broad
spec. After the spec has been writen we would then need the devs to put
together a working prototype of the UI to test and then to modify and
re-implement the spec of. All of which points back to my original plan of
having a crew of devs create the UI as a pre-/alpha version of LibO 4 while
LibO 3.x continues independently of those UI changes

On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Charles-H. Schulz <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hello all
>
> I wanted to address two questions because I think they're important. One
> will make some grit their teeth and the other will hopefully help to
> understand how things work inside the LibreOffice project and in other FOSS
> projects as well.
>
> * The notion that somehow we should just "redesign" the whole suite and in
> two releases we would get a beta obviously shows that someone does not even
> take the time to read what others actually wrote on this list, and then
> asking what a specification is also tends to point out that while opinions
> can be shared, they won't all be helpful. In Free Software (but this could
> be applied to several other fields as well) people contribute their time
> according to their abilities and skills. Some are developers and develop
> code. Some others test the software through various processes for quality
> assurance. Some others work in the infrastructure (website mirrors, etc.)
> Some others write documentation, while others localize (translate) the
> software. For some projects (not all), there are marketing people who write
> press releases, do market research, etc. And there are as well designers
> and User Experience people; the former contribtue designs (generally it's
> the logo, or help with the website, etc.) and when it comes to the User
> Experience (UX for short) they study the whole usability of the software
> and then propose changes. The way they propose changes is by describing in
> full detail the change in question in a document called a specification.
> The reason they do this is that they want to document what they actually
> want so that others -the developers, the localizers, the documentation
> writers, sometimes the QA people and even the marketing team- can
> understand what they mean. The people who will be the most interested by
> the document will be the developers because you can show lots of pictures
> to a developer he's going to need a heck of a guidance to assess what is to
> be exactly done.
> If you don't have a spec, your wishes simply will not even be ignored; it
> will be like talking a foreign language no one in the room is able to
> understand. Thus, anyone who thinks we "just have to do it instead of
> bickering" is not just wrong, he's also lacking respect to the actual UX
> people trying to write specifications and to the developers. Unless
> someone's here a genius who has gotten exactly what the two Alex, Mirek,
> Kevin and others want and is able to code these changes right away, things
> will not be working "just like that". If you want to code, go ahead and
> pull the git. If you want to work on design, go ahead, join the team and
> work with us. If you're just here for the sake of voicing your opinion then
> please be aware that this is a specialized mailing list;
> discuss@documentfoundation is much better suited to your needs.
>
> * There was the question of volunteers/money. It's an important, yet a
> tricky one sometimes. It was pointed out before that we're all volunteers;
> that's for a great part true. Some of our most active developers are
> actually employed by various companies (check our sponsors) for what they
> do. In any case, the need has been seen, in some cases, that having
> volunteers to work on specific tasks and projects might actually not be
> enough, as these volunteers also have a day job. If they're skilled and
> knowledgeable enough and that the task at hand is daunting, you want to get
> the job done in a consistent way; or to put it simply: "it'll go easier if
> some people just could stop wondering how to pay their bills and eat so
> that they can dedicate their full time to the job here".So sometimes, you
> can propose to raise funds for a specific task and pay a certain number of
> people (actually in FOSS projects it's developers 99% of the time) to
> complete one or several specific tasks. The whole point is that it's meant
> to be temporary and exceptional (otherwise it could be argued you simply
> need more volunteers). I hope it's helpful...
>
> Best,
> Charles.
>
> --
> Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [hidden email]
> Problems?
> http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
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> List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
> deleted
>
>

--
Sean White,
Within Temptation - Your Argument Is Invalid

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